Michael C. Bailey's Blog, page 98

Critiquing Critiques: How To Leave A Review

As I’ve mentioned here on several occasions, reader reviews are a critical (ha, see what I did there) element of an independent author’s formula for success. As positive reviews pile up, they act as a bit of friendly, low-key peer pressure to potential new readers wondering whether an unfamiliar book from an unfamiliar author is worth their money.

The problem with getting reviews is that few people want to give them. They might absolutely love a book, but they won’t take that extra little step to leave a good review for it, and from what I’ve heard from some of my readers, the most common reason for this is, “I don’t know how to write a review.”

I understand the problem, but Christ, is it frustrating to know that more than 1,000 people have bought my books (and another 850 or so downloaded Action Figures – Issue One: Secret Origins during a free promo period back in March), and yet I have a grand total of 50 reviews.

I repeat: out of approximately 1,900 readers, 50 have left reviews. That’s a three percent rate of return.

In the hopes of getting some people motivated, I present here a brief tutorial for how to leave a review on Amazon – although, this process is easily transferable to writing reviews for other things on other websites, from a toaster you bought on Target to a Yelp review for a hotel. Take a look, and then consider leaving a few reviews for me, or for any other indie author you’ve discovered.

1 – Leave a rating

This is the easy part. Amazon uses a star-based system for rating products, and that’s the standard for many review systems. Simply, five stars equals “This was awesome!”, three equals, “It was okay, nothing special,” and one equals, “What a godawful piece of crap.” Pick the rating that fits your opinion of the work in question and move on.

2 – Open with a simple statement reflecting your rating

This is also fairly easy. Write a sentence, just one sentence, that reflects your rating and encapsulates your feelings toward the book. “I had so much fun reading this book!” “I enjoyed this book very much and would recommend it highly.” “This was a fun, engaging story.” (Or, if your rating isn’t terribly favorable, “This book was decent, but disappointing.” “What a waste of my time.” Et cetera.)

If you’re not feeling terribly ambitious, you can call it quits here. Really, it’s okay. A rating and a sentence is enough, but if you want to leave a little more…

3 – Pick something about the book you loved/hated, say what that something was, and why

You do NOT have to write some grand epic poem about the book you’re reviewing. Seriously. Get that thought out of your head right now, because that may be why you find the thought of leaving a review so intimidating. Instead of trying to hit multiple points of interest, pick one thing about the book you loved (or hated) — the plot, the dialog, the prose, the characters, whatever — say what that one thing is, and say why it made such an impression. That’s enough to give potential readers a sense of what to expect, and since different reviewers will extol different virtues, Amazon customers will get a nice, well-rounded picture of their prospective purchase (because they will read more than one review, you know. It’s not all about you, ya narcissist).

Guess what? You’re done. You just wrote a review.

Now, you may have noticed I worded my advice to cover bad reviews as well as good. If you’re considering leaving a bad review for someone’s book, here’s a fourth point to ponder:

4 – Ask yourself if you really need to leave a negative review

I’m not saying you should never leave bad reviews. Some books warrant them. What I’m saying is that you should take an extra minute and ask yourself why you want to leave a bad review — and please be aware that “I didn’t like the book” is not a good answer.

A teacher of mine from many years ago, Benito Ruiz, gave me perhaps the best advice I’ve ever received about giving constructive criticism. He told me that I had to learn how to distinguish my personal, subjective feelings toward a work of art from my objective critical assessment of the work’s technical competence. When I say something is “good” or “bad,” am I making a call on its substantive qualities, or am I really saying “I like this” or “I don’t like this”?

That’s what I mean when I say think before leaving a negative review, and ask yourself why you think a book is “bad.” Is the plot dull, predictable, and/or nonsensical or riddled with holes? Are the characters flat and boring, or a bunch of stereotypes? Is the dialog unrealistic? Is the book itself riddled with misspellings, bad grammar, incorrect punctuation, etc.? These are signs of a book that is actually bad. A well-written story that for whatever reason did not speak to you is NOT a BAD book; it is a book you did not care for.

And you know what? There’s nothing wrong at all with leaving a three-star rating and a review that simply reads, “This was a well-written book, but it wasn’t my cup of tea.” If the book was truly terrible, then speak your mind, but a mediocre book or a book that just didn’t speak to you personally isn’t necessarily deserving of harsh criticism.

One final piece of advice, and this is for the authors in the event they receive a bad review: DO NOT RESPOND TO IT. Nothing will make you look more unprofessional, petty, and insecure than trying to justify your work, criticizing the critic, or asking the review to take down or change the review to salve your bruised ego.

Besides, if you can’t deal with criticism, you probably shouldn’t be a writer.

AF3: Pasts Imperfect Status Report – Draft Two Is Done!

Very quick post today to announce that draft two of Action Figures – Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect is done and out to my test-readers!

I blew through revisions over the weekend, and my timing works out nicely, because I’ll be spending the coming weekend at Boston ComicCon working for my wife at the Storied Threads booth, which of course means no writing time for me.

When I get back to it, I expect to wrap up work on a new AF short, then move on to the third draft of book three. If all goes well, book three will be out in September as planned.

Signing’ Copies

First: I apologize for choosing as the title of this blog post a reference to a lame-ass Saturday Night Live sketch that probably didn’t read anyway. I’m tired.

Yesterday saw the continuation of a banner week for me, in the form of my first-ever book-signing, held in my home town of Falmouth at the Silver Shores Shanty. An old friend of mine, and a fellow writer, T.M. (Ted) Murphy, invited me down as part of a summertime local authors event series he organizes (for which I thank him profusely).

Sitting in the sun for my book-signing on Cape Cod. Life is hard.

I went down in the afternoon with a dozen copies of Action Figures – Issue One: Secret Origins on-hand, with no idea what to expect. The thing had some decent advance advertising, but I kept my expectations reasonable. I told myself, if I move half of my inventory, I’d go home happy.

Well, I went home happy, and not just because of the sales. My former boss from the newspaper, the one who hired me despite having no experience or training in journalism, was the first of several visitors. My final visitors were members of Ted’s Just Write It class, a half-dozen aspiring writers working on their own projects. We chatted about the craft and my own experiences putting a novel out, and they were a good, inquisitive, responsive group.

Like I said, it was a nice addition to a week that has already seen a finished first draft of Pasts Imperfect and breaking the 1,000 total sales threshold, and continues this weekend with the beginning of work on draft two.

How am I celebrating this excellent week? With some top-shelf scotch, a great lunch at Longhorn Steakhouse with my sweetie, and Guardians of the Galaxy, of course.

Action Figures – Issue Three Progress Report: One Is Done!

As my friend Dave likes to say, the muse was upon me this past weekend, in a big way.

I woke up Saturday hoping to finish draft one of Action Figures – Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect, but not formally planning to. I honestly thought I’d get maybe halfway through the climactic chapters, because action sequences tend to be laborious slogs (fun to read, maybe, but not so much to write), yet I blasted through the climax and the denouement, and stayed up late Sunday finishing off the epilogue.

Book three has been weird to write. It feels like I spent a lot of time spinning my metaphorical wheels rather than moving the story toward its end, and then, quite suddenly, whammo — I’m there.

Now it’s time for the traditional cooling off period, when I leave the story alone for a few days before I dive in on the revisions.  I plan to keep my brain busy in the interim finishing off a new AF short featuring Dr. Enigma, and that will be posted here as more free reading (much like my An Adventure in Babysitting short) once book three has dropped.

A few other quick bits of good news: I am, as I write this, a mere 13 sales away from hitting 1,000 total lifetime sales of my books, and I’m hopeful I’ll get a little boost thanks to this interview I did with fellow indie author Megan Cyrulewski. Go check it out, and maybe give Megan’s writing some love.

Action Figures – Issue Three: Status Update

It feels like it took me forever to get to this point, but at last, I am poised to start cranking away at the climax of Action Figures – Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect!

I started draft one on March 10, so I’ve been plugging away at book three for four and a half months, give or take, and I’m creeping up on 72,000 words (Action Figures – Issue Two: Black Magic Women was comparable in length when it was finished). Obviously, I’ll add a lot of words to that count before I’m done, but I expect draft two will see some heavy editing to clean up some subplots that didn’t develop as I’d hoped and to pick up the pace in spots.

I’m still aiming for a September release, but that will ultimately depend on how quickly I get through my second draft, and how quickly my army of crack beta testers get through it but, as you may know (or can see at right), I’ve already gotten a jump on the cover art!

In other news, I have my first book signing coming up next week! I’ll let you all know how that goes…or, you can take a day trip to the Cape and see for yourself. Y’know, if you like such things as yummy food at a scenic seaside locale.

Countdown To 1,000!

Yesterday afternoon, I reached a new milestone: Action Figures- Issue One: Secret Origins and Issue Two: Black Magic Women have sold a combined 900+ copies since the first novel made its debut in September of last year. If sales continue at the pace I’ve seen over the past three months, I could very well break 1,000 copies by the end of the month.

To celebrate, I’m spending Saturday writing my ass off so I can try to finish Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect, because I am very ready for this thing to be something other than an incomplete first draft.

ConnectiCon – Day Two

The con-centric shenanigans continue!

Your humble narrator as Phil from “Better Off Ted.”

My wife in her stealth Pepper Potts cosplay.

The first “Orphan Black” cosplay I’ve ever seen. Why is this not more of a thing?

An excellent Prince Oberyn (with head).

Don’t know what this was from, but the wings were awesome.

Catbus!

Hodor and Tyrion — who were two separate attendees who just happened to be in my wife’s booth at the same time. Hodor had a backpack with Brann, too.

My friend Monica as Delirium, and her friend (whose name I totally forget) as Death.

My favorite from Saturday: two ladies as Hawkeye and Hawkeye.

ConnectiCon – Day One

Something a little different this weekend…

My wife, Veronica, is vending this weekend at ConnectiCon, and I’m there helping her out at the Storied Threads booth. I’ve grown to enjoy working the cons, in part because I love cosplay watching. Today, day one of three, was not the best of days cosplay-wise, but there were some good ones.

On, and I also bumped into at the Starbucks in the convention center. Not as odd as running into former WWE Superstar Rikishi in the restroom at Rhode Island ComicCon, but not a lot can top that.

Steampunk Tom Servo!

Don’t know what they’re supposed to be, but the outfits were very striking.

To feel like the hu-man! To cosplay like the hu-man!

The Action Figures Diversity Report

I’ve been a cautiously optimistic fanboy this week, due to the news that Neil Gaiman’s American Gods is in development as a series. American Gods is one of my all-time favorite novels, and I’m curious to see how it translates to the screen — even more so after reading that Neil has asked the producers not to whitewash any of his characters of color.

That got me to thinking about the diversity of the Action Figures cast of characters, and whether I was doing a good job of representing a variety of genders, sexual orientations and identities, and races. As a bit of an internal exercise, I went through the main and prominent secondary characters and tagged them, and here’s the result:

Carrie/Lightstorm: white female
Matt/Captain Trenchcoat: white male
Sara/Psyche: white female
Stuart/Superbeast: male, quarter African-American
Missy/Kunoichi: female, half-Japanese
Concorde: male
Mindforce: white male
Nina Nitro: Hispanic female
Dr. Enigma: white female, bisexual
Joe Quentin/Rockjaw Quantum: male
Gwendolyn Quentin/Doc Quantum: female
Meg Quentin/Megawatt Quantum: white female
Kilroy Quentin/Kilowatt Quantum: white male
Farley Quentin/Final Boss: white male

You’ll notice that only one character, Dr. Enigma, has a distinct sexual orientation. Three other people on the list are homo- or bi-sexual, but their respective reveals are tied to story and forthcoming (if not in book three, definitely in book four).

You’ll also notice that the cast is primarily white. Eight characters are explicitly described as white, nine if you assume at least Rockjaw or Doc Quantum are white (which is a natural assumption, considering the kids are described as pale-skinned with very light blond hair).

If I start adding prominent tertiary cast members (the kids’ parents, recurring supporting characters), things don’t necessarily get more colorful, so to speak. Missy has a Japanese father, Stuart has one half-African-American parent, but the rest of the parents are white (implicitly if not explicitly). Much of the supporting cast is of unspecified ethnicity, which can be good or bad; readers can fill in the blanks and assume these characters are people of color if they like, but I could also take a bolder stance and say “Character A is a person of color.”

My concern with establishing as canon that a character is someone of color is that it would wind up as little more than paying lip service to diversity. I realize it could be argued that simply having a person of color present is enough, that it makes them a presence in the story, but I want the character’s ethnicity to matter, to the character or the story, and not become a throwaway element — but, as the writer, it’s incumbent on me to do just that, isn’t it?

I am pleased with the gender balance. Of the above-listed characters, half are women, and two are in leadership roles (Carrie and Doc Quantum). Additionally, the male characters are portrayed as comfortable with that, and I’d like to think that sends a good message all around.

If I were to give myself a grade for diversity in my novels, I’d give myself a solid B-minus, at best. I could definitely do better, and hope to as the series progresses.

July’s State Of The Writer Report

This will be a quick one, because man, am I busy lately.

June was another record sales month for me. I beat May sales by a healthy margin. I still have no idea what caused this surge, but I’m grateful for it.
It’s also given me great incentive to return to working on Action Figures – Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect after a too-long break (life stuff got in my way). Last weekend I knocked out 16 good pages, which I consider a big leap forward.
Action Figures – Issue One: Secret Origins got its first independent review (by which I mean, it wasn’t written by a friend and it wasn’t an Amazon review), and it was very positive. I am very pleased by this. You can go read it here.
Book one will be getting more exposure later in this month. I’ll have some promotional postcards on display at the Storied Threads booth at ConnectiCon, and I’ll be holding my first-ever book-signing on July 30 in my home town of Falmouth — at the Silver Shores Shanty, to be precise, where I’ll have a dozen books available (since, realistically, the turnout will likely be on the light side) at below-retail cost.

That’s about it for now. As you were.