Cat Grant's Blog: Memoirs of an Amnesiac - Posts Tagged "blah-blah-bliddy-blah"
Never a dull moment...
Here on Goodreads! Every time I try to leave a comment, I get a pop-up warning me not to argue with reviewers. LOL! Don't worry, I learned that lesson a loooooong time ago!
(This is a repost from a couple days ago. Triberr was down, so hardly anyone saw it the first time.)
I remember when I was a rank newbie (way back in the Dark Ages - aka, four years ago) and my poor, sensitive baby-author's heart sank every time I got anything less than a 4-star review. (Which meant I was pretty depressed most of the time. My early reviews were fucking dismal.) Adding insult to injury, a lot of these reviews were just plain wrong! They'd misspell my character's names, or spoil the plot. And of course, I thought it was my duty to set them straight.
*siigh*
I'm sure most newbies these days already know this, but - don't do what I did. Even if you're right, you'll just make an ass of yourself.
Besides, even bad reviews can do you good. Dear Author ripped me up one side and down the other on Once a Marine, and the next month, I sold over a thousand copies.
Which isn't to say it doesn't still hurt hearing reviewers snark about something I worked my ass off on. It's especially galling when the book gets marked down because it's a short or a novella.
Part of the problem is that readers read so fast these days, they miss a lot of the depth and detail - aka, the stuff authors agonize over. From the complaints I've seen regarding "too much drama" in my books, I'm not even sure most people bother reading blurbs anymore. A quick look at my website should be all anyone needs to figure out I'm not a rom-com writer.
Tiny segue here... the other day I stumbled across the Yelp page for one of my fave local restaurants, and was surprised to see the place's relatively mediocre rating. I've been there many times and always found the food tasty and the service prompt and friendly.
So I started skimming the reviews, and ended up scratching my head. One reviewer complained about the blandness of the macaroni and cheese. Um, hello? It's mac n' cheese.
Someone else snarked about the place's decor and said it was trying too hard to be hip, "as if anyplace in Monterey could be hip." (This guy was, predictably, from hip, happenin' LA.)
Anyway, my point (and yes, I do have one, aside from the fact that I apparently live in Dullsville) is that whether you're talking about books or restaurants, it's all about managing your expectations. You LA hipsters looking for a good time - keep your foot on the gas 'til you get to San Francisco. If you're looking a certain type of book, read the fucking blurb first.
Don't diss something for not delivering what it never promised in the first place.
(This is a repost from a couple days ago. Triberr was down, so hardly anyone saw it the first time.)
I remember when I was a rank newbie (way back in the Dark Ages - aka, four years ago) and my poor, sensitive baby-author's heart sank every time I got anything less than a 4-star review. (Which meant I was pretty depressed most of the time. My early reviews were fucking dismal.) Adding insult to injury, a lot of these reviews were just plain wrong! They'd misspell my character's names, or spoil the plot. And of course, I thought it was my duty to set them straight.
*siigh*
I'm sure most newbies these days already know this, but - don't do what I did. Even if you're right, you'll just make an ass of yourself.
Besides, even bad reviews can do you good. Dear Author ripped me up one side and down the other on Once a Marine, and the next month, I sold over a thousand copies.
Which isn't to say it doesn't still hurt hearing reviewers snark about something I worked my ass off on. It's especially galling when the book gets marked down because it's a short or a novella.
Part of the problem is that readers read so fast these days, they miss a lot of the depth and detail - aka, the stuff authors agonize over. From the complaints I've seen regarding "too much drama" in my books, I'm not even sure most people bother reading blurbs anymore. A quick look at my website should be all anyone needs to figure out I'm not a rom-com writer.
Tiny segue here... the other day I stumbled across the Yelp page for one of my fave local restaurants, and was surprised to see the place's relatively mediocre rating. I've been there many times and always found the food tasty and the service prompt and friendly.
So I started skimming the reviews, and ended up scratching my head. One reviewer complained about the blandness of the macaroni and cheese. Um, hello? It's mac n' cheese.
Someone else snarked about the place's decor and said it was trying too hard to be hip, "as if anyplace in Monterey could be hip." (This guy was, predictably, from hip, happenin' LA.)
Anyway, my point (and yes, I do have one, aside from the fact that I apparently live in Dullsville) is that whether you're talking about books or restaurants, it's all about managing your expectations. You LA hipsters looking for a good time - keep your foot on the gas 'til you get to San Francisco. If you're looking a certain type of book, read the fucking blurb first.
Don't diss something for not delivering what it never promised in the first place.
Adventures in self-publishing, Part Deux...
AKA, if I knew then what I know now...
Honestly, I probably wouldn't have self-pubbed at all. Or I would've turned the clock back (ha!) and done it a couple of years ago.
What Bob Mayer and JA Konrath and all the other self-publishing gurus aren't telling us is that, except for a handful of authors who either got in early or just plain got lucky, the self-pubbing ship has sailed. At this point, the market's completely saturated. There's simply too much signal to noise out there for anyone new to the game to gain any traction.
(And by the way - calling what Mayer and Konrath do "self-publishing" is disingenuous. They've got full-time staffs helping them with cover art, formatting, promotion and "churning metadata" - whatever the hell that means.)
Another thing you'll never hear them admit to is that the promo gimmicks that were successful six months ago are pretty much useless now. Last October Tina Folsom came to talk to my local RWA chapter. She spent a good chunk of her time talking about how to use Amazon's tagging system - and now that system's gone. So are the "like" buttons.
Every time we authors figure out a way to help new readers find our work, e-tailers will find a way to thwart us. We're the reason Kindle Direct Publishing is such a success, but that doesn't mean they'll hesitate to stack the deck against us.
If I could turn back time, I'd do a few things differently. I'd launch with a brand-new book, instead of revised/re-packaged versions of my first series. I would've put the first three Courtland books (all novellas) together in a single volume instead of releasing them individually. (Which I'm planning to do anyway, once the reformatted files are done.) I wouldn't bother with a month-long blog tour - it was fun, but a waste of time and energy. Now that I've seen the kind of covers that sell, I would've made mine a lot sexier. I'll be giving that a try with Courtland #5.
I'm not a superstar author. In fact, it'd be generous even to call me mid-list - not that those kinds of labels carry much relevance in the e-publishing world. But the big thing no one will ever tell you is that if you're not at the superstar level, no amount of promo you do will work. Not blog tours or paid advertising or email blasts or tweeting/Facebooking the shit out of your latest release. Everybody else is doing the same damn thing, and you're just going to get caught up in the endless stream of chatter.
The only thing that works is writing until your fingers fall off, and then writing some more. Do the best work you're capable of, and keep doing it. Everything else is bullshit.
Honestly, I probably wouldn't have self-pubbed at all. Or I would've turned the clock back (ha!) and done it a couple of years ago.
What Bob Mayer and JA Konrath and all the other self-publishing gurus aren't telling us is that, except for a handful of authors who either got in early or just plain got lucky, the self-pubbing ship has sailed. At this point, the market's completely saturated. There's simply too much signal to noise out there for anyone new to the game to gain any traction.
(And by the way - calling what Mayer and Konrath do "self-publishing" is disingenuous. They've got full-time staffs helping them with cover art, formatting, promotion and "churning metadata" - whatever the hell that means.)
Another thing you'll never hear them admit to is that the promo gimmicks that were successful six months ago are pretty much useless now. Last October Tina Folsom came to talk to my local RWA chapter. She spent a good chunk of her time talking about how to use Amazon's tagging system - and now that system's gone. So are the "like" buttons.
Every time we authors figure out a way to help new readers find our work, e-tailers will find a way to thwart us. We're the reason Kindle Direct Publishing is such a success, but that doesn't mean they'll hesitate to stack the deck against us.
If I could turn back time, I'd do a few things differently. I'd launch with a brand-new book, instead of revised/re-packaged versions of my first series. I would've put the first three Courtland books (all novellas) together in a single volume instead of releasing them individually. (Which I'm planning to do anyway, once the reformatted files are done.) I wouldn't bother with a month-long blog tour - it was fun, but a waste of time and energy. Now that I've seen the kind of covers that sell, I would've made mine a lot sexier. I'll be giving that a try with Courtland #5.
I'm not a superstar author. In fact, it'd be generous even to call me mid-list - not that those kinds of labels carry much relevance in the e-publishing world. But the big thing no one will ever tell you is that if you're not at the superstar level, no amount of promo you do will work. Not blog tours or paid advertising or email blasts or tweeting/Facebooking the shit out of your latest release. Everybody else is doing the same damn thing, and you're just going to get caught up in the endless stream of chatter.
The only thing that works is writing until your fingers fall off, and then writing some more. Do the best work you're capable of, and keep doing it. Everything else is bullshit.
