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Blogs by Jean Sheldon
If you can’t say something nice…say something 5/28/2007 6:22:19 AM
One of the difficulties I’ve found since I began writing has been finding readers. Well meaning friends offer to read and I send them typeset readers spreads. I was a typesetter for many years and have a couple publishing programs. My thinking was to give them the most readable copy possible to make their job easier. That didn’t seem to work. I finally had to stop sending manuscripts because it was getting too expensive and I heard from only one person.
I wasn’t sure how to handle the situation. Do I call and say, “Hi, have you read the book?” That part of me that jumps right to the dark side thought they had read it and didn’t know how to tell me they hated it. I tried to make it clear that though I may pout for a day or two, I would not stop writing if they hated my book. Writing had already become my drug of choice. One friend told me she hadn’t read it because she was afraid she might not like it and wouldn’t know how to tell me.
IT’S OKAY IF YOU DON'T LIKE MY BOOK! I’m new at this, and though I sense I have a good start, I need to hear from people what they feel is wrong or right, or what they don’t like or they think works. Once you survive the first thirty or forty years of your life, your ego isn’t as fragile. If I stopped writing because people didn’t love my words, maybe writing isn’t the right choice for a passion or a mid-life career switch. Besides, people not liking what I did never stopped me before. I would have thought my friends knew that.
Self-published authors have a difficult time finding people to do reviews. A few review sites will charge for a review and though I haven’t tried that yet, I can’t exclude the possibility. Readers may not buy a book because of the reviews on the back cover, but they won’t buy a book they’ve never seen. Visibility drives people to your website. Increasing the number of people at your website can potentially lead to sales. Sales mean I get to keep writing. I like sales.
