I’ve learned a lot this week:

1. Family and friends who willingly traipse out to a book launch at 7:00 on a Wednesday evening can never, ever be appreciated enough. Their love and support is also the reason you were able to write a book in the first place.
2. When people you don’t know come to your book launch, it allows you to believe that maybe the book will find an audience after all.
3. Googling yourself every hour or so does not mean that new and wonderful search results will appear.
4. No matter how many times you check Amazon, you will never understand the sales rankings.
5. The second thing you want to say to people you meet is, “Will you please leave a good review for me on Amazon?”
6. Some reviews are more about the reviewer than about the book itself.
7. Even though the book is published, finished, a done deal… you will still find things you want to edit.
8. Once the book has been released, there are even MORE ways to procrastinate over writing the new one.
9. You never knew there were so many blogs out there dedicated to reading.
10. It’s hard to get anything done when your fingers are crossed.
11. You will take a deep breath, step away, and resolve to totally let go of this novel. You will do this again and again and again.

Clearly, I need to regain some perspective, here. And I will. I promise I will.

Right after I google myself again.

But, wait. What’s that other piece of music I hear swelling in the background? (And, believe me, this song always swells.) It’s “Time to Say Goodbye,” that 1996 European hit sung as a duet by Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli. It’s sappy as anything … and totally appropriate because, yeah, as I watch Newport go public, I realize that it’s time to say goodbye to these characters I’ve lived with for so long. I’m going to miss them.

Most authors know much more about their characters than they share in their writing. I usually know everything about mine, from their childhood fears to how they take their coffee (if they take it at all). Because I “see” and “hear” them as I write, I am aware of their facial expressions, gestures, and the timbre of their voices. Best of all, it never feels like I create these people, but rather that they reveal themselves to me as we continue along our mutual path. This means that I’m always learning fresh information about them, and our relationship never feels stale.

It’s very hard to let go.

For a while after I begin a new novel, I feel unfaithful to the old gang as I turn toward a new one. The new characters aren’t instantly thrilled with me, either. We have a stiff relationship at first. It takes time for us to trust one another. But I know that soon we’ll become familiar enough with each other that they’ll start spilling their secrets, and I’ll be off on another adventure. After all, Newport‘s characters were once strangers to me, too.

In addition to missing these characters, I worry about how the world will treat them. I wrote Newport because I wanted to share their stories. Some readers will like the book, some not so much. No author can please every reader. But it can be a roller-coaster ride, and I hope my characters don’t get too beaten up out on their own. Like any parent watching a child achieve independence, I want others to treat my “babies” kindly.

So, I hope you’ll allow Newport to temporarily transport you into another world. I hope you’ll leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads. And, as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. (My contact info can be found here on this website.) But, mostly, I hope that I’ve done justice to my characters, and that you’ll be able to see beneath their surfaces and flaws to understand why they act the way they do and who they really are. I want you to get to know them the way I did because, ultimately, Newport is their story. I’m honored that they allowed me to tell it.

Goodbye, Newport friends.

And hello to my new confidantes.

1. love, love, love it;
2. can’t imagine how anyone on earth could love, love, love it;
3. think the author needs serious help.

You want to review this book online because

1. everyone should read it – it’s THAT good;
2. nobody should read it – no person’s karma can be THAT bad;
3. the author needs serious help.

My last blog post talked about how influential customer reviews can be. But if I had a chance to review the reviews, I’d say that some are better than others, and that it has little to do with whether or not the reviewer liked the book.

Here’s my subjective list of a few approaches to avoid when writing an online book review:

“This book was boring.” Details would help. Why didn’t this book suit you? Sometimes the type of book one reader finds dull is exactly the sort another reader enjoys.

“I liked the story, but I gave the book one star because it is morally offensive.” Different issues offend different readers. In this case, it’s helpful to be honest about your own sensibilities right up front: “The fact that the characters swore made me uncomfortable because I don’t believe in taking the Lord’s name in vain.” In a world where a low rating can hurt sales, try not to give a competent novel an overall poor review on the sole basis that parts of it did not jibe with your personal beliefs.

“I liked this book right up until (MAJOR PLOT POINT REVEAL THAT MAKES IT TOTALLY UNNECESSARY TO READ THE BOOK).” Please. I’m crying, here. Please, please don’t give away plot twists that authors took hours and hours to create, plot twists we hoped would raise the story to the next level, plot twists that …please don’t.

“The characters in this book were written by someone with an emotional IQ of three.” Try to remember that a real person wrote this book. Please don’t be mean. Okay, maybe the author DOES have an emotional IQ of three, but can you think of a more constructive way to get your point across, something less personal and more related to the book itself?

“This book was just a beach read, not up to my usual literary standards at all.” Please try to remember that the review is about the book, not how erudite the reader is.

So, what’s a reviewer to do? Glad you asked.

In my opinion, the best – and most credible – book reviews allow readers to draw their own conclusions about whether or not a particular title is for them. The reviewer does this by focusing on the book itself: did the plot keep you turning pages? Were the characters interesting? If something didn’t work for you in the story, why didn’t it? Would this novel appeal to a certain kind of reader? Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

It’s interesting to note that positive reviews come with their own pitfalls. There are readers who doubt the validity of every five-star review, suspecting that they’ve been written by relatives of the author, friends, or paid services (oh, yes they do). I have friends who distrust all positive reviews these days. They prefer to choose their books based on bad reviews, figuring that at least those reviews will be honest. And, as mentioned earlier, one person’s poison can be another’s feast.

So, however you feel about that book you plan to review, remember that the power is yours … wield it wisely.

And keep reading.

Flash-forward a few years. Drop in on any Amazon book page and scroll down to the reviews. You’ll still see snippets from trade publications, newspapers, magazines, and published authors. But if you keep scrolling, you’ll find yourself face-to-face with a true internet creation: the customer review.

Almost everything is reviewed online these days, from applesauce to zithers. So, it should come as no surprise that readers are more than willing to publicize what they think about the book they just finished reading. But what may surprise you is just how important these user reviews can be. Some of it is obvious. Clearly, a book with many reviews sends the subliminal message that this is a title to take seriously: after all, look how many people wanted to read it! But, of course, it’s more than that. Nobody wants to waste their time or money on a book that has gathered a slew of one- and two-star reviews. So, not only does an author feel the awful pressure to gather armloads of reviews, there’s also the awkward, scary reality that those reviews need to be good.

Internet reviews and ratings often supplant the “word of mouth” book buzz that readers once found via publication reviews and libraries. They give bookstores, editors, and potential readers an idea of how well a book is being received by the public, often influencing sales and promotion attempts. They make authors quake. (Would you believe me if I told you that every time someone leaves a one-star review, an author keels over? No?)

Most authors I know recognize the need for reviews but hate asking for them. We don’t even like to ask our relatives, so you can imagine how difficult it is to prod readers we’ve never met to visit Amazon or Goodreads and let everyone know what they thought of our work. Worse, there’s no polite (or ethical) way to say, “Um…we’d prefer that your review be positive.” Naturally, that’s what we’d like to see. But, if we’re being fair, we understand that we can’t encourage readers to share their thoughts and then try to tell them what those thoughts should be. We have to take our chances, just as the reader did when choosing our books in the first place.

So, even though I’m swallowing hard as I write this, I’d like to invite you to leave a review of NEWPORT after you’ve read it. Amazon, Goodreads, wherever you’re comfortable. Just … be kind. It takes an awful lot of clapping to revive a wilted author.