Reviews for The Docks

After the book launch on Thursday, reviews have started to come in from several of the advance copies I sent out. In some ways, waiting for readers' opinions is more nerve-wrecking than the launch was.

Doubleshot Reviews have given it a four shot expresso rating, which is their highest.

"The pace is smooth and fast for this novella, which makes you feel as though you have read though a whole book."
Double Shot Reviews

Coffee order: Quad ("5) Quad: You don’t already own and have read this book multiple times? What’s wrong with you?! Put down the coffee and go buy this book!")

I'm flattered.

The Amazon reviews are more mixed with two five stars, two four stars and a three star on Amazon.com. and it is interesting seeing what the different readers take out of the story. There are more reviews to come (I can think of another eight copies I sent out), so I hope people continue to like the book.

Reviews and writing

"Well written and suspenseful this novel is an absorbing read."
Book'd Out

A nice way to start the week, with another good review of Fire Season. This one is from "Book'd out" a well-known reviewer on Amazon and Goodreads. I also just received my sales reports for May and June. Kindle sales have remained at the same level, despite the price increase after the launch offer ended.

I've a few things coming up: more reviews, and an indie book lounge interview due in July, so hopefully it will help me reach more readers. "The Docks" is also being offered in the Great Summer giveaway on the Coffeemugged blog (details here).

"Conflict of Interest" is at 12,000 words. Its target release date might slip to August, as the plot has just gone in an unexpected direction. At the moment, this is the manuscript taking up my time, and the reason I've cut back on blogging, twitter, and promoting. After all, there are only so many hours in a day.

First Magazine Review

A little while ago, I sent a copy of the book to a local magazine. Today I got my copy and, I will admit, flicked straight through to see if my book was reviewed in there. It was, along with complimentary lines such as:

"...hidden twists and turns paving Folland's well-laid path of adventure all the way to a thrilling conclusion."
James McAlpine, CR5 Magazine.

The book got a very good review, and they even took the space to mention Arrival.

It made my weekend, I can tell you.

The Rocky Road to Sales...

Things are currently rather interesting. I'm in the middle of setting up my Amazon Author Central page which will be live in seven days, working on my Goodreads and Authorsden pages and generally trying to tell the world about my book. On Twiends I got a brief VIP feature which increased traffic to my Fire season lens significantly.

The publisher spoke to Nielsen and the release date issue has been corrected. I will confirm here it is the 1st December 2010, not 1st November.

Perhaps most worrying of all, in two days I should receive an ARC copy of my book for promotional purposes. It has a placeholder cover, but the internal text should be properly laid out.

Things were looking good.

This of course is when Amazon crashed this afternoon and lost my book page. The page still exists but currently without the direct URL you can't find it as it isn't on the search, making promotion rather difficult. Things don't ever seem to be easy with this book, but then nothing worthwhile ever is. If I keep repeating that I might believe it, but I can't believe most authors go through all this to get their books out.

Meanwhile I'm back to bothering bloggers for reviews. If anyone would like an ARC copy for a review, please leave a comment below and I'll pass it on to the publisher.