Reviews?

So, your book has come out. The publisher has sent it out to be reviewed. Now you wait...and wait...and wait..for one, just one. Hopefully more but one is better than nothing right?

What do you put more stock in? Review site reviews or the ones on Goodreads, Fictionwise, ARE and Amazon? At least with review sites you get verbage with the stars (or whatever they use) but with places like Fictionwise and ARE are only scores. Makes you wonder when there is a low score...why?

Not every review site will post bad reviews. Some only post the good ones. HOWEVER, there are those that post it all. Good, bad and ugly. Are these better sites because of their honesty? Or would you rather not get a review at all if it is going to be a bad one?

I am on the fence. Of course I want reviewers and readers alike to think that my book is the best thing they have ever read...but if they don't I would like constructive crit along with the not so great marks.

Is that too much to ask?

Contests?

Do they really work? I see authors who promo and run contests all the time, what I want to know is how much does it help? Does it really generate sales? Substantial sales?

What about places like Author Island that charge, what I feel in a big chunk of change for us no-money-making e-authors, for their services?

As a reader, places like that rock making it easy to find LOTS of contests to enter in one location but do they really help the little guy enough to offset the cost?

Piracy

Touchy subject, yes? As authors there is nothing worse than knowing that your "baby" is out there being passed around like a hooker at a frat party to anyone who wants her. I have learned that most of the "sharing" sites are out of the US and there really isn't much that can be done to have them take down the material that is in CLEAR violation of the copyright. Sucks but true.

As readers I have heard so many crap line that it makes me sick. One man said something along the lines of..."authors are just bitching because now they can't buy that second house in the Bahamas" ROFLMAO!!! I don't know about you but the first royalty check I got wasn't even enough to fill my car up with gas.

Don't get me wrong, I love writing and plan on continuing to do so, but I know so many other e-published authors just like me. They don't roll in the dough. Barely make enough to scratch by in this economy and then to have someone steal it?

Another woman said that Piracy is no big deal so I posed the question, "What would you do if you were standing in line at the grocery store, waiting to pay for the dinner that you were going to feed your family that night and a total stranger walked up, reached in your purse, took the $ you had in it and walked off?" Her response was that it wasn't the same thing.

I BEG TO DIFFER!!!! I have kids! They depend on me! THIS IS MY JOB!!! and YOU, the pirate, are stealing, literally, the food from my kids mouths!! The gifts from under the tree at Christmas!! DAMN YOU MR GRINCH!!! Have you no shame?

What did my kids ever do to you?

The answer...nothing. And you don't care. Why? Because to you, my kids and I are nobody. You don't know me, you don't live in my life or pay my bills or see the looks on my kids face when the tree only has a few gifts under it on Christmas morning. If you could see that, you would think twice. Do you really want to hurt the kids? Is it really your goal in life to make children unhappy or sad? If you say Yes, then I feel sorry for you.

remember, Piracy of movies or books is illegal. It isn't just some stranger you are hurting, but all those around them who you don't know, and don't care about, but for all you know you are stealing a book written by a single mother who needs that royalty check to put gas in her car to take her special needs child to the doctor. or to put presents under the tree. or for their next meal.

How does that make you feel?