Review: H is for Hawk

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Having read Henry Marsh’s Do No Harm, which was shortlisted for the Costa Book of the Year Award, I have now read H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald which won the top prize.

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H is for Hawk tells the experiences of Helen Macdonald, a writer, illustrator, historian and lecturer at Cambridge University in training a wild hawk. Macdonald had some advantages in this task: she was fascinated by falconry and hawks as a child, and she had experience of hunting with hawks, but she had never trained a wild hawk to hunt. There was a major disadvantage: her much-loved father, a renowned photographer, had just died suddenly when she acquired the hawk for £800 from a breeder in Northern Ireland. Much of the book deals with the intense commitment and frustrations which the falconer must endure over the lengthy process of winning the trust of a wild predatory animal so that it works together with the falconer in killing wild game. The goshawk in the book has personality: feral, proud and beautiful, unpredictable, iconic. One learns, incidentally, that Macdonald is a scholar, an intelligent and sensitive person, but the author also exposes her vulnerabilities: in particular, her crippling grief over the loss of her father. In parallel with the story of Macdonald’s goshawk, she tells the story of T H White, now deceased, a dedicated, but somewhat eccentric falconer and the author of The Goshawk. We learn of his mistakes and his anguish as he tries to train a goshawk. So this book operates at several levels: a present, objective account of the training of a wild hawk; there is a past, reported account of the training of a different hawk; there are psychological explorations of both the author and her role model, T H White. This may sound rather complex, and, in a way, it is, but Macdonald weaves it all together beautifully so that it is quite natural.

The writing, in style and language is exquisite. In particular, the descriptions of natural settings and the behaviour of the hawk are breath-taking. For example: “. . . she (the hawk) sees something through the trees, out there on the other side of the hedge. Her pupils grow wide. She snakes her neck and flattens her crown, and the tiny grey hair-feathers around her beak and eyes crinkle into a frown that I’ve learned means there’s something there.” And: “The fields are shorn, yellowed into stalky, rabbit-grazed sward spotted with foraging rooks.”

H is for Hawk is clearly a major labour of love. This love and its result: a durable classic about nature, surely merited the Costa Award.

As a child, I was very interested in falconry; I read everything I could lay my hands on the subject – even flirting with the idea of obtaining a hawk. For me, H is for Hawk has a special resonance, but I suspect that some potential readers may be put off by a book on falconry. For those potential readers, I would say, “This isn’t just a book about falconry. It’s a book about nature, the human condition, grief, joy, life and death.”

Are Top Writers Cowards?

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No less a literary figure than Sir Salman Rushdie has labelled a pair of novelist friends (Carey and Ondaatje) as cowards.  In case you didn’t hear about it, on May 5, the global writers’ organisation, PEN, awarded its annual Freedom of Expression Award to Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine which lost eight journalists during an attack by Islamic extremist gunmen in January.  Charlie Hebdo had satirised Islam – amongst other targets.

Six prominent authors: Peter Carey (two-time Booker Prize winner for True History of the Kelly Gang and Oscar and Lucinda), Talye Selasi (author of Ghana Must Go), Michael Ondaatje (Booker Prize for The English Patient), Rachel Kushner (author of Telex from Cuba and The Flame Throwers), Francine Prose (who received the PEN translation prize in 1988), and Teju Cole (Nigerian-American writer) withdrew from the PEN event.

Rushdie, writing on Twitter and  making reference to Luigi Pirandello’s play, Six Characters in Search of an Author, said, “The award will be given. PEN is holding firm. Just six pussies.  Six authors in search of a bit of Character.”

Carey acknowledged that the murders of the journalists were an “hideous crime”, but he questioned PEN’s wish to champion Charlie Hebdo.  He said, “Was it a freedom-of-speech issue for PEN America to be self-righteous about?  All this is complicated by PEN’s seeming blindness to the cultural arrogance of the French nation, which does not recognise its moral obligation to a large and disempowered segment of their population.”

Gary Trudeau, the American cartoonist  who produced the Doomsday comic strip said, “By punching downward, by attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons, Charlie wandered into the realm of hate speech.”

Jo Glanville, director of English PEN, said that the protesting authors appeared to be confused between the principle of free speech and endorsing the message of Charlie Hebdo.  “The big mistake that these authors make is that they are essentially withdrawing their support for the principle of freedom of expression.  If freedom of expression means anything, then it’s supporting work that you don’t like.”  She said that Rushdie knew all too well the risks of causing offense: “It’s highly understandable that Salman Rushdie supports this in the way that he does.  When he was hiding after writing The Satanic Verses he was attacked by writers including John le Carré and Roald Dahl.”

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In my view, Ms Glanville has hit the nail on the head: the objecting authors are confusing supporting freedom of expression with supporting material with which you don’t agree.  If one starts saying, “Well, I don’t think they should have said that and therefore I don’t think they deserve a prize for saying it”, one introduces an element of censorship into the process, which is intolerable.

I also don’t think that Carey’s comments about the French nation have anything whatever to do with the issue at hand: Charlie Hebdo is not a mouthpiece for the French government or the French people.  And I think it is wrong for Gary Trudeau to assume that Charlie Hebdo was “attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority”, but if they were, and even if it was “hate speech” does it have to be suppressed?  In his column in The Times, Oliver Kamm wrote; “No one has a right to complain at having their religious beliefs mocked.  No one is ‘disempowered’ by being offended.  No one is entitled to redress for hurt feelings.”

For me, as a writer, the question is: what should I say?  I should be the judge of whether what I write is so offensive to some group of people that they will not see it as rational, but only as an attack.  If what I say is seen only as an attack, why do it?  My writing includes some religious content: Christian, Muslim and Jewish, and these passages, in particular, are where I have to ask the question.  But once I have answered it and once I have written, I fully expect that even those who disagree with what I’ve said will support my right to say it.

Review: Revere Beach Boulevard

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I bought Revere Beach Boulevard because there was a piece in my alumni magazine about a fellow writer and a fellow alumnus, and I read most of it while I was on a brief holiday in Sicily.

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Revere Beach Boulevard is a contemporary novel set in Revere, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Four of the principal characters are an Italian-American family: Lucy, the mother, is dying of cancer; Vito, the father is a retired carpenter; Peter, a son in his forties, sells real estate and has a serious gambling addiction; Joanie, the older sister with a secret, is apparently a successful newsreader for a Boston TV station. The other characters – friends and acquaintances – are part of the immigrant culture of Family, Church, and Food, and as such, the novel does them justice. The plot revolves around Peter who is heavily in debt to the local Mafioso. He hasn’t the money to pay, and friends and family are largely losing patience, as is the malevolent Chelsea Eddie, who finds that he doesn’t hold all the cards. Joanne is about the run a TV special on criminals like Eddie.

Without revealing the outcome, the plot has all the elements of a well-written thriller. I found it difficult to put it down. But there is much more to it than a thriller: the examination of values like love, trust, faith and above all: who we are as human beings. The characters, particularly Peter, Vito and Alfonse – the police chief with a secret – are very real and imperfectly human.

Without detracting much from the value and readability of this novel, one aspect that I didn’t particularly like was that each of the characters told a part of the story. This meant that one often had to read a whole paragraph before one knew which of about nine characters was talking. I felt that Peter and an omniscient narrator could have told the story equally well. I had minor reservations about two of the characters. I didn’t think that Chelsea Eddie would worry so much about what Joanie would say about him on the air: any Mafioso worth his salt has an anti-libel lawyer on standby, and Joanie had no solid evidence. Maybe is she were FBI rather than a newsreader? For me, Joanie’s loss of self-control during her visit to her dying mother didn’t ring true. She is a highly-paid TV executive who fought her way up to that position. Distressed, but not an injured child. Neither of these quibbles had any impact on the splendid plot.

The final proof-reading of the text could have been better. Frequently there were extra spaces between words, and hyphens were used instead of dashes to offset parenthetical phrases. For me, this caused confusion.

I certainly recommend Revere Beach Boulevard. It is unusual; it is interesting; it is captivating; it is well-written

Review: Hidden Battlefields

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‘Kitty’ posted the following review of Hidden Battlefields on Amazon.com:

Hidden Battlefields, the sequel to The Iranian Scorpion, finds Robert Dawson that book’s main character off on another assignment as an undercover agent for the DEA this time not in the Middle East but in Peru dealing with the guerrilla group, the Shining Path. Other characters from the first book make appearances here, too, as they work out some of their personal struggles dating from that time. There is Robert’s father, David; David’s fiancé, Mary Jo; a journalist Kate, friends to both Robert and David. If you are curious about the intricacies of the international drug trade you will learn much from Hidden Battlefields, as Robert’s work takes him from the jungles of Peru across the Atlantic to Africa and concluding in Italy. One admirable attribute of Mr Peace’s work is the incredible research he does in preparing his stories. One will not be disappointed, as we learn the details of international drug smuggling in several different countries and the behind the scene deals that are made, some involving governments, including ours. Mr Peace’s novels are not one dimensional. We have the plot of the drug trade, but once again we are treated to philosophical and theological discussions. Mary Jo and Robert discuss belief and free will, established churches and native rituals. However, we also have stimulating debates between Robert and Comrade Vancho, among others, who express their approval of Maoist socialism. But there is always a third thread woven into Mr Peace’s books and that is the tension in human relationships. In Hidden Battlefields we have an examination of parent/child relationships. Robert and his father have always had a “distant” personal relationship made more complicated in this book by Robert’s involvement with his father’s “fiancé.” That fiancé, Mary Jo is also dealing with her relationship with her father. The dynamics of both of those make for interesting reading and the solution to both have a satisfactory conclusion, thanks to a talented writer. Similarly, the author comes to a clever resolution of the romantic triangle – or should I say square. If you like adventure, philosophy, human relationships and romance this book will be your cup of tea. You won’t be able to put it down.

Clean Reader

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I find the reaction to the Clean Reader app rather amusing.

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The app was created by the Idaho parents Jared and Kirsten Maughan who were concerned that their daughter had read a book with words that made her uncomfortable.

The app is available on Apple and Android, and it works on a scale from “Clean”, which replaces swear words such as “f***” to “Squeaky Clean” which will replace words including “damn”.  It does not remove any words from a digital file, rather it puts an opaque highlight over the word.  The app can be turned off so that the reader can consume the book exactly as it was written.  On this basis, the creators claim that their app does no violate copyright because it doesn’t make changes to the file which contains the book.

Some authors have gone ballistic.

Joanne Harris, award-winning author of Chocolate and The Gospel of Loki fond the concept of Clean reader “infinitely more offensive than the words it blanks out”.   She added: ” We’ve been down this road before.  We should know where it leads by now.  It starts out by blanking out a few words.  It goes on to . . . stick fig leaves on statues.  It progresses to denouncing gay or Jewish artists as “degenerate”.  It ends up with burning libraries and erasing whole civilizations from history.”

Laurie Penny, a journalist and author said, “There’s now an app for taking swear words out of books.  I find this f***ing horrifying!”

Linda Acaster, a novelist from Yorkshire, stated: “The first act of censorship is to censor books.  The second is to ban them.   The third is to burn them.”

I’m pretty relaxed about this, and I don’t see this silly app as the “sharp end of the wedge” of a new drive for censorship.  I think Western society is liberal and mature enough not to get all upset about the use of the f-word.  After all, it’s used on day-time soap operas, and, if one listens carefully, is part of the vocabulary of the average twelve-year-old.

As an author, I don’t use swear words in descriptive text, because I think that there are alternative adjectives and adverbs that better express the picture I’m trying to convey.  But I certainly have put the f-word into the mouth of a character when his use of the word tells the reader something about him (or her).  (Real people do use profanity).

Would I worry that one of my grandchildren wanted to read one of my novels (The Iranian Scorpion, for example)?  It would depend on the age of the child.  I would say OK to a thirteen-year old who wanted to read it, after I explained what it was about.   (I would be more concerned about the violence than I would be about the drugs, sex and profanity, about which I think most teenagers have at least an abstract understanding.  Video games notwithstanding, I think that real adult violence can be hard to understand.)

Books vs Politics

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With an important election coming up in the UK in about six weeks, I decided that I ought to volunteer to help the political party which I favour.  At the last general election, I distributed leaflets door-to-door, and occasionally I would get a chance to talk to a voter.  This time, I responded to a general email soliciting help, and I found myself assigned to a constituency fifteen miles from home.  This made no sense to me (perhaps the party desperately needed help in the distant constituency), so I offered my services to the local party operation.  “What kind of work you want to do?” I was asked.  Did I want to canvas voters, or distribute literature or help out in the office?  “Where do you most need the help?” I asked.  “In the office.”

Since then, I’ve dedicated one afternoon a week to working in the local party office.  (I don’t mention which party, because this is not a political solicitation.)  My job is to input data: voting intentions, views on certain important questions, email addresses and phone numbers into a database which included all but the most recently registered voters.  This data is then used in advertisements, mail shots, emails, etc.  For me, the biggest challenge is reading the email addresses which volunteers scribble down on the doorstep.  I can usually get the gist of their other scribbled comments.

The office is quite a busy place.  On any given day, there are about four paid staff and another four volunteers beavering away.  Frequent visitors are the candidates, themselves, who come in to fill up their voter input memory, to talk strategy with the staff, or to review an outgoing missive.  Candidates are always very kindly and polite to the volunteers, but our opinions are not solicited: we are input generators.

One of the candidates, Dan, in particular (the office covers several constituencies), faces a particularly up-hill battle.  He faces an incumbent who is a mover and shaker in his party, and he won the last election with a substantial majority.  I don’t particularly like the incumbent.  I went to see him about an issue on which I felt strongly and on which Parliament would be voting.  I was in his presence for ten minutes, nine minutes of which was him talking around the topic.  I’m quite sure my one minute made no impression on him, and he voted against my view.

So, I’ve been thinking that new, up-and-coming authors are a lot like Dan: struggling to gain recognition in the face of an incumbent opponent (famous author), whom most of the voters (book buyers), know and recognise.  Maybe sometimes the party (publisher) will put enough money behind the candidate (new author) that New Author actually wins.  Or maybe Incumbent (Famous Author) makes enough mistakes and Candidate (New Author) has such a compelling pitch (The Book) that New Author wins.  Or maybe New Author and Candidate just get lucky and win a Seat in Parliament (Book Prize).

I’ll let you know what happens!

Review: Do No Harm

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My wife recommended this book to me.  It was written by a neurosurgeon, Henry Marsh, to whom she was referred with back pain.  We both met him in his outpatient clinic, and he impressed us – partly because he said that no surgery would be required.  When Mr Marsh’s book was published and was shortlisted for a 2014 Costa Award, my wife naturally wanted to read it.

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The book is subtitled “Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery”, and I found it to be a very engaging read.  The subject matter: brain surgery is quite mysterious, but Mr Marsh explains procedures so that the main points are quite understandable without being technically obscure.  His writing flows pleasantly, and sincerely; one never feels that he is the least bit condescending.  In fact, he lays bare the mistakes he has made in surgery, and reveals the anguish he has felt.  Successful, life-saving procedures are dealt with matter-of-factly.  With twenty-five chapters, each dealing with a different condition, one feels well-exposed to brain surgery.  Mr Marsh tells the reader of his development from nursing aide to med school, through the doctors’ hierarchy to consultant, and includes vignettes of the teaching of junior doctors.  The book is not from a doctor’s perspective only; he reveals the thinking and the feelings of patients, too.  The hospital setting is covered: nurses are caring but over-worked; managers are bureaucratic, unsympathetic and stubborn.  Stories from his voluntary practice in Ukraine are included, as well, and these provide a strong contrast to the state of the art and the clinical and management culture in the UK.

One can’t help but feel, as one reads the book: Why in the world would anyone want to be a neurosurgeon, given the complex opportunities for failure?  Mr Marsh doesn’t answer this question directly, but I think his view would be that the euphoria that one can feel from saving a life or advancing the technology more than offsets the anguish one feels from a mistake that leaves a patient paralysed.  Given, therefore, that a neurosurgeon has control over the life and death of his (or her) patients, Isn’t it tempting for a neurosurgeon to feel like a god?  Again, Mr Marsh does not answer directly.  He seems to say that any pretence at being a god is destroyed in the humility of the learning process.

Do No Harm was one of five books shortlisted in the biography category of a Costa Book Award in 2014.  The winning book was H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald about  her struggle to train a goshawk.  On the face of it, one would think that Marsh’s book would have a leg up: after all, a book about the ramifications of life-saving surgery sounds more important than the difficulty of training a very wild animal.  Perhaps a clue can be found in what the Costa judges said about H is for Hawk: “A unique and beautiful book with a searing emotional honesty, and descriptive language that is unparalleled in modern literature.”  I haven’t read H is for Hawk, but what I think the judges are saying is that Helen Macdonald’s writing is what won the prize for her.  Still, I would recommend putting Do No Harm at the top of your reading list.

Who Defines Quality These Days?

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The following article by Jillian Bergsma, a writer and contributing editor for Independent Publisher, appears in the current issue of the Independent Publisher Newsletter.  I think it’s worth repeating in its entirety.

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Jillian Bergsma

“A few months ago I received an interesting question from an Independent Publisher reader: “Who defines [book] quality these days?” In today’s publishing landscape, we’ve seen a dramatic shift in who owns the power to say a book is good, bad, or just okay. For a long time, a writer had to be vetted by so many people: a literary agent, the editor or publisher, the copyeditor, the proofreader, the reviewer, the bookseller or librarian, and then—finally—the reader.

“But now many self-published authors cut out most or all of those middlemen, going straight to the consumer. . . . So without the horde of literary mavens between an author and a reader, who does define the quality of a book?

“The question has several answers. Let’s start with those aforementioned mavens who are often left out of the equation. Thousands of writers still submit to agents and publishing houses each year. There’s a certain prestige associated with traditional publishing, and for good reason. You get a team of people to get your book into the best shape possible; you don’t have to pay the out-of-pocket costs to get the book on the market; and you have professionals selling your work.

“However, for a lot of aspiring authors, rejections from agents and publishers become the norm. Some folks say it takes scores of queries before you’re likely to find the right match (see Chuck Sambuchino’s article “Don’t Give Up Until You’ve Queried 80 Agents or More”). As harsh as the rejections can sometimes seem, they aren’t usually unfounded. Some rejections are on a taste basis—an agent or publisher just doesn’t connect with the material or think it would be right for their list. To each their own. But sometimes a rejection letter will come back that can give valuable feedback to a writer. Perhaps the level of writing wasn’t strong enough, the characters not fully developed, the plot too similar to a blockbuster book already in the market. In these ways, agents and publishers still serve a vital role in determining the quality of books in the marketplace. They know their stuff, so if you’re lucky enough to get more than a form response back, take the advice they give and put it to use.

“Booksellers and librarians are another group that can fall by the wayside if you’re self-publishing, which may be even more devastating than the loss of agents and publishers. The folks working in your local indie bookshop or at the town library are incredible resources and often have incredible taste. These days especially they must be extremely selective when choosing books for their shelves—books are expensive, shelf space is ever shrinking, and readers may be more likely to download a $0.99 ebook than to spring for the $26.99 hardcover.

“Booksellers and librarians have long been the real touch point for readers—before you could look up the ratings on Amazon, you needed your librarian to give you recommendations on which mystery novel to read next. So if you do have the opportunity to connect with your local library or bookstore, do it. Their responses to a book can be invaluable, even if that response isn’t the one you are looking for.

“The next category of gatekeepers includes bloggers and reviewers—opinions from other readers who aren’t directly in the line of producing or selling books. With the rise in social media, these folks are becoming bigger players in the game. Many of us follow a handful of favorite blogs penned by fellow readers who will tell us if a book is wonderful or a waste of time. For most people, the logo on the spine of the book doesn’t matter nearly as much as the opinion of someone we trust. And of course there are certain established reviewing outlets (think New York Times, etc.) that can turn us on or off a book in a matter of a few sentences. More than ever, these third-party reviews are gaining power in determining the quality of a book.

“And finally: THE READER. I have to say that the reader is the most influential person in determining the quality of a book. And perhaps that is how reading was always meant to be. What does it really matter if your best friend or your boss or a publisher you’ll never meet loves or hates a book? What matters is that you do. In the publishing cycle, the reader is the customer, and how does that age-old adage go? The customer is always right.

“Okay,” you say. “Sure, the reader is the most important. But what power do they really have beyond buying and selling books? How can they influence what gets published in the first place?”

“Having worked in publishing for several years, I can tell you that the reader is more powerful than they know. Editors routinely check Goodreads, Amazon, and blogs to look at what people are responding to in terms of writing style, characters, covers, and genres. Some publishers, like Amazon, are even introducing programs such as Kindle Scout, where readers decide which books are worthy of publication.

“So yes, at the end of the day, the reader holds the best hand. The publishing business wouldn’t be very successful if we didn’t understand how important our end-users really are, but today more than ever we are able to benefit from the thoughts and opinions of readers. Of course, the people I’ve discussed up until now—the agent, the publisher, the bookseller, the librarian, the reviewer, the blogger—are all readers too. And they want you, another reader, to enjoy or despise a book just like they do. At the end of the day, we’re all after the same thing here: a great read. “

Coaches & Editors

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I just returned home from a coaching session with the chief executive of a London charity.  (I accept assignments from the Cranfield Trust for pro bono assignments with charities which need help.  Cranfield Trust is, itself, a charity – originally associated with Cranfield Business School – and which maintains a roster of management consultants.  The Trust’s role is to match consultants with charities in need.)

Like a professional football coach, I am supposed to be more experienced than the players (charity managers) I coach, and I am supposed to see problems and solutions which the player (charity manager) didn’t see or hadn’t seen yet.

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The chief executive I’m coaching has some difficult problems.  The charity he is running is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and his board of trustees see their role as asking a lot of questions, rather than taking difficult decisions.  Moreover, the trustees seem to be allergic to the idea of making a personal commitment to do something useful.  I am by no means a perfect trustee, but I am treasurer of another charity which was technically bankrupt, and which absolutely had to win a particular contract to survive.  The chairman and I put a lot of personal hours into helping the managing director prepare a proposal which brought in £1.5 million in revenue.

My chief executive coachee believes that one strategy might be to merge with a larger, related charity.  Such a merger would reduce overheads, and, with a larger activity, would make fund raising easier.  But the trustees seem to feel that the charity would lose its identity, and they are insisting on meeting with the charity’s employees to get their opinions.  I think it’s pretty obvious that most employees, being worried about job security, will oppose any merger.  Some of the trustees seem to be so emotionally wedded to the current identity of the charity that they are unable to see that there is a larger question: which is better: a charity that does things differently with a different identity or no charity at all?

The chief executive is struggling to keep the trustees from behaving like lemmings and diving, en mass, into the sea.  We want to keep the trustees moving toward a rational decision: talk to other charities about their views on a potential merger.  In the meetings that he and I have, we talk about the details of how to: instill a sense of urgency; keep things rational; obtain a decision, and often, in our discussions, I will suggest a tactic, or an approach that he hadn’t thought of.

So, I got to thinking about the similarities between a coach and a literary editor.  As you may know, I don’t have a literary editor, but I would really like to have one.  An editor would be someone who might say: “These couple of pages don’t really add anything to your theme.  Cut it down to one well-constructed paragraph” or “This character would be more interesting and would add emphasis to your theme if you exposed this trait in her character” or “This section here comes across as foggy; what are you trying to say?”

As it is, I have to rely on my own judgement, but like the chief executive, I may sometimes miss a crucial point or detail.  And, I’m sure my writing would benefit from having an editor.

My publisher doesn’t offer an editorial service.  There is a lady who reviews submissions and accepts or rejects them, as submitted, in their entirety.  Traditional publishers have assigned editors who read the entire manuscript carefully, and suggest changes before publication.

I realize that I could hire an editor to review my manuscript.  But apart from the fact that I, personally, would have to pay him/her, the editor wouldn’t be part of a publication team that knows the market and is working together to please readers and increase sales.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that I, too, would like to have a coach, and that I haven’t given up on the idea of working with a traditional publisher.

Reviews

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Reviews are very important to an author in two ways: they can provide valuable feedback to the author, and they can arouse the interest of other potential readers.  Reviews can also come to the attention of a prospective publisher.  It goes without saying that authors want favourable reviews, but, in my opinion it’s better to have an honest, unfavourable review than no review at all.  After all, one wants to learn and grow as an author.

There are two measures of the value of a review: credibility and expertise.  A review by, for example, the book editor of the New York Times is far more valuable than a review by your aunt Martha.  The trouble, from an author’s perspective, is that its pretty easy to get a review by Aunt Martha, and it’s very difficult to get one from the editor of the Times.

So, how are book reviews used?  The short answer is that they are used in a myriad of ways to market an author and his/her book.   They appear on the Amazon book web pages and on Goodreads.  They are on the back cover of the book, inside the front cover and bits of a review may appear on the front cover.  Reviews are featured in billboard and newspaper/magazine adverts, and on promotional materials in book shops.

How do I get my reviews?  There are several ways.  I have an old friend who reviews my books; I think she does a thorough and objective job.  I have used paid review services like BookReview.com, but their credibility is fairly low.  There are book bloggers who offer to review books – mostly for free.  At one point I must have trolled through fifty book blogger’s sites to find three that said my book sounded interesting, would I please send it?  I think all this resulted in one review.  I have given away books on Goodreads as a part of the contests they run.  Theoretically, the deal is that if you win a free book from an author, the winner is supposed to write a review.  I sent out ten books to the winners and received one review.  Perhaps people just like to have free stuff! There are spontaneous reviews that one tends to get from readers who have bought a book on Amazon.  These spontaneous ones can be interesting.  There was a one-star review who didn’t like my book at all because it ‘wasn’t credible’. (That was the complete review.)  There was one that looked like a third grade book report.  And, of course, there are insightful, semi-professional reviews.  I have a practice of not commenting on reviews, except – where appropriate – to say ‘thank you’.

Yesterday, I signed onto a webinar that was put on by the Independent Book Publishers Association.  It featured a spokesman from Foreword Reviews who explained how they chose books that they review.  Having a review on Foreword Reviews would be very helpful.  Their quarterly magazine reaches plenty of librarians, publishers and editors – as well as the general public.  From my point of view, it also has the advantage or specialising in indie (independently published) books.  Two problems, though: first, there has to be intense competition to be selected: the magazine is published four times a year, and there are well over a hundred thousand indie books coming out every year.  And second, one has to submit the book near the publication date, so if a book has been out more than six months, it is probably of little interest.

If any of my readers considers himself/herself to be a budding reviewer and would like to have a go at one of my books, please choose a title on my website (www.williampeace.net), send me an email (bill@williampeace.net) with your address, and I’ll send you a copy.