John Sammon's Blog
April 2, 2020
Authors and Reviews
It is my intention to use this blog weekly to talk about being a writer and an author, the ups and downs of this curious profession, hopefully using a little humor and entertainment.
I would like to start with the subject of nasty reviews.
If you’re like me among the more obscure of writers, you don’t get numerous reviews for a book. You perhaps only get one.
What if that single review is bad?
You just spent four months of your life or longer pouring your heart and soul into a literary work that (pardon the pun), literally represents hundreds of hours of effort.
You get a single review and it says your book is lousy.
Here is a review I got:
Just a bunch of Talk
Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2020
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
I would not recommend this book. If you like reading tons of yak, yak, yak then this is the book for you.
It starts out not bad but then it goes downhill from there . I guess by looking at the picture on the cover I thought it would be a good read...boy was I wrong.
There is pages and pages of dialogue between 2 or three people and its like it never ends.
I liked when Zeb and the indian girl got together but then the author has him meet a giant being and he has to defeat this. So far fetched...I kept skipping more and more pages.
Then there's the chapter about Calamity Jane....more inane dialogue...I just closed the book and quietly walked away.
Now, I’m not against reviews even negative ones and I hardly ever respond to them.
However, if the reviewer seems to cross a line in my judgement and be mocking or insulting, or stupid, if the review misleads, then I feel any author can respond and should.
If the author of a book doesn’t expect immunity from criticism then the reviewer should not expect it-----that’s if a review is not constructive.
What is constructive?
To me it’s a reviewer pointing out what he/she feels is the book’s weakness and remember, always remember, what is good or bad is the most subjective of all calls.
What one person thinks is garbage the other person will see as gold.
A constructive review is specific.
Here is an example:
“I thought your story needed a hero I could root for. It needed something about the hero I could sympathize with. Instead he’s a rather ruthless person I can’t feel pity for.”
That’s specific.
What’s not specific?
“Your hero is a jerk. This book is sh’t.”
The reviewer is not specific, did not explain how, why, where?
Perhaps the reviewer is lazy. Possibly the reviewer only read one page.
There’s also what I like to call the “vandal reviewer,” a naysayer who just likes to do put-downs.
One of the main foibles of a reviewer is the delusion that if they think it’s bad, everybody else will too.
Let’s go to the review I received (Just a bunch of Talk - see above).
The reviewer says, “I would not recommend this book.”
That’s fair, no response from me.
The reviewer says, “Looking at the cover, I thought it would be a good read…”
Does cover art equal the quality of the writing inside? The publisher picked the cover art. He didn’t write the book.
The review says, "There is pages and pages of dialog." Correct usage should be, "There 'are' pages and pages of dialog."
She then adds, "between 2 or three people" (uses a number and then spells out the word three).
Obviously the reviewer doesn't have the time to edit-check her own work. Maybe she needs a bonehead English class.
By the way I must say the book she is reviewing is a box set with four complete books inside it. She only mentions two of the four and calls Calamity Jane a “chapter,” when it’s a full-blown book.
This tells me she didn’t bother to read all of Calamity Jane, or she can’t get her facts straight. If you’re a reviewer who says something wrong, I as the author have a right to point it out.
In that case I can do a review of your review.
The main criticism is that the book is all talk, or “yak, yak, yak” as the reviewer puts it.
This becomes a petty form of sarcasm. A simple “has too much dialog” would have sufficed, and would have generated no response from me.
I'll give the reviewer credit for saying that if you like too much dialog, "This book is for you." She unintentionally gave me a good review in spite of herself.
I tend to write introspective character-driven books with characters who have troubles, weaknesses, inner torments. I also believe dialog makes the characters come alive. But how many books or movies are the same that have become classics from Wuthering Heights to High Noon?
If it’s not the reviewer’s cup of tea, it’s probably somebody else’s.
Reviewers often fail to understand the concept, that like politics, other people think otherwise.
Then to top it off, the reviewer said, “More inane dialog (she doesn’t identify how it’s inane), I just closed the book and quietly walked away.”
Well isn’t that special?
The reviewer acts like the book is a sexy man who spurned her advances.
Who cares if you walked away quietly? Walk away yelling obscenities if you want, hell, you spent .99 cents for four complete books.
Authors should follow this credo. Believe good reviews, not the bad ones.
Two other readers gave this book a five-star rating.
I would like to start with the subject of nasty reviews.
If you’re like me among the more obscure of writers, you don’t get numerous reviews for a book. You perhaps only get one.
What if that single review is bad?
You just spent four months of your life or longer pouring your heart and soul into a literary work that (pardon the pun), literally represents hundreds of hours of effort.
You get a single review and it says your book is lousy.
Here is a review I got:
Just a bunch of Talk
Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2020
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
I would not recommend this book. If you like reading tons of yak, yak, yak then this is the book for you.
It starts out not bad but then it goes downhill from there . I guess by looking at the picture on the cover I thought it would be a good read...boy was I wrong.
There is pages and pages of dialogue between 2 or three people and its like it never ends.
I liked when Zeb and the indian girl got together but then the author has him meet a giant being and he has to defeat this. So far fetched...I kept skipping more and more pages.
Then there's the chapter about Calamity Jane....more inane dialogue...I just closed the book and quietly walked away.
Now, I’m not against reviews even negative ones and I hardly ever respond to them.
However, if the reviewer seems to cross a line in my judgement and be mocking or insulting, or stupid, if the review misleads, then I feel any author can respond and should.
If the author of a book doesn’t expect immunity from criticism then the reviewer should not expect it-----that’s if a review is not constructive.
What is constructive?
To me it’s a reviewer pointing out what he/she feels is the book’s weakness and remember, always remember, what is good or bad is the most subjective of all calls.
What one person thinks is garbage the other person will see as gold.
A constructive review is specific.
Here is an example:
“I thought your story needed a hero I could root for. It needed something about the hero I could sympathize with. Instead he’s a rather ruthless person I can’t feel pity for.”
That’s specific.
What’s not specific?
“Your hero is a jerk. This book is sh’t.”
The reviewer is not specific, did not explain how, why, where?
Perhaps the reviewer is lazy. Possibly the reviewer only read one page.
There’s also what I like to call the “vandal reviewer,” a naysayer who just likes to do put-downs.
One of the main foibles of a reviewer is the delusion that if they think it’s bad, everybody else will too.
Let’s go to the review I received (Just a bunch of Talk - see above).
The reviewer says, “I would not recommend this book.”
That’s fair, no response from me.
The reviewer says, “Looking at the cover, I thought it would be a good read…”
Does cover art equal the quality of the writing inside? The publisher picked the cover art. He didn’t write the book.
The review says, "There is pages and pages of dialog." Correct usage should be, "There 'are' pages and pages of dialog."
She then adds, "between 2 or three people" (uses a number and then spells out the word three).
Obviously the reviewer doesn't have the time to edit-check her own work. Maybe she needs a bonehead English class.
By the way I must say the book she is reviewing is a box set with four complete books inside it. She only mentions two of the four and calls Calamity Jane a “chapter,” when it’s a full-blown book.
This tells me she didn’t bother to read all of Calamity Jane, or she can’t get her facts straight. If you’re a reviewer who says something wrong, I as the author have a right to point it out.
In that case I can do a review of your review.
The main criticism is that the book is all talk, or “yak, yak, yak” as the reviewer puts it.
This becomes a petty form of sarcasm. A simple “has too much dialog” would have sufficed, and would have generated no response from me.
I'll give the reviewer credit for saying that if you like too much dialog, "This book is for you." She unintentionally gave me a good review in spite of herself.
I tend to write introspective character-driven books with characters who have troubles, weaknesses, inner torments. I also believe dialog makes the characters come alive. But how many books or movies are the same that have become classics from Wuthering Heights to High Noon?
If it’s not the reviewer’s cup of tea, it’s probably somebody else’s.
Reviewers often fail to understand the concept, that like politics, other people think otherwise.
Then to top it off, the reviewer said, “More inane dialog (she doesn’t identify how it’s inane), I just closed the book and quietly walked away.”
Well isn’t that special?
The reviewer acts like the book is a sexy man who spurned her advances.
Who cares if you walked away quietly? Walk away yelling obscenities if you want, hell, you spent .99 cents for four complete books.
Authors should follow this credo. Believe good reviews, not the bad ones.
Two other readers gave this book a five-star rating.
April 1, 2020
Calamity Jane Meets Deadwood Dick
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...
Of all the famous characters of the Old West none was more complex a personality than Calamity Jane.
She possessed a kaleidoscope of weaknesses and strengths.
Sometimes a prostitute, often a drunk, a boaster, a show-off, self-destructive, Calamity Jane also had raw courage and a heart of gold, always ready to nurse the sick or help an underdog.
She was as tough as a nail.
Calamity alternated between being a man and a woman but not for sexual reasons. Born female she was unwilling to be a mere woman in an age of men. It was simply more fun for her to be like a man than it was to cook, clean and bear children.
She wanted respect. She wanted to be one of the boys.
Calamity Jane was one of the country’s first feminists.
She adopted the guise of a man wearing men’s clothing, the buckskins of a frontiersman, tailored to fit her diminutive size. She could shoot, spit tobacco juice, curse a blue streak, drive a wagon as a teamster or serve as a scout in the Indian Wars for the U.S. Army----as good as any man.
Above all Calamity Jane fought all her adult life against a clawing inferiority complex, a result of humble beginnings as a child born Martha Jane Canary on a hard-scrabble farm in Missouri. Jane never learned to read or write but she was determined to be somebody people would remember. She worked endlessly and obsessively to create her own fame among the hard-cases of the frontier.
People loved her. They laughed at her, pointed at her, called out her name.
This is a story of Deadwood, a lawless town on land stolen from the Indians and built on gambling and gold. It’s a story of the murder of Wild Bill Hickok in Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon Number 10, a story of what happens to a person when fame overtakes a life, and the colossal exaggerations required to build such fame.
Based on research, the author has developed his own style of historical fiction writing he calls a “foundation of truth.”
You take what little is actually known about a historical figure and portray it in scenes and dialog. You add fictional scenes that, while they may not have happened, something similar could have happened because they are based on the known behavioral traits of the historical figure; in Calamity’s case wild exuberance, alcoholism, truth-stretching, rough-around-the-edges kindliness, courage, toughness.
In this way more light can be possibly shed on a character about who very little is known.
REVIEW:
S. Perovich
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read
Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2019
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
I do not usually read this type of book. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would recommend it to those who are interested in Deadwood stories.
Of all the famous characters of the Old West none was more complex a personality than Calamity Jane.
She possessed a kaleidoscope of weaknesses and strengths.
Sometimes a prostitute, often a drunk, a boaster, a show-off, self-destructive, Calamity Jane also had raw courage and a heart of gold, always ready to nurse the sick or help an underdog.
She was as tough as a nail.
Calamity alternated between being a man and a woman but not for sexual reasons. Born female she was unwilling to be a mere woman in an age of men. It was simply more fun for her to be like a man than it was to cook, clean and bear children.
She wanted respect. She wanted to be one of the boys.
Calamity Jane was one of the country’s first feminists.
She adopted the guise of a man wearing men’s clothing, the buckskins of a frontiersman, tailored to fit her diminutive size. She could shoot, spit tobacco juice, curse a blue streak, drive a wagon as a teamster or serve as a scout in the Indian Wars for the U.S. Army----as good as any man.
Above all Calamity Jane fought all her adult life against a clawing inferiority complex, a result of humble beginnings as a child born Martha Jane Canary on a hard-scrabble farm in Missouri. Jane never learned to read or write but she was determined to be somebody people would remember. She worked endlessly and obsessively to create her own fame among the hard-cases of the frontier.
People loved her. They laughed at her, pointed at her, called out her name.
This is a story of Deadwood, a lawless town on land stolen from the Indians and built on gambling and gold. It’s a story of the murder of Wild Bill Hickok in Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon Number 10, a story of what happens to a person when fame overtakes a life, and the colossal exaggerations required to build such fame.
Based on research, the author has developed his own style of historical fiction writing he calls a “foundation of truth.”
You take what little is actually known about a historical figure and portray it in scenes and dialog. You add fictional scenes that, while they may not have happened, something similar could have happened because they are based on the known behavioral traits of the historical figure; in Calamity’s case wild exuberance, alcoholism, truth-stretching, rough-around-the-edges kindliness, courage, toughness.
In this way more light can be possibly shed on a character about who very little is known.
REVIEW:
S. Perovich
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read
Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2019
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
I do not usually read this type of book. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would recommend it to those who are interested in Deadwood stories.
Zeb and the Missionary
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08...
Famed scout and mountain man Zeb Simms is grieving from the recent death of his Comanche Indian wife and is saved from suicide by the intervention of his Spanish friend Juan de la Vegas Porcifino de Anza.
Zeb takes a job with Marcus Whitman a missionary in the Columbia River Basin at the Waiilatpu Mission on the Oregon Trail, the Place of Rye Grass the Indians call it.
Whitman and his wife Narcissa are attempting to convert Cayuse Indians to the Christian faith, but the two do not understand Indian ways and despite Zeb’s attempts to advise them, manage to alienate the tribe.
Hordes of European immigrants arrive every month at the mission and their diseases decimate the Cayuse people increasing tensions with the Indians.
Whitman gives Zeb the task of convincing Tiloukaikt the Cayuse chief to bring his people in to accept religion and take up the white man’s ways of farming and living. However, before he can accomplish this Zeb is waylaid on a meat hunting expedition.
Zeb and his partner de Anza are stranded in the wilderness on foot with nothing between them except the rags on their backs and a few picked berries to eat, only to wind up being captured and made slaves to be bartered by Shoshone Indians.
What follows is a harrowing adventure of wilderness survival, starvation, living off your wits and what you can scrounge. During a long trek, Zeb and Anza are staked out as bear bait, fed to red fire ants, forced to chew the gizzards of animals, shelter inside the body of a gutted buffalo and run a race for life against pursuing Native Americans.
Set against a backdrop of the rugged Oregon Country of 1847 (today Western Idaho and Eastern Washington State), Zeb and the Missionary is also the story of the Marcus Whitman massacre and the clash of cultures that resulted in the Cayuse Indian War.
Famed scout and mountain man Zeb Simms is grieving from the recent death of his Comanche Indian wife and is saved from suicide by the intervention of his Spanish friend Juan de la Vegas Porcifino de Anza.
Zeb takes a job with Marcus Whitman a missionary in the Columbia River Basin at the Waiilatpu Mission on the Oregon Trail, the Place of Rye Grass the Indians call it.
Whitman and his wife Narcissa are attempting to convert Cayuse Indians to the Christian faith, but the two do not understand Indian ways and despite Zeb’s attempts to advise them, manage to alienate the tribe.
Hordes of European immigrants arrive every month at the mission and their diseases decimate the Cayuse people increasing tensions with the Indians.
Whitman gives Zeb the task of convincing Tiloukaikt the Cayuse chief to bring his people in to accept religion and take up the white man’s ways of farming and living. However, before he can accomplish this Zeb is waylaid on a meat hunting expedition.
Zeb and his partner de Anza are stranded in the wilderness on foot with nothing between them except the rags on their backs and a few picked berries to eat, only to wind up being captured and made slaves to be bartered by Shoshone Indians.
What follows is a harrowing adventure of wilderness survival, starvation, living off your wits and what you can scrounge. During a long trek, Zeb and Anza are staked out as bear bait, fed to red fire ants, forced to chew the gizzards of animals, shelter inside the body of a gutted buffalo and run a race for life against pursuing Native Americans.
Set against a backdrop of the rugged Oregon Country of 1847 (today Western Idaho and Eastern Washington State), Zeb and the Missionary is also the story of the Marcus Whitman massacre and the clash of cultures that resulted in the Cayuse Indian War.
