{"id":2231,"date":"2014-05-13T14:15:49","date_gmt":"2014-05-13T20:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=2231"},"modified":"2014-05-13T14:15:49","modified_gmt":"2014-05-13T20:15:49","slug":"a-trickle-of-news-a-bit-on-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=2231","title":{"rendered":"A Trickle of News & A Bit on Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

First US printing of Crown of Renewal<\/em>\u00a0 in hardcover is 12,000 copies.\u00a0 WOW!\u00a0\u00a0 Should be plenty available from most places.\u00a0\u00a0 (I have no idea if all 12,000 selling in the first week would get me to a spot on the NYT list, but it couldn’t hurt.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 However, with the cost of hardcovers these days and the general economy,\u00a0 that’s not going to happen.\u00a0\u00a0 Absolutely no dark looks cast at anyone who’s waiting for their library to get a copy, or who will wait for the paperback.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Not into guilt-laying my readers!)\u00a0\u00a0 Editor let me know that today. She also reported checking on a potential situation with Amazon that appears not to affect Crown<\/em> (at least not so far) but had affected other writers’ books (heard about it on a closed list, and let her know that, as well as the Book World problem Hawkman mentioned here.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

BTW, Hawkman, if you’re watching, I asked you in the “Arrivals” thread if you could find out who Book World uses as a distributor.\u00a0 Same question here.\u00a0 Editor doesn’t know but would like to.)<\/p>\n

Editor also passed along two reviews (Publishers Weekly<\/em> and Booklist<\/em>) that perfectly illustrate the effect of individual preferences on book reviews and how books are perceived by venues that then affect reader choices.\u00a0 Neither is bad–nothing to throw a fit about, not that authors are ever supposed to do that–but it’s clear that one reviewer would like a lot more action and the other is satisfied with a mix of psychological and physical stressors.\u00a0\u00a0 I would say that I didn’t write the kind of epic fantasy one reviewer wanted, and came closer to the other’s desire.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (And again–if you happen to read them and one or the other ruffles your feathers–this is how one person, who happens to be a reviewer, reacts to the book.\u00a0\u00a0 I react to books the same way–a good friend may rave over a book that I find distinctly blah, or hate a book I recommended to her\/him.)<\/p>\n

As most of you already know, the important thing is to read enough–and enough reviews–that you can use the reviews of a reviewer you don’t agree with as guidance (in reverse) for taking a look at new books.\u00a0\u00a0 Decades ago there was a reviewer whose tastes were predictably opposite mine…and that reviewer was useful to me.\u00a0\u00a0 He praised X to the skies–I didn’t bother to look at the first page, knowing I’d hate it.\u00a0\u00a0 He gave a lackluster or negative report on Y, and I’d be sure to take a look and see if I liked it.\u00a0\u00a0 (I don’t even remember who that was…back in the 70s or early 80s and I think in a non-genre venue.)<\/p>\n

Bad reviews are<\/em> scary for writers (not lackluster, but badly wrong–the kind that mislead readers about the book’s type, content, etc.) because they can affect sales, whether they’re positive or<\/em> negative–most sales come through personal recs from friends & family, and if a review labels a book a cozy mystery when it’s really a down-and-dirty police procedural…the reader who buys it becuase of the review is not going to recommend it to friends who also like cozy mysteries….while the book’s real readership, searching for down-and-dirty police procedurals, will not find it until maybe years later in a box of discarded books outside a library, too late to help the writer’s career.<\/p>\n

As always, the most help readers can be to a writer whose book they like is to talk it up among their reader friends.\u00a0\u00a0 If someone quotes a lackluster or negative or bad (misleading) review, then it’s possible to change the next reader’s mind–right there.\u00a0 Without raising a stink anywhere.<\/p>\n

And other news:\u00a0 appearances at A-Kon<\/a>, June 6-8\u00a0 in Dallas, TX\u00a0 and DragonCon<\/a> (Labor Day weekend) in Atlanta, GA. \u00a0 I also want to make ArmadilloCon, my nearest convention, in Austin, but that will depend on the results of eye exam and (if it happens this summer) cataract surgery.\u00a0 I’m holding July and early August open for that until I find out.<\/p>\n

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First US printing of Crown of Renewal\u00a0 in hardcover is 12,000 copies.\u00a0 WOW!\u00a0\u00a0 Should be plenty available from most places.\u00a0\u00a0 (I have no idea if all 12,000 selling in the first week would get me to a spot on the NYT list, but it couldn’t hurt.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 However, with the cost of hardcovers these days and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,38,5],"tags":[104,82,31,107],"class_list":["post-2231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conventions","category-marketing","category-the-writing-life","tag-a-kon","tag-dragoncon","tag-the-book-business","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2231"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2232,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2231\/revisions\/2232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}