On Reviewing #AmReading #AmWriting

For Christmas I received a whole lot of gift cards for my Kindle from Family & Friends. Because I am a romance writer (as mild as my romance writing is), I also am a reader of romance novels, and do a lot of reading and reviewing of other up-and-coming writers. I'm explaining this because I feel like I have gotten the reputation of being Ms. Nasty when it comes to reviewing books, and really I'm not.

In the Indie book world there are a LOT of poorly written books out there. And I'm not talking about the spelling errors or the occasional misuse of a word... I'm talking telling vs showing, no subtext, no character development, overuse of cliche phrases, the list goes on and on.

As a former English major, I'm used to flagging these types of flaws in writing because I did for umpteen thousand papers, stories etc in college. But, I also feel like as writers, a good solid critique makes us all grow as writers.

I'm not a perfect writer. I re-read the sole book that I have currently published and cringe when I find another spelling error or a typo I overlooked. If someone doesn't like my book Im not going to fault them for not liking it, and if someone gives me a dense critique, I'm appreciative of said critique because it helps me to grow as a writer. Even the best writers out there still receive critiques of their writing, every single day. No one, regardless of status gets a pass on having the structure of their stories picked apart and scrutinized. Its part of the growing process.

So, yes my Goodreads wall does have a lot of lowish reviews on it. And some of my indie counterparts have encouraged me to be less honest in my critiques so that I will receive the same "fluff" critiques back.

I don't want fluff critiques. If people are in search of review exchaging simply because they want me to lie about how awesome their book is, I'm not interested. If you write a good story, I'm going to tell you that you wrote a good story. If you wrote a phenomenal story I'll sing it from the damn rooftops whether you are Sophie Kinsella or Jenny Smith who is just starting out. If your book needs work, you'll hear that from as well.

Maybe as an Indie Author I should respect an author and critique them privately, but if I pay money for a book that was recommended by one of these social media outlets dedicated to promoting "Solid, quality novels" and I don't agree that your book was a representation of what they supposedly support, I'm going to say somehing.

Poorly written Indie books hurt Indie Book writers as a whole, because if they are burned enough in their book buying purchases, eventually they will shy away from trying new authors.

Im not saying my sole book is phenomenal, hell I'm not even saying its good. Most of the time *I* think I write total shit - but I'm dont write for accolades. I write because these people inside of my head live the craziests lives and sometimes, they are so crazy that I share them because other people might enjoy them as well.