It's true, reviewer J. Lynn of Red Adept Reviews gave my debut novel, Vestal Virgin--suspense in ancient Rome, a 5 Star Review. For those of you who might not know, Red Adept has won tremendous recognition as a reviewer of epubbed books. In fact, her blog has become so popular that she has had to hire a number of reviewers, including J. Lynn, who reviewed Vestal Virgin.
Red Adept also offers editing and proof reading services for very reasonable rates. This, I believe, came out of Red Adept's (Lynn O'Dell's) love of indie writers and their struggles to put out a professional product. Editing can be tremendously expensive.
A 5 star review from Red Adept is golden. As you might imagine, I was sweating it last night. I woke up several times and checked to see if the review had been posted. The last time I fell back to sleep, I dreamed that I received a 2 star review. I know that Red Adept reviewers consider things like editing, typos and formatting, so I figured I was good for at least 2 stars, even if the reviewer hated the book!
This brings me to another topic: Writers have a love/hate relationship with reviewers. We love reviewers, and we need them, but a bad review is torturous. Bad reviews are inevitable, especially when a book is successful and begins to sell outside of its market. That has happened to me with my short story collection, Dating My Vibrator (and other true fiction)--as sales increased, the book attracted several 1 star reviews. Some of the reviews are questionable, meaning they might even come from the same reviewer using a different name, but there's nothing I can do about it, if the reviewer follows Amazon guidelines. 1 star reviews can bring down a book's rating, which may result in fewer sales. I believe 1 star and 5 star reviews should not be given lightly.
Okay, that's my rant about reviews. And I'm happy that my book received 5 stars from Red Adept!
Red Adept also offers editing and proof reading services for very reasonable rates. This, I believe, came out of Red Adept's (Lynn O'Dell's) love of indie writers and their struggles to put out a professional product. Editing can be tremendously expensive.
A 5 star review from Red Adept is golden. As you might imagine, I was sweating it last night. I woke up several times and checked to see if the review had been posted. The last time I fell back to sleep, I dreamed that I received a 2 star review. I know that Red Adept reviewers consider things like editing, typos and formatting, so I figured I was good for at least 2 stars, even if the reviewer hated the book!
This brings me to another topic: Writers have a love/hate relationship with reviewers. We love reviewers, and we need them, but a bad review is torturous. Bad reviews are inevitable, especially when a book is successful and begins to sell outside of its market. That has happened to me with my short story collection, Dating My Vibrator (and other true fiction)--as sales increased, the book attracted several 1 star reviews. Some of the reviews are questionable, meaning they might even come from the same reviewer using a different name, but there's nothing I can do about it, if the reviewer follows Amazon guidelines. 1 star reviews can bring down a book's rating, which may result in fewer sales. I believe 1 star and 5 star reviews should not be given lightly.
Okay, that's my rant about reviews. And I'm happy that my book received 5 stars from Red Adept!
6 comments:
Fantastic! Beats us! We only got 4 and 3/4.
You're absolutely right about reaping one stars as you sell more, and some can be malicipous to the point of libellous. We've had over twenty malicous negs removed over the past six months. Some people just hate to see an indie book do well.
Winning over Red Adept is great. Congrats on that. A widely respected reviewer, though we were stunned by her (minor) moan about us using British English spellings for a book set in Britain, released in Britain and written by two British writers.
Wow, Mark, I'm surprised about the spelling complaint. Although, I have to tell you one of my one star reviewers for Dating My Vibrator pointed out that he spells humor with a U, as if that makes him more intelligent! So, I guess it goes both ways. Ridiculous.
Congrats on your review.
Thanks, J.A. It definitely made my day!
That is fantastic. Congrats! Have you used their editing services? I'm considering hiring an editor/format tech for my next book. The time savings would mean a lot, on top of the value they add!
I've gotten some early feedback from readers on This Brilliant Darkness. I admit I am scared to submit it to reviewers. Silly? Maybe. But I'm not ready. LOL.
Back to Bashin'!
http://RedTash.com/bash
Hi Red Tash,
I haven't used the editing service, partly because I hope to get reviewed, and that knocks you out of the running.
But I've only heard good things about Red Adept's editing service. Lynn O'Dell will be doing an interview soon, here on my blog. And we're talking, almost exclusively, about her editing service. Tune in!
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