What to do when your friend writes a book...
I read a fantastic article today, and want to share it with you. If you're a writer I'm sure you'll enjoy reading it as much as I did, and will take some comfort from the fact that you are not alone :)
If you are a reader, please take some notes from it, so if you are ever in the situation where you have a friend who writes a book you'll have some idea what to say and, more importantly, what not to say!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael...
If you are a reader, please take some notes from it, so if you are ever in the situation where you have a friend who writes a book you'll have some idea what to say and, more importantly, what not to say!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael...
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On the other hand, my oldest sister, father-in-law and one of my sister-in-laws, in particular, have been most encouraging. Imagine that, my wife can't get past a certain point, but my sister-in-law enjoyed the series immensely? What's wrong with this picture? They're sisters after all, and only two years apart.
Outside of family, I've received nothing but good feedback, except from a few publishers and one reviewer. The reviewer quit reading after only about the first twenty pages of a 222,000-word work. And I've had several other readers comment on how quickly the first book draws them into my main character's plight; so I'm just dumbfounded. It reminds me of what another author said about the feedback she got from two different publishers. One of them told her that she didn't have enough sex in her book, and the other told her the exact opposite.
All this leaves authors really scratching their heads. I've concluded that the reaction to any book is as individual as the readers themselves. What was it that Mark Twain said about Jane Austen's work? "Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it."