I’ve had a couple of people ask to review their work recently, and I thought it was time for me to come up with an official statement regarding my policy on writing reviews.
- I do feel strongly about reviewing self-published authors. When I write a review I usually post it both on Amazon (provided the book is available on Amazon) and on GoodReads.
- I only review books that I finish.
- I only finish books that I enjoy.
- I like happy, fun books.
I’ll admit it, I have very superficial tastes in the reading I do for enjoyment. I do have a lot of philosophy and theology on my shelves, but my taste in educational reading runs to the profoundly orthodox. I feel that John Calvin took some untoward liberties in his exegesis of the Nevi’im and if you don’t know what that means, don’t try to get my opinion of your non-fiction work, because you’re not going to like it.
Now, if you are a self-published author and you have written a novel that is fast-paced and contains characters who can be described as “plucky”, and/or your work contains explosions that do not result in gruesome dismemberment (for characters I am supposed to like, anyway) and/or your target demographic includes people who write “Mrs. Jack Harkness” obsessively on the back cover of school notebooks, I may be your guy.
Look, I work a lot. I work my day job, which right now involves getting up at ungodly hours for snow removal, and I work at writing, and I work at blogging, and I am trying to be an editor for a short story project with absolutely no clue what I’m doing. So when I settle down with something to read, I don’t want to work at it. I want to be entertained.
I’ve mentioned in this blog about how I love Matt Archer, and Eris Miller, and I am actively looking for more of the same. When I find something I like, I review it, I blog about it, and I tell what few friends I have about it. So if you’ve got something that you think I might like, please, give me the link.
But be advised that I am looking for fiction that I can have fun with.
Fiction should always be fun, though not necessarily happy.
Well, “happy” is in the eye of the beholder. I want the good guys to win in the end, but I’m okay with them getting kicked around some first.
First: http://media.tumblr.com/2e199aa71c4c4e87199a93ef53542604/tumblr_inline_mh5ya18b1d1qz4rgp.gif
Second, how frequently do people come to you, asking you to review their work? Is this a common problem?
I wouldn’t call it a “problem”, it just happened a couple of times recently. I wanted to take a moment and explain what I review and why.
What short story project are you editing?
http://fauxpocalypse.wordpress.com/
Ah yes! I remember reading about that one. I’ve been considering contributing but inspiration has been a little slow on the ground.