Opinions on how to move forward...

[James]

OK - I had 10 beta readers for my book I released the end of May. They all had a few things to recommend I change - all of which I did (because they were right - and they needed changed). Now that I'm getting additional readers from sells - I've gotten a few reviews stating that the writing is rough and the story line fails a few times in the reading. I wish I had been told this obviously honest feedback before I released...

Now I'm not sure how to proceed... I know I'm too close to the project to re-read and find the issues... should I have additional beta readers? Or just leave well enough alone? Any ideas/feedback is welcome!

TIA!!

[David]

I would say let it go and apply the feedback from those reviews to your next book, but if you think the problems are bad enough, maybe you should hire a pro editor, if you haven't already.

[J.A.]

I think at this point leave alone but file away the comments for next time. You did your due diligence and then some with your ten beta readers. As long as you know they were honest and constructive, you did the best job you could do at the time. The thing with people who read as readers (as opposed to beta reading or proof reading or reading as a writer - all of these are looking for specific areas however good they are) is that it's very subjective. Reading is in general very subjective; a personal thing. These reviewers maybe right or wrong but either way it's their opinion.

So my advice is try not to be sucked into an endless spiral of re-editing published work and take the useful feedback on board for future works. Concentrate on your next project. Writing isn't something you ever stop improving if you're doing it right ;)

Also all feedback should be filed under three headings; accept, adapt and reject. To paraphrase Neil Gaiman - people can often tell you what's wrong with a book but they can rarely if ever tell you how to correct it. Basically it's your creation - it's not inviolate but only you can fix it or decide if it needs fixing.

One of the authors in this group has had a very successful run with her book Predator X. The reviews however swing between people loving it and people hating it. Neither is wrong or right (although it sucks a bit for the author!) it's just a case of the book hitting it's target audience or not.

You put out the best book you could at the time. The next one will be better because you'll have learned from this one. Go easy ;)

[James]

I know the issues are not bad enough for the "average" reader - I've got reviews that prove that too... I was just torn in wanting to have my absolute best out there - you are right it is the "endless spiral of re-editing". LOL

I'm going to just try and let it go and, yes, file these reviews away to make the next one better :)

Thanks! I appreciate the feedback...

[Michael]

The only things I edit in my published book are grammatical or spelling errors. Other than that, it is what it is.

A lot of people, including me, don't appreciate the tinkering George Lucas did with the original Star Wars movies. He probably had feedback. He probably thought he was improving things or fixing them. I've yet to meet anyone who says they are better than the original.

A good thing can be edited to death, even if there are legitimate problems to fix. Let it walk the world as it will.

[Eugene]

I agree on not going back to the published work. Marion Zimmer Bradley actually took her Darkover series in directions that contradicted the first books (this is from her preface to one of the books, I think Sharra's Exile). Readers begged her to rewrite them, but she refused. In the end, she wrote Sharra's Exile (if I have the right book in mind), which covered the same events from the perspective of a different character (I think, actually, the "villain").

The only thing I would caution on is the 10 beta-readers. That's a lot, and more isn't necessarily better. If you can find just one person (or two or three) who gets what you try to do, and you can rely on to tell you what you need to hear, you're good. Too many people can have too many nit-picky notes that obscures the big issues.

And I agree that only you can fix your story. I sent a short story off to the fabulous Eric Heideman of the Minnesota Science fiction society, and he rejected it saying (with half the staff agreeing) that it was too long. I rewrote the story, cut out some bits, reorganized things, and sent it back 500 words longer. He said, "yes, that's right" and published it.

[Sue]

Many great and helpful comments here. My two cents: I've found I have to listen carefully to all comments, but not take them verbatim. Negative comments flag problems, but what is wrong is not always what the commenter thinks is wrong; and certainly, any proposed solution ranges from perfect to 180 degrees wrong.

[Micah]

You may also want to consider joining an online writing workshop such as www.critters.org where you're likely to gain a much better understanding of how to polish your writing than you will from beta readers.

Beta readers, from my experience, are half decent at spotting obvious typos and a some misused words, but are rarely expert enough to really dig in and root out fundamental problems.

The problem with beta readers is...well, do they really know what's expected of them? Are you asking them to just give it a pre-read and tell you "yeah, I liked the story" or are they being asked to critique your writing (as opposed to reviewing the story)? Are they editors, proof readers or just a test market?

Furthermore, if they friends or acquaintances, they may be loathe to point out reoccurring problems such as clunky or awkward sentence structures just because they don't want to offend you. And even if they don't suffer from this, do they even have the vocabulary or proper critical mindset to articulate why certain parts of the writing bothers them?

Writing workshops side step those issues. The way critters.org is set up (I used to be active there an age ago), in order to get something of yours critiqued, you have to first do a bunch of critiques for other writers. Once you qualify, your work will be added to the queue and once it rises up to the top, it will be reviewed by other writers, people who have a much better grasp of writing mechanics and storytelling than your average beta reader, simply by the fact that they exercise these muscles constantly.

What I found was that in critiquing others' work, I was better able to spot issues with my own, even before others looked at it. Divorcing yourself from the storytelling aspect of writing, you're better able to look at sentences and paragraphs objectively and go "Oh, I've used that same word five times in one paragraph" or "Wow, that actually doesn't make much sense" or "My bad, I started the last three paragraphs with almost exactly the same words and sentence structure" or "Hmm, that's a bit wordy and would read a lot more concisely if I just cut half of that out..."

Writers workshops are a lot of work and a serious commitment, but they can really be worth the time.

[Richard]

That'd be loath, Micah, not loathe. The unvoiced form. :-)

[Hákon]

I agree with Micah, writing groups can help you with your writing in many ways. I'm active in one group now and it has helped me a lot in becoming better at writing and editing.

[Micah]

Richard wrote: "That'd be loath, Micah, not loathe. The unvoiced form. :-)"

BANG! Bursted. [sic] ;D

[Eugene]

I've had trouble connecting with writing groups. Last one I was in, to give you an idea of how long it's been, started as a group on GEnie. And if you're much under 40 I doubt you even know what that is. :)

[J.A.]

You should try The Word Cloud Writers Community - it's run by the writer's workshop, is free and very friendly and open, especially to new members. There are main critique forums, various resources and pretty much groups for everything.

[Eugene]

Thanks JA. I will.

[Micah]

Or as I said above, critters.org which has been running for ages.

[Hannah]

No book is ever perfect when it is published. You just have to learn from the problems people point out and don't make them again. There are some good writing magazines out there which are full of useful articles, I've learnt a lot from these.
I think authors are more critical than general readers, because they are used to picking out problems all the time. What they point out in the finished article, most likely most readers wont even notice so I wouldn't worry too much

[Richard]

I know everyone says to ignore reviews, they're just one person's opinion, etc., etc.. But I woke up to a really good review this morning, from someone who clearly understands where I'm coming from. That is a great feeling, and I shall hold onto it when I read others. Unfortunately, it's on Smashwords and doesn't show up here, but all the same :-)

[Bobby]

Michael wrote: "The only things I edit in my published book are grammatical or spelling errors. Other than that, it is what it is.

A lot of people, including me, don't appreciate the tinkering George Lucas did with the original Star Wars movies. He probably had feedback. He probably thought he was improving things or fixing them. I've yet to meet anyone who says they are better than the original.

A good thing can be edited to death, even if there are legitimate problems to fix. Let it walk the world as it will."

I second these sentiments!

[Eugene]

Richard wrote: "I know everyone says to ignore reviews, they're just one person's opinion, etc., etc.. But I woke up to a really good review this morning, from someone who clearly understands where I'm coming from..."

No no, Richard. You only ignore BAD reviews. ;)

[K.]

Richard, are reviews on Smashwords worth chasing, or is it the all powerful Amazon reviews that should be sought after?

I ask because I'm published on both sites, but so far haven't had any reviews on Amazon (hopefully, will have one by Monday according to the reader.) Oh, and what about reviews on Goodreads? Are those important?

[J.A.]

I think reviews on Smashwords are a bit slower to catch on but they'll definitely get there in a year or too. Especially from kobo which is up and coming. Worth chasing if you've got time - get ahead of the curve.

[K.]

Thanks, J.A. I'll keep pressing on with Smashwords then. I've been planning on dual publishing until I can qualify on Smashwords to consolidate to one publishing platform. (Which may be in ... umm.... dunno right now, things are that slow for me.) ::Grins::

I'm hoping that if I can get a few more reviews on both sites, it'll help bring some more sales. I actually prefer Smashwords over Amazon because of the statistics graphs they have - seeing the number of daily views at least lets me know I'm not completely invisible. Wish Amazon would do something similar. Then, I'd be able to see/evaluate the tags and edit if needed. Unless there's an app I missed somewhere?

[Richard]

I don't know how useful reviews on Goodreads are because I er... don't have any. Anyone? The Smashwords review only shows up on their site, it doesn't percolate through to Kobo and Apple, which is a shame. All in all, my numbers are so small that they don't qualify as data, I'm afraid. Ask me next year!

[Sapphire]

I have two, maybe three, beta readers I rely on. None of them read the same draft. I find this maximizes the feedback I can get across the process.

And, of course, I have my editor. I would not dare "go to print" as it were without the professional touch my editor gives me. He's worth three beta readers on his own.

But even then, perfection is unattainable and there will always be improvements I could make, changes I could write in, things I could do differently. If, in three years time, I don't think the book I released this year could be improved, then I'm doing something wrong as a writer.

But I won't touch it once it is out. If I catch some significant typos or formating errors, yeah, I'll fix it up. But that's as far as I'll go. Both because it feels more professional that way and I'd go insane if I kept working on the same book year after year.

So don't touch it. Move on to the next project and make it better.