photo by Jlhopgood , via Flickr   When I first started this journey of writing for publication many years ago, I had one major fear that loomed large above all of the others. I wasn’t afraid of meeting deadlines, I wasn’t afraid of having my work evaluated and edited by a professional, and I wasn’t afraid that my work wasn’t good enough. Nope. What I really feared was that someday, someone would come along and publically trash my baby. Because I knew it was going to happen at some point. I knew it. I think it’s physically impossible not to have someone at some point give you a really, really bad review. I mean, J.K. Rowling has 1-star reviews for Harry Potter . Heck, The Goldfinch , a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, had 1,604 1-star reviews when I checked for this post. Not everybody likes every book, and books don’t come with a mind-meld sensor that warns the reader that what they’re about to read really isn’t for them. Bad reviews are a fact of life as a writer. I told m...

Reviews. Ten people can read the same book and you can have 10 different opinions. (This happens all the time at my book club.) Writers obsess about the 'bad' ones, and rejoice in the good ones. Is it worth caring? To a degree, yes. Why? Reviews—whether positive or not-so-great—get your book noticed. Amazon's algorithms start picking up books that have around 40 reviews (and here, it's simply quantity , not quality ). Other promotional opportunities are open only to books that have a minimum number of 4 or 5 star reviews. That number is often 20 or more. It becomes a Catch 22. You can't get promoted to garner the reviews until you have the reviews. So, how do you get them? In my indie books, I include a short paragraph after "the end" telling readers that if they enjoyed the book, a short review would be appreciated. Does it work? Maybe. It's impossible to know whether people would have left a review anyway, or if that request gave the nudge they ...

For many years it was understood that reviews could make or break a theatre production, a movie, or a book. Broadway producers would chew their fingernails to nubs while waiting for the first critics to respond after opening night, as did film producers. Authors, editors and agents, would wait for those reviews from Publisher's Weekly , The New York Times , Kirkus , and other trade magazines to launch a book onto the best-seller list. Today, the whole arena of reviews has been expanded. With the Internet and Amazon and other online retail bookstores, has come a whole wave of reader reviews, fan reviews, and author reviews that aren't always on the same professional level. They can range from something close to what I like to call a real review to gushing to snarky. A real review gives a short synopsis of the story, then has comments as to what worked well in terms of the writing and what the reviewer enjoyed the most. If there are minor problems, those are pointed out with...