But, y'know, us authors are never satisfied. That's why we keep writing. There's always another, better, book to be written. And there are always more reviews to seek.
I was fortunate to receive a particularly good print review in The Soldier magazine (trade journal of the British Army) who gave the book five stars and chose it as 'Book of the Month' for November. But the silence from the book pages elsewhere has been deafening... if not entirely surprising.
Book reviews in the national press are hard to get, especially for relative unknowns (like what I am). But reviews from readers on Goodreads, Amazon and the like are thankfully not as scarce. And neither, I'm very pleased to say, are direct emails (through my website) from readers telling me (in almost all cases) how much they've enjoyed the book.
Now I know it's asking a lot, but... if only all these lovely emails could be converted to Amazon reviews. Here's what a difference they could make...
And here's how easy they are to do. First (assuming you're logged in to Amazon) go to the product page and click the book. Scroll down to the 'Customer Reviews' and you'll see a 'Review this product' heading under which is a button 'Write a customer review'.
Click this button and it takes you here...
After that you can add your star rating (*ahem* five, perhaps?), a headline for the review, and then the review itself. Click 'submit' and this will appear...
After which, if you're lucky (Amazon do reserve the right to withhold or remove reviews, especially one's they suspect have been paid for) you'll receive a message like this...
And, contrary to popular belief, you don't have to have bought the book on Amazon. This one - Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin - was picked up for £1 in a charity shop. (I know, I know, that means my poor fellow author doesn't make a dime, but - hey! - he's richer and more famous than I am. I'm sure he won't mind. Especially as I left a five-star rating for him!)
