I'm a midlist author feeling a bit rejected and dejected

Harlequin said:

There seems to be a strong stigma or cultural taboo (almost) of writers reviewing other writers, unless it's positive and/or on the cover of a book. I like doing reviews, and I'm not published so not an issue for me, but I did wonder about how that works for published people.

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FWIW I don't write book reviews, but that's a choice I made long before I published. I've done some "I read this book and liked it" things for blogs here and there, but that was more a case of choosing to discuss a book I liked rather than going in and reviewing something for other readers.

If it's a book I love, I don't want to review it because then all the other people I'm not reviewing will think I don't love theirs as much. If it's a book I didn't like - I'm all too aware of the work behind it, and that the author might be very attached to it. They don't need me piling on.

I'd probably make an exception if it was a book I thought was either genuinely transcendent or damagingly awful, and even then I'd only write a review if nobody else had pointed out the features I wanted to highlight.

I've also heard that Amazon has been known to remove reviews by authors, because of some theory that you're undermining your competition or something of that sort. Which isn't a reason not to ever write them, but still.

Not at all--I wondered if that was what people had to do, so it's interesting to see that is the case.

I'm not an author, indie or otherwise, but in the indie groups there's this kind of mentality for a lot of people that reviews are somethign you do to support your writer mates (whether you're personal friends or no); that bad reviews are probably all trolls and leaving a negative therefore makes you a troll by default. Most such writers don't seem to leave many reviews unless it's an act of support.

But it can't be the case that all writers do that. At some level, people who write are people who read, and presumably they have opinions on those books, no doubt more strongly than many.


Liz--that's fair enough! Review is maybe the wrong word; I like to read and occasionally jot down a little bit of deconstruction.

Norms may be changing, but it still seems pretty standard for writers to review other writers in pro venues like the NYT Book Review, as long as there’s no direct conflict of interest. Those reviews tend to be very polite, even when they’re negative, but the occasional writer-reviewer can still be brutal. I have written negative reviews in the paper, but I try to make them balanced and consider who might be the ideal target audience for this book. I don’t “trash” anything.

On GR, I stick to reviewing books I have good feelings about. My biggest priority isn’t to praise books to the skies, though, but to guide readers to them with analysis, like “If you enjoy X and Y, you might like this.” To me, that stuff is way more important than the rating, which is why when I read reviews to get a sense of a book, I gravitate to the three-star ones. I feel like there’s always a place for analysis, and reviews shouldn’t have to be weapons or promotional tools, but that may be naive of me.

Harlequin said:

Liz--that's fair enough! Review is maybe the wrong word; I like to read and occasionally jot down a little bit of deconstruction.

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TBF, my own policy is my own personal quirk. I don't expect others to feel the same way about it. Reviewing books in general is a good idea.

I'm more tuned in to indie authors on Twitter, and there does seem to be a strong culture of asking for reviews there. I do know that you have to get a certain number of reviews to get "noticed" on Amazon, and I suspect that's behind a lot of it.

I paint a lot. I write good poetry. I write excellent and thoughtful short stories. And, do you know what? I get panned for all of them. Ouch! and yet again Ouch!
I got very famous once as an artist - in Spain. My works were, for three months, flying off the front of the best art gallery.
Then I painted a picture with a woman walking along, with her skirt swishing in the wind! I did it from life too. A lovely white skirt. I proudly took it in. "Can't you paint better than that? Paint her out and put something neat in there."
I left. Now I paint for myself. I get the same critique, freely given, by people who wouldn't know a Rembrandt from a Renoir. But - hey - I get the pleasure out of doing it!
The same goes for my writing and my poems too.
That is all there is.

Dennis E. Taylor said:

Depends on your goals. You could start by more specifically defining what you would consider 'success'. Otherwise by default you have an 'I want it all' goal, with a moving goalpost that you never reach. If you define a goal, you can say "I did that" and then define a new goal. From a practical point of view, it doesn't make any difference, but emotionally it's much more satisfying.

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I completely agree with the above, but I know how you feel, believe me, and I hope you read the below ramble.

On my book's first release, I invested so much money into a fancy-shmancy custom cover, promotion, you name it, and that was after being turned down by numerous agents and deciding to go self-pub.

I would see books sell and get more reviews than me, and I would think to myself "How the HELL is this happening? I played by the rules, did this, that and the other thing, and yet this person who did a sloppy job formatting, or even telling a story, is selling more than I am!"

Whether I was cocky or had a point, I don't know. I think it was the former mostly, but either way, my frustrations were real.

You're not alone as you can tell by everyone's response. You're surrounded by fellow writers who get your frustration. The dream is to be able to quit our day job and do what we love to do for a living. To be able to get that movie deal, have our fantasies about who would be casted as who be realized, to do signings, all of that.

It doesn't have to be a dream by any means, but really ask yourself, why are you writing?

I recently rewrote my first serious project with a cheaper cover and less money spent on advertising. I haven't sold many copies, or gotten as many reviews as before yet, but I'm happier because I decided to say to heck with it all and just tell the story I want to tell, whether it has 1 or 100 people that will read it. Why? Because it's a story I need to tell as a writer.

Again, I checked the competition on Amazon, and some of the books with epic covers and more reviews than my project had POOR editing and barely understandable stories. I started with "How the..." then stopped myself. I'm writing for me but sharing it with others, and money made is someone showing appreciation for what I had to say. That's it.

I'm sorry if I sound preachy, I just want you to be happy with what you have. Private message me anytime if you need to vent.

I'm a bit late to this discussion but I do understand the feeling of not getting as much of a response as you wanted to. My first book had a nice reception, with some very positive reviews and very sweet messages sent to me by people who read it and wanted to respond positively. My second has had relatively little response, with trade papers who liked the first one not even reviewing the second, which felt like a bit of a snub.

I do what I can to publicize the books but there's a lot of people shouting very loudly in these spaces and often reaching the actual audience you're aiming for, rather than other writers like yourself, is tough.

But there's also a lot of 'the grass is always greener' here. I'm incredibly grateful to have gotten as far as I have, and probably if I were Philip Pullman I'd still have a little twinge of disappointment I wasn't JK Rowling. If I were JK Rowling I'd envy Tolkien. Dickens. Shakespeare. There's always another level of success.

Sometimes things build slowly. Only small literary circles knew who Wilfred Owen was until his work was used in Britten's War Requiem. Game of Thrones was relatively little-known until the TV adaptation. A couple of recent anime movies here in Japan have brought back half-forgotten English stories like When Marnie Was There and Mary and the Witch's Flower. You never know what can give a series a boost!

I can relate very well to this thread. Seems like I have to find a different publisher for each one of my novels. I'm getting better and better ones, but it's getting harder and harder and OMG, why am I even doing this anymore harder. I had an agent for my 3rd book, but that deal fell through when the only publisher that was interested, didn't pay an advance. So I went with the publisher, and parted ways with the agent. Book 3 was only an ebook and only sold 6 copies! I couldn't believe it. I had a 2nd agent for book 4 and 5 that did absolute shit for the first 6 months I was with her, so I terminated that and moved on. I sold my 4th book 9 months later. I wanted to sell my 5th and 6th novel to them, but they weren't interested enough because of poor sales on book 4.

Kept searching for an agent, then started submitting to publishers. And ultimately sold my 5th on my own too. Now it's a wait and see game and it's killing me because I have 4 other novels after this, and writing a 5th one (barely) and I'm really concerned as to where my writing journey will go.

I have a lot of fear that I'll stop because it just gets harder. But I'm just gonna keep going until then. Keep promoting my work. And it is true when you put out another book, readers will in fact go to your older books. Maybe not a ton, but a few here and there.

And I still love to write. It helps me with my mind and I'll always need it in my life.

Did we ever find out who the author was? Without knowing what the books were it's difficult to know what advice to give other than to try and market yourself. Partly this seems unfair, but it's also a second chance, and if you already have a full series of books out there that need love then you may as well spend your time on that.

Social media advertising isn't nearly as difficult or expensive as people think it is and it might be a way to reach a new audience.

Undercover said:

I can relate very well to this thread. Seems like I have to find a different publisher for each one of my novels. I'm getting better and better ones, but it's getting harder and harder and OMG, why am I even doing this anymore harder. I had an agent for my 3rd book, but that deal fell through when the only publisher that was interested, didn't pay an advance. So I went with the publisher, and parted ways with the agent. Book 3 was only an ebook and only sold 6 copies! I couldn't believe it. I had a 2nd agent for book 4 and 5 that did absolute shit for the first 6 months I was with her, so I terminated that and moved on. I sold my 4th book 9 months later. I wanted to sell my 5th and 6th novel to them, but they weren't interested enough because of poor sales on book 4.

Kept searching for an agent, then started submitting to publishers. And ultimately sold my 5th on my own too. Now it's a wait and see game and it's killing me because I have 4 other novels after this, and writing a 5th one (barely) and I'm really concerned as to where my writing journey will go.

I have a lot of fear that I'll stop because it just gets harder. But I'm just gonna keep going until then. Keep promoting my work. And it is true when you put out another book, readers will in fact go to your older books. Maybe not a ton, but a few here and there.

And I still love to write. It helps me with my mind and I'll always need it in my life.

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That's awful I'm really sorry. I can't see anything wrong with your writing having looked at Fix, on Amazon.

Outertrial said:

That's awful I'm really sorry. I can't see anything wrong with your writing having looked at Fix, on Amazon.

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Every book is different. Something to think about. If one book doesn't work out, maybe the next one will.

Undercover said:

Every book is different. Something to think about. If one book doesn't work out, maybe the next one will.

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Good point! Plus, well, we're in a very, very, very competitive field. With so many books published every year, a lot (most?) will get lost in the shuffle. Only a tiny number (obviously) will hit lists. Some may take a long, sinuous route to find their audience, and it helps if the author continues to publish.

I was lucky enough to get some positive notice for my book — including an honor from booksellers, which I value more than anything. My downfall (and that of many writers, I think) is the compulsion to compare myself with others who made bigger splashes. Working on that.

Remember how you felt when you signed your first book contract? How about the first time you saw the cover art? Or the first time you held a hard copy in your hands? What about the first book you signed?

Those moments happened. They were real. You DID IT!

I completely understand how you feel. I published a YA novel with a small press and watched while it got great reviews and no sales, along with very little buzz or marketing despite my efforts. And I can't seem to get anyone interested in the three novels I've completed since then. But I try to think back to how I felt when the steps toward publishing my book were all new and anything was possible. That's partly how I cope with rejection these days.

Hang in there!