Thursday, April 24, 2014

Bad Reviews! Give Me More!

I'm working at formatting two projects for imminent release. Bless The Child, my Spartan sword & sandals novel for charity and Whispers of the Goddess, a novella from the fallen in battle, Roar of the Crowd anthology from Rogue Blades Entertainment. Formatting is a lot more work than I ever planned on and I'm not particularly good at it, so I'm doing a lot of triple checking and so forth as well as getting some much needed help, so delays are happening.

But on the bright side, it is a learning curve, I figure I'll be speeding up each time. The other thing when you take over formatting your own books is all the rest of that editing nonsense suddenly becomes deadly serious. Glad I've had help with covers etc and even writing back cover copy.

I also thought since its my project and I can do whatever I want, why not put some of the worst reviews I've ever had on the back of Whispers of the Goddess, the following are some samples - not about Whispers per se, few have read that, but about my writing in general. So I'd appreciate it if you tell me what you all think, is it a bad idea? Or shouldn't I just be able to laugh at myself and keep on rolling? (Contrary to everything else I actually said/say I care what people who comment here on the blog think). And I will still have legit summary's on the books too.

What the critics are saying about David's writing!

“tries to marry the shallow, stupid, and misogynistic sixties tough guy story with space opera and Lovecraft.” – Amazon review from Michigan
“brutal, gory, and depressing,” – Jennie Hansen, Meridian Magazine
“I was afraid to read this book.” – Marissa Walker, Timpanogos Times
“West tries to write --- and is proud of it.” – thoughtful Amazon reviewer
“He’s as cliché as he is a stupid, self-centered, intentionally ignorant murderer, a bore, a misogynist, a misanthrope, and he’s unpleasant in all kinds of other forms of ways to spend any time with.” – another informed Amazon customer taking things in a decidedly personal direction.
“the story I enjoyed the least,” – a Canadian Amazon reviewer
“Blood thirsty kings and references to a homosexual warrior were too much for me. Will be deleting it from my Kindle.” – Mrs. Cowboy, a giving Amazon reviewer
“I feel that the book is written at a grade school level.” – Amazon reviewer Mandy
“Unremarkable” – an ironic anonymous Amazon reviewer
“Hated it, boring, disgusting.” – another gem from Mrs. Cowboy
“this book just wasn’t very good.” – Fifty Shades of Grey superfan, Chad C.

***
 
I've been published for 4 years now and submitting stories publicly for 6 and I just realized, it snuck up on me, but I finally have that thick skin I've always needed/wanted. I can actually read any of these reviews and truly not give a damn.
Not to mention some of these I purposely took out of context for fun and there are an awful lot more good reviews than bad, probably at least 15-20 to 1.

p.s. I made it a point to kill that Chad guy in my Space Eldritch story Gods in Darkness
Idiot immortality achieved!

5 comments:

Paul R. McNamee said...

David,

You have a great sense of humor!

I don't know if I'd use them all. Maybe be a little cheeky and post up some good ones, and then have a break;

On the other hand...-

And then put 3 or 4 bad review quotes.

:D

Adventuresfantastic said...

If you do this, and I'm not sure you should, you need to have some positive reviews as well. Some people might not pick up on the humor.

nephite blood spartan heart said...

I really appreciate that guys, sometimes its hard to tell if these ideas at 3 in the morning are good or bad. ;)

Charles Gramlich said...

Nice to keep these around, certainly for one's own amusement. And when you are uber famous they will be even more funny!

nephite blood spartan heart said...

True, thankee Charles!