Hoping for Kindle reviews on amazon. Book is free for next 5 days!

[retropaw]

EDIT: THANKS FOR ALL THE COMMENTS AND ADVICE ON Black Book.

Thank you very much for your time. I will take on board all suggestions and improve the download. I will also know better how to prepare with part 2, so thanks everyone for your valuable time,

Dylan

[WillSauger]

Retro, I'm just breezing through and just saying: All mistakes should be fixed before the book is published.
Publishing is putting out a finished product that should be worth what you are charging. There is no excuse for having a fault in a finished product.

Reading just the sample, I see very glaring errors and simple chunkiness that makes it hard to read.

[retropaw]

Originally Posted by WillSauger

Retro, I'm just breezing through and just saying: All mistakes should be fixed before the book is published.
Publishing is putting out a finished product that should be worth what you are charging. There is no excuse for having a fault in a finished product.

Reading just the sample, I see very glaring errors and simple chunkiness that makes it hard to read.

The sample's formatting is difficult to get right across all formats (kindles,kindle fire,iphones,ipods,ipads, amazon web sample)

I've made it work for Kindle, Kindle Fire. Will try and improve it for all. Please can you let me know where the glaring errors are? I have gone over and over and over it.
Thanks

[Fallen]

Originally Posted by retropaw

Please can you let me know where the glaring errors are? I have gone over and over and over it.
Thanks

Homonym confusion (its v it's), vocatives not marked ("wouldn't you say[,] chief") etc

[Old Hack]

Originally Posted by retropaw

If you spot any glaring mistakes or annoyances in formatting, please, please let me know here rather than in a review on Amazon so that I can fix it.

I clicked the "look inside" feature and read to the end of that sample.

Every paragraph I saw there contained errors.

If our other members want to edit your book for you for free then that's up to them, but I'm not going to. It seems more than a little bit cheeky of you to ask us to help you out for nothing when you expect to eventually earn money by publishing this story.

And it seems even cheekier of you to publish the work before making sure that it's error-free. You're providing everyone who downloads or buys it with work you know is substandard, and that's not appropriate.


ETA: The errors I saw had nothing to do with the formatting of your work. The problems were all in your writing.

[aibrean]

BTW, just to be technically correct - if the guy is a sheriff, there is no way he'd call what was in his pocket "bullets", as the bullet is only the tip that is the projectile. It would either be a round or a cartridge.

[J. Tanner]

When I saw your post I sort of knew you'd be taking a bit of flak for it and sure enough. If you think about it for a bit you'll understand why it's sort of bad form to ask. We're all writers here and what if we were all doing this? Chalk it up as a learning experience. (I'll hazard a guess you're new to both writing and self-publishing.)

So, I won't be reviewing this because I don't write Amazon reviews of my peers. It doesn't seem appropriate as I'd want to be transparent and honest about something I don't care for and I also don't want to hurt a fellow writers chances nor generate potential "revenge" reviews. It's not possible to do all that, so I don't review at all on Amazon. (And it's probably for the best as I enjoy the average movie more than the average book and my Nexflix average rating is like 2 stars. Netflix thinks I hate movies and won't recommend stuff to me. :P ) What I do do is if I come across something I like, I recommend it on my blog, with links, but I don't take solicited requests to read anything.

Anyway, if you're after reviews (aren't we all!), Select givaways can work, but you just need to wait it out from average readers and see what comes.

Another thing you can do is use Library Thing which allows you to give away books to willing readers and request a review. The rate there seems to be anecdotally about 5%-10% followthrough which is a lot higher than Select givaways where it's more like .1% (note the point.) Note that Library Thing readers can be a tough crowd so you shouldn't be expecting to land a bunch of 5-star raves. Some do, but it's atypical.

EDIT: Just remembered another place that's pretty sure to result in a review. Short Fiction Spotlight should accept serials for review. Their primary reviewer, Jason, is quite fair and open to all genres. Raves, again, are rare but he will cross post to Amazon at your request.

And while writers won't tend to be too helpful in reviewing post publication they can be very helpful with offering assistance with your writing to make the the best it can be before you publish it. See the Share Your Work section here as one example.

By the way, I really like the cover. I could do without the red text on black for the tag-line, but beyond that, very nice.

Originally Posted by aibrean

BTW, just to be technically correct - if the guy is a sheriff, there is no way he'd call what was in his pocket "bullets", as the bullet is only the tip that is the projectile. It would either be a round or a cartridge.

Given the blurb, it appears the character is a man out of time, and so he shouldn't be using proper (or would it be stereotypical?) language for the time and place. My initial though was the opposite, that he used too much cowboy talk for a time traveler.

[aibrean]

Originally Posted by J. Tanner

Given the blurb, it appears the character is a man out of time, and so he shouldn't be using proper (or would it be stereotypical?) language for the time and place. My initial though was the opposite, that he used too much cowboy talk for a time traveler.

From what I gathered, he is from the future and is stuck in the old wild west. Regardless, it would get a lot of ridicule from serious gun owners. Now, firing bullets or spraying bullets, that's correct.

[MmeGuillotine]

The book doesn't sound like my cup of tea at all so out of fairness I think I'll pass plus I don't leave reviews on Amazon (mainly because I'm confused about their Writers Leaving Reviews For Writers policy and don't want to spend ages angsting over something that's just going to get deleted!) but I'd just like to say that I LOVE your cover.

[veinglory]

You also have an Old West pistol (Victorian era roughly? No?) fire three times and a few seconds. I think not.

If the MC is in any way not from this time and with its tech, your text needs to show this. Otherwise these things read as simple errors. Even if MC is out of time, the man who did the magical shooting was not--so he should not have know to expect that performance from the gun.

[retropaw]

Thanks everyone. Great feedback as always. Thanks for taking so much time to respond. Especially Mr Tanner with such a full response. (Tips hat toward Mr Tanner)

I'm learning. I'll get there.

Over and out.

PS any ideas why this was moved from e-publishing to self-publishing? I don't mind, just seems strange. Kindle. e?

[Spell-it-out]

Hi Retro,

I know you waved goodbye to this thread, but as I spent some time reading part 1 I'll give my opinion.

Firstly, the actual story is alright. Ignoring the errors, I found myself interested in reading more.

But, at the start of "Chaos", when the sheriff was hit in the face with the gun, why was everyone so threatening to him if he is The Law. I understand the Ox's reaction, but the barman?

A few fights scenes reminded me of Sherlock Holmes movies, where he premeditates the exact actions before he does them. It works...just about. I would not like it if every fight scene was like that. The scene where Jack attacks Ox, while describing what he thinks, what Ox thinks, what might happen, what will happen......and so on. If Jack did less thinking and more doing, he'd be outa the way in no time Sorry to be blunt about it.

As others pointed out, there were problems with grammar, etc, I'll stay out of that.

You change in and out of scene's very quickly and some times without any connection. You could have made the connection from puking after the Devil, to pig dying a little stronger. For the first few lines about your uncles farm, I didn't know where this sudden turn had come from.
Oh, also, re-word bit about pig drinking blood, I had to read it three times to understand that 'your' uncle wasn't the one drinking. (I think that is called a dangling modifier or something like it...someone here may jump in and help)

I won't repeat what others have said about making it as good as you can before publishing - I agree with everything that has been said.

On a positive note, the story was decent. Oh, except for all the needless killing. I know you want to paint a picture, but some were over the top IMO.

I would like to see a revised edition in the future. As of now, I'm not putting a review on Amazon.

Best of luck with this.

[christwriter]

Well, I can add to the chorus of "make sure you fix everything before it's posted." Find yourself a good beta reader and USE them. I use my Mom, not because she's my mom but because proofreading is a part of her day job and she's good at it. You need somebody on that level.

I'd also polish up the formatting just a little bit. Those indents are HUGE.

You've got a good voice, though. Just...don't talk directly to the reader (Ie "Note the capital D, folks") With first-person perspective, you're straddling the fourth wall already, but breaking it is still a no-no.

All that said, I'd be really interested in knowing how well the pricing works for you once the free days are up. The only 1.99 book I've been able to move is the sequel to my bestseller.

[veinglory]

I also thought the uncle was drinking the blood until I re-read it. Then I thought it was a very evocative image.

[retropaw]

Thanks again to the new feedback, I'll be taking a long look at it and will re-submit asap.

I was quite surprised to see that it's now No.1 In the Westerns section.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bestsellers-...ext/362294031/

Imagine that. Thanks again.

[J. Tanner]

Hey, nice. You're doing well in the US store as well, #17. That sharp cover is likely a real draw.

I see also that you got a review on UK, but someone has already commented that it looks suspicious (and to my eye, it has all the red flags so I can understand the concern even if it's incorrect.) Please tell us you haven't engaged in writing a disguised review yourself, or getting a family member to post up something on your behalf. I'm not accusing you or anything, but just in case, you should know that such tactics have ended VERY badly for a number of writers.

[retropaw]

Originally Posted by J. Tanner

Hey, nice. You're doing well in the US store as well, #17. That sharp cover is likely a real draw.

I see also that you got a review on UK, but someone has already commented that it looks suspicious (and to my eye, it has all the red flags so I can understand the concern even if it's incorrect.) Please tell us you haven't engaged in writing a disguised review yourself, or getting a family member to post up something on your behalf. I'm not accusing you or anything, but just in case, you should know that such tactics have ended VERY badly for a number of writers.

Thanks! I thought the review looked suspicious myself! No one enjoys a story that much, right? I did ask most of my friends to download the story to see what they thought, and it could be one of them, trying to be nice, but I haven't asked anyone to write anything on my behalf.

[frimble3]

On the other hand, the one on the Amazon.com is equally appealing, and much more normal.

[BAY]

I think westerns have great appeal. Fans are always eager and the cover delivers the genre to people scrolling along.

I think you made the most of the description by keeping it sparse but catchy.

[kaitie]

I'm a little uncomfortable that you ask us to review it, then ask us not to say negative things on the review, but to tell them to you instead. It sounds like you're asking people to leave positive reviews only.

I agree with others who say you need to have this polished and perfect before it's published. Especially because we're not the only ones out there, and even if we complied, the rest of the people out there won't. The last thing you want is comments of bad editing/writing on a review. Your piece is short. Try to find some beta readers before you toss it out who can help you if you can't afford editing.

[retropaw]

Thanks for all the advice. I'm currently working on making it as good as it can be, and taking onboard all your comments ro improve this and my future writing. Thanks everyone.