Historical and Contemporary Romance Author

Browsing Category : Reviews

Reviews Are Not About You, Take 2


So, Jon Stock, author of the Daily Telegraph post I linked to earlier today, responded to me on Twitter today. Based on our conversation thus far, he seems like a decent fellow although, in my opinion, terribly misguided. His rationales for considering it part of his job to contact reviewers fall into three basic categories. I’d like to address each…

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Are DNF Reviews Fair?


There’s been some discussion on the interwebs lately on the subject of DNF reviews and whether it’s really “fair” for a reviewer to opine on a book he/she didn’t actually finish. How can a reviewer know whether the book “worked” or not if he/she didn’t read the whole thing? Well, my answer to that is that I can tell a…

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Making Nice in Book Reviews


Once again, the “you shouldn’t say mean things about a book/character in a book because you might hurt the author’s feelings” crowd has come out in full force, this time in response to a Dear Author review of Susan Grant’s latest release, Sureblood. In this particular review, the reviewer said that the heroine “made her want to puke” and was…

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On Reviews and Fairness


I’ve meditated before on how hard it is for authors to sit on their hands and not argue with a review they disagree with. I’ve also said I think it’s the only right way to handle it. As an author, you have to put your book out there and let it speak for itself. If a reviewer doesn’t “get” it…

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WTF Wednesday: The Only Honest Reviews Cost the Reviewer Money


Yes, yes, I know it’s only Monday. But sometimes, WTF Wednesday comes early. Think of it as like Christmas in July :). This week’s early WTF Wednesday is brought to you by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). By now, you’ve probably heard about this strange new set of guidelines, which basically requires bloggers who review books they have received for…

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