Online reviews have changed the entire retail and service landscape. You can look up nearly anything: a product, a service, and immediately see what people thought of it. Churches. Doctors. Historic sites. Everything is subject to being rated. People have had opinions about books since the form existed. But for a long time, these opinions…
Tag: book reviews
I Quit Writing: A Day in the Life of a Book Release
In less than a month (June 8th to be precise), I will have another book in the world. I am, or maybe I was, very proud of A SHOT OF MURDER: A LUCKY WHISKEY MYSTERY—until a week ago, when I received a one-star review. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve gotten plenty of one-star reviews…
The Gifts of Writing
Everything in the city was clammy, doorknobs and train handrails slick with other people’s sweat, the air heavy with the smell of yesterday’s lunch. If that isn’t enough from page one of Sara Novic’s debut novel, Girl at War, perhaps sentences from page two will prick your writer self: We took cold showers and walked…
Random Thoughts
1. In the latest review on Amazon for The Asphalt Warrior, the first book in the eight-book series by the late Gary Reilly, a reader wrote: “Writers, good ones, create their readers. And this book does that.” Do good writers “create their own readers?” I love that idea. Are you going after your readers? Or…
Colorado Calling
I believe Colorado crime fiction is having a moment. The writers? That’s not what I mean. I’m talking about the dramatic setting. I mean, right now. In August, it was the release of Erik Storey’s Nothing Short of Dying. This month, it’s Kevin Wolf’s The Homeplace. (Today as a matter of fact; Sept. 6 is…