Looking for a Review? Read On!

paulcosca · Mar 20, 2013

Hello fellow novelists!

Now more than ever, your platform is incredibly important as you go to send out those manuscripts to agents and publishers. They want to see you getting your name out there. But that can be difficult, so let me lend a hand!

My name is Paul Cosca, I'm a novelist and playwright. I'm also an established reviewer (never a fan of "critic"). I wrote as a reviewer of theatre, television, and movies for myself and others while I lived in Chicago, and now I'm looking to move into book reviews. I'm looking to review books of all genres and types, all shapes and sizes. Whether your book is available at B&N or you've self published it to have your own copy, send it to me and I'll be happy to review it!

In doing so, you'll be able to build on your own platform as I build on mine. It's a win/win!

Please let me know if you have any questions. My email address is [removed by mod]

Now I have to get back to work. I'm down 700 words for the day!

JournoWriter · Mar 20, 2013

Hi, Paul,

What's your website?

Old Hack · Mar 21, 2013

Paul, I've removed your email address from your post: if you leave it up there you'll get deluged by spammers.

I suggest that anyone who would like to contact Paul send him a PM, but until we know where his review site is, proceed with caution.

Note that reviews by unknown bloggers writing on unknown blogs are of very limited value in promoting your books.

paulcosca · Mar 21, 2013

Old Hack,

That's a valid point.

Currently, I'm transitioning from my previous blog, www.coscascorner.com, which received about 12,000 hits in the last year and a half, to different blog on tumblr, www.paulcosca.tumblr.com because I like the format over there a little better. The new blog is still getting going, so there's not a deluge of visitors on it yet. But everything starts somewhere, and those who read the old blog will likely visit the new one during the transition.

Feel free to private message me with any questions you have. You can also find more info about me on my personal website, www.paulcosca.com

Thanks!

Old Hack · Mar 21, 2013

That visit-count is pretty low if you hope to help writers sell books on the basis of your reviews. My blog gets more than that a month, even though I've not blogged in a year.

Do you know how many of them are unique visitors, and not spiders or bots?

paulcosca · Mar 21, 2013

Honestly, I don't know for sure.

A review certainly isn't going to supercharge anyone's revenue. But the offer is there for those who are interested.

AnneGlynn · Mar 21, 2013

Every reviewer started somewhere and a small visitor count will usually grow larger over time. If you leave your reviews on site, even an old review can inspire a purchase weeks or months from now.

Since I am looking for reviews for my new story collection, I have a few questions for you. I'm not going to PM since I think my fellow writers might want to know, too.

*What genres interest you? What genres don't interest you at all?
*Where will you post your reviews? On your site alone or on Amazon, GoodReads, B&N, etc., too?
*Do you promote your reviews? On your site alone or on Facebook, Twitter, etc.?
*Will you read books in electronic form (cheap and easy to send over the 'net) or in print only?

Thanks!

paulcosca · Mar 22, 2013

I've got at least a moderate interest in all kinds of genres. For me, most of what makes a great thriller, romance, sci-fi, or even YA novel comes down to just the same couple of things: great writing and a compelling story. I will admit to a personal love of horror and fantasy, but I'm always interested in a well written piece, no matter where it comes from.

The reviews will be on my blog, but I'm happy to take a chunk of it and post a review onto Amazon or Goodreads or wherever else. If someone asks, I'm happy to post to whatever site the book is actually selling on.

I will definitely be sharing the reviews with my own Twitter and Facebook followers. And I would definitely recommend the author do the same!

Lastly, I am happy to read books in electronic form (though paperbacks are great too, whichever is most convenient). Make sure to send me the links if it's available both in e-book and paperback.

Any other questions, please feel free to let me know!

Old Hack · Mar 22, 2013

I'm not entirely sure but I think Amazon prefers you not to post reviews there that are available elsewhere. It's worth checking before you duplicate your reviews there, just in case.

veinglory · Mar 22, 2013

I generally rework and shorten reviews for amazon. A good amazon review is different from a good blog review. In any case, an excerpt isn't going to cause a problem.

paulcosca · Mar 22, 2013

They definitely don't want something that's just copy and pasted wholesale from some other source, so that's definitely not what would happen in that case.

merrihiatt · Mar 22, 2013

paulcosca said:
I will definitely be sharing the reviews with my own Twitter and Facebook followers. And I would definitely recommend the author do the same!

Any other questions, please feel free to let me know!

This makes it sound as if you will be writing only positive reviews. Is this accurate?

paulcosca · Mar 22, 2013

I'm not sure what I wrote to make it seem that way, but I do apologize for the confusion.

I write honest reviews. Nothing is ever perfectly great or perfectly terrible, so I always try to highlight both the positive and negative aspects of a piece. Personally, I think a reviewer is only as good as the integrity of the reviews. Certainly, if something is great, I will make sure that comes through in the review. But if a piece of writing really needs work, that will be reflected too.

Old Hack · Mar 22, 2013

I hope that's not the case, Merri. Reviews have to be honest and accurate if the reviewer is to have any sort of authenticity.

Admittedly, if reviewers are anything like as honest as I am, they'll also have hate-mail, but there you go. Being up-front has its price.

paulcosca · Mar 22, 2013

My favorite bit of hate mail came after reviewing a show that was absolutely abysmal. I've rarely been so very bored for so very long. And while I complimented some of the actors doing their best to wrestle with the material, I had no choice but to pan the show.

I got a couple of comments from an actor and director that I knew, who had nothing to do with the show. The level of vitriol from a guy who had no connection to the production was astounding, especially since actors I talked to who were in the show felt the same way about it that I did.

Can't please them all, I guess.

merrihiatt · Mar 22, 2013

paulcosca said:
I'm not sure what I wrote to make it seem that way, but I do apologize for the confusion.

I write honest reviews. Nothing is ever perfectly great or perfectly terrible, so I always try to highlight both the positive and negative aspects of a piece. Personally, I think a reviewer is only as good as the integrity of the reviews. Certainly, if something is great, I will make sure that comes through in the review. But if a piece of writing really needs work, that will be reflected too.

The part I quoted in my post was the part I was referring to, where you mentioned that authors should feel free to share the reviews on Facebook and Twitter. If a review was negative, I would guess that an author wouldn't want to share it. To me that implied (or inferred, I am always mixing those two up) that reviews would be positive and the author would want to share them.

I am glad to hear this is not the case.

paulcosca · Mar 23, 2013

They could always do it like bad movies do:
"The film...was...an amazing...experience" --Roger Ebert.

I'll admit to pulling a section from a mostly negative quote of one of my shows. But only once, and mostly out of spite.

PortableHal · Apr 19, 2013

paulcosca said:
My name is Paul Cosca, I'm a novelist and playwright. I'm also an established reviewer (never a fan of "critic"). I wrote as a reviewer of theatre, television, and movies for myself and others while I lived in Chicago, and now I'm looking to move into book reviews. I'm looking to review books of all genres and types, all shapes and sizes. Whether your book is available at B&N or you've self published it to have your own copy, send it to me and I'll be happy to review it!

I decided to take Paul up on his offer so I PM'ed him, asking if he'd review my novella, Frankenstein, P.I. His response was prompt and polite. In his reply, he asked if I was confident that my material was ready for review (an indication, to me, that he'd already seen some self-published work that wasn't quite good-to-go). At that time, I already had the story up for sale on Amazon.

He told me once he'd received my PDF but he made no promises in regards to his review. A couple of weeks later, he sent a short message saying that the review was up: http://paulcosca.tumblr.com/post/47729117884/review-frankenstein-p-i

Since his email didn't say much of anything else, I assumed he disliked the story. (Too much self-confidence is not one of my issues.) I was wrong. He not only liked the piece, he provided a better synopsis of the story than I do on Amazon.

My partner and I haven't seen a spike in sales but we didn't anticipate seeing one. If Paul continues to post reviews, his web traffic will likely increase and we may pick up the occasional reader. Even if we don't, we were so pleased to finally have some feedback on our work.

Antonio del Drago · Apr 28, 2013

Hi Paul,

I just checked out your blog, and am impressed with the quality of the reviews. I sent you a private message.

paulcosca · Apr 29, 2013

Tony,

Thank you for getting in touch. I've sent you a private message, and I look forward to reading your work!

wrombola · May 1, 2013

Paul just finished a review of a novel of mine. If you are concerned that he is only writing puff pieces, don't be, he wrote a generally negative review of mine so I think you can trust him to give his honest feedback.

MartinD · May 10, 2013

wrombola said:
Paul just finished a review of a novel of mine. If you are concerned that he is only writing puff pieces, don't be, he wrote a generally negative review of mine so I think you can trust him to give his honest feedback.

You impress me, wrombola. It's easy to tell your fellow writers that you've received a good review. It takes some serious stones to step up and tell others when the review wasn't so good.

Thanks.

wrombola · Jun 15, 2013

Humans naturally fear rejection, but if you can take the emotion out of the equation it all boils down to information. It's like hitting on better looking people, sure they will probably reject you, but in the process you may learn something that will help you the next time.

EnnisP · Aug 4, 2013

I actually researched this and from what I found Amazon reviews can be placed on the website belonging to the review author and additional websites as long as correct attribution is made.

But to be sure, I've sent Amazon a question asking specifically if one author can post a review of one product on both Amazon and the author's website.

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