Receiving Reviews and Not Being a Fckwit About It

I would like to thank everyone who bought The Unfinished Song: Taboo on its launch day. You helped make the debut successful, and I’m really grateful. It’s really heartwarming to know that there were readers eagerly anticipating the second book in the series.

The second book has no reviews yet, and I was not kidding yesterday that I live in terror of receiving reviews on it (what if people don’t like it?!). The only thing worse, of course, would be no reviews at all.

It’s important to keep that in mind…no reviews at all is worse than the most terrible review in the world.

I think by now probably most of the writing community has seen the pathetic train wreck of an author going ballistic over a lackluster review. For me, it was like rubbernecking at an accident. Although I knew it was a bad idea to keep reading, I couldn’t look away.

It pained me to read another book reviewer comment, “And this is is why I don’t accept self-publish for review.” Apparently she missed the case of the (ahem, traditionally) published author who tried to sue over a negative review. It’s not being self-published that is the problem; it’s being a fckwit.

Just sayin’.

I reached my own conclusion, which was that my policy of not commenting on reviewer blogs was probably for the best. Not that I would ever, ever start telling people left and right to “fck off.” If I did comment on reviewer blogs that reviewed my books, it would be to thank them for the review, regardless of the content of the review. Michelle Davidson Argyle does this, and I’ve always thought she was so gracious and delightful about it, no matter the content of the review.

However, I read a discussion between a couple of book reviewers mentioning that they don’t like the sense an author is looking over their shoulder when they write the review. Although they could obviously on speak for themselves, and other reviewers might feel differently, it kind of spooked me off commenting at all, even to express gratitude. What if it were too tempting to me to leave it at that, and I found myself wanting to answer the reviewers questions about this or that point? For instance, one very astute reviewer of The Unfinished Song: Initiate wanted to know why there were no domesticated dogs in the story, when dogs were domesticated far earlier than cats. I was tempted to jump into the comments section and say, “There are dogs in another tribe, one we haven’t met yet.” But is that really my place to jump in like that? I don’t want to give the impression that he book cannot speak for itself. So I didn’t say anything. I really liked that review, though. The reviewer made so many intelligent observations.

If I were a book reviewer, I wouldn’t want the feeling the author was hanging over my shoulder either. Still, the internet cuts both ways. If a reviewer really did write a meanie-pants review, the author is going to find it and read it and weep soggy tears over it. Even if authors don’t comment, we are just as capable of ego-googling as the next person. I actively search the internet for reviews of my books, so I can link back to them from the website. I am probably not the only author to do so.

I admit, I have considered not reading reviews at all. I can link to the site without reading them. I keep telling myself that’s what I’ll do and I came leaving anyway.

The problem is that I can’t stick to that. Morbid curiosity compels me, but it’s more than that. When else can one’s get independent feedback about one’s book? That’s too good to pass up. The danger is that the review will mention some flaw in your writing that you can’t dispute, casting you into the deepest bowels of depression. The benefit may be that a reviewer could show you an insight into the book that you were too close to see yours.

Cowardice and Sequels

The second book in my series, The Unfinished Song: Taboo, launches today. It’s all about being brave enough to break rules if those rules are wrong. Which makes it especially ironic for me to make this admission: I’m a complete coward.

I wait with trepidation to see if anyone will buy the sequel, and if they buy it, if anyone will like it. It’s ridiculous, I’m sure, but I’m really terrified no one will. What if they people who read Book 1, Initiate, and hate book two? Also, in this book, more than the first, I edge ever so gently toward more controversial subjects. (Book 3, Sacrifice, will be the real dousy, though.) It’s all very well to tell myself I will remain true to my artistic vision no matter what anyone else says, but then I am faced with real reader reaction, and I can’t help shaking.

Like I said, I’m a big coward.

It’s so much easier to write when you are unpublished and don’t have to worry about whether anyone will actually like it.

It’s deadly to a writer to fret over what people think, or try to anticipate it. (You can’t, anyway.) Some readers, even if they don’t like every last bit about the book, will like enough that they will trust me to take the rest of the journey down the road to the concluding volume. Some readers will fall by the wayside. I have to hope that I can more eager readers as more books come out, not lose them, but there’s not any guarantee. I have to be true to the story, even if I am afraid.

If you see someone stumbling around on a road, moving forward even as she has her hands over her eyes, that’s me, going ahead with the revisions on the next book, Sacrifice, which is due out at the end of May.

“There are some words that I just don’t like, and some words that I absolutely hate with a hatred usually reserved for use by totalitarian dictators considering their political enemies.”


Scott G. F. Bailey

six words for a hat: I dropped my cigarette to the floor

six words for a hat: I dropped my cigarette to the floor: “to write, to move forward, is to make irrevocable choices that narrow the possibilities and reduce and dispel the mysteries and magic of the story. So it seems like, for every word I add to this, the story becomes less than it could be. And that disappoints me somehow. It could have been anything, but it’s just what it is instead.”

Taboo Release Date: March 28

I have a date for the release of The Unfinished Song: Taboo!

It will be available for sale on Monday, March 28.

*Tara does her happy dance*

If you buy it on the release date, it will be only $.99. After that, it will return to its regular price of $4.95. (However, if you would like a free review copy, you can still email to receive one.) Meanwhile, The Unfinished Song: Initiate is still on sale for only $.99.

UPDATE: Good news, Nookers! Both books will be available for the Nook very soon.

A big thanks to my tech team for helping me with this even though it was three am in your time zone.  😀

Those of you who would like a print version of Taboo will have to wait a little longer, I fear. There will be a trade paperback edition, but not immediately. In the near term, we are going to concentrate on getting the ebook to all the available platforms, and for all ereaders.

There was an Author’s Note that was going to be included at the end of Taboo, but at the last minute, I feared I had brought up too many spoilers, so I decided to bump it to the Author’s Note at the end of Sacrifice (Book 3) instead.

I am preparing review copies for those who are interested, and also compiling a list of all those who asked me previously if Initiate was available for the Nook.

Finding Theme

“This is the first lesson you need to learn about magic, and about life. We all live in the same world, but we each see it differently.” –Brena, in The Unfinished Song: Taboo

There’s a slender but reflective book on writing called The Golden Theme by Brian McDonald, who argues: 

“Stories may have individual themes, such as ‘there is no honor among thieves’ or ‘slow and steady wins the race.’ But underneath all stories, no matter what their intentional theme may be, there lies another message–a universal message. 
…A cemetery tells us just one thing. And it does not whisper this truth, but shouts it. The dead tell us this: we are all the same.  

This simple sentence, we are all the same, is the Golden Theme that all stories express.

I think Brian McDonald illuminates theme exquisitely in his book. I remember reading on his blog a post he wrote, also about theme, in which he said that not all stories have themes, but all great stories have a theme. If there is a story that seems to have all the other elements of a good story–character, mood, plot, worldbuilding, style, yet still falls flat, chances are, it is lacking a theme. (I believe he used some M. Night Shyamalan movies as an example, and I completely agreed with his analysis; it explained to me exactly why I felt something was “missing” from a story I should have loved, but couldn’t.)

I do think about theme a great deal as I write a story, and Initiate and Taboo, the first two books of The Unfinished Song, have themes which I think of as being complementary. The theme running through Initiate was self-sabatoge. There are a number of characters who seem to be suffering problems imposed on them from other people; but if you look more closely, you will see that they are actually causing themselves more grief than any outside force ever could. In Taboo, however, the theme is reversed. (I like reversals.) Several characters have problems they seem to be causing themselves, by violating taboos, but which actually call into question the validity of the law itself.

Nonetheless, I don’t think we always find our themes. Sometimes our themes find us. As I was going over my edits, I noticed the above sentence, in a rather functional (“infodump”) scene where the Tavaedi Initiates are leaning the rules of magic. I realized it is an underlying theme of the entire series, not one I planned, exactly, but one that flows naturally out of the structure of the world I created.