I work in publishing. I know how difficult it is to get published. I know it's even more difficult to actually sell significant copies of your book if you do get published. With more than 250,000 new titles being released every year (in the U.S. alone), standing out from the crowd is no easy task. That's partly why I have made no real attempt to write my own. That, and my friend Emily never set a time for me to work on it. (You'll recall I require external motivation.)Right now I find myself in the interesting--and new--position of being asked to review someone's book. Not someone who is publishing with us (Judson Press). Not a friend. Not even a no-name author self-publishing his literary masterpiece. I have been sent an advance reader copy of a Christian fiction book from FaithWords, the Christian imprint of Hachette Book Group USA, a major U.S. publisher. The author is a blogger whose posts I really enjoy. This will be his second book. His first, also Christian fiction, did very well.
Frankly, I was a little surprised to receive a review copy of his upcoming book. I did offer to participate in his blog tour, but figured with a blog titled "Freakin' Angels" and my let-it-all hang-out content, a Christian writer might stay away from a not-always-appropriate Christian like me. But they're gutsy at those big NYC publishing houses, so I received the book with a letter asking me for a review.
I have now spent a couple weeks reading this book and I'm about one-third of the way into it. And I don't love it. But I don't hate it either. Frankly, I don't care about it, and the opposite of love isn't hate but indifference. When your writing doesn't move readers in some way, they're not going to discuss it with others and word of mouth is the very best way to sell books.
I am frustrated and disappointed in this, my first book review experience. Here's an author whose blog posts never fail to inspire me and engage me emotionally and spiritually. But his book has left me cold. I don't particularly care for the characters. The writing is pretty average. The setting in no way appeals to me. It appears that his blog writing skills don't translate into equally compelling fiction.
Right now I'm sure some kind, considerate, and less critical soul is saying, "Maybe it's just not your style." "Maybe you're not the target audience." "Do you even like Christian fiction as a genre?" "Perhaps you'll like this book by the end so you shouldn't judge it so harshly now." Those are all legitimate points.
- Write an honest and objective review, highlighting the good, noting the weaknesses, acknowledging my biases?
- Write a positive review only focusing on what was good about the book and who it will appeal to?
- Not write a review at all?
Note: I purposely have not shared the name of the author or the title of the book. I want to first decide if I'm willing to be public about my feelings for it.
1 comment:
A real dilemma there Kim. The way i see it: If the publisher was willing to give you the opportunity to review the book then I think you owe it to yourself and the writer to be as open and honest about it.
I'd suggest you put in your review some of the things that would have made the story more interesting to you (like the characters and the setting).
I've written a lot of songs and have sent them in for "professional" reviews for publishing. Ones that I KNEW were #1 songs if I could just get them into the right hands.
Quite often though I'd get back scathing reviews of things I should have done to make them more interesting. In the beginning, it used to upset me.
But looking back, I'm glad I received those reviews as they helped me to look inside myself to become a better writer.
Everyone would love to have their works be 100% perfect and loved by all. But the truth is for every person that loves it, there will be at least two who don't. Seems you found yourself as part of the latter and your review should reflect that.
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