I usually keep my reviews very positive. If I would not give a book a 4 or 5 star review I certainly wouldn’t review it on this blog, and if I would give it a 2 or 1 star I would not rate even it on Amazon, or rarely if there’s a good reason for doing so … but I’m annoyed.
I went into a little independent bookshop on behalf of Eventispress authors, including a man who has written a dozen books in his life time, most very well received. This, like many bookshops we’ve been into, refused, making all sorts of excuses, I won’t go into here.
Nevertheless, being an avid reader and lover of bookshops, I picked up a poetry book. I will not name the book here. That is not my way. However, the reviews on the back cover were great:
“Brashly beautiful!” ~ “Extraordinary” ~ ” This book is both a controlled cry of anguish and a defiant roar of love”
With those accolades and a lovely enticing hard back cover to treasure, I was so looking forward to curling up in the armchair, or even the luxury settling down to read it in bed before sleep.
I tried reading it. Undeterred, I tried again another night. In the end, on the third night, I gave up, having dipped in to several different pages, just in case.
Don’t get me wrong. I usually love poetry. Being kind maybe this just wasn’t my taste, but I was so annoyed that I had spent £12.99 on this book which, instead of keeping, to enjoy reading several times, I will give to a charity shop. I feel even more cross that the books from my fellow authors at Eventispress are being overlooked, when in the early days of the company, it was far easier.
In those days, when promoting my own books, I would pop into stores or ring them. Sometimes they would sound excited and stock the book in question. At others they would agree for me to do a book signing, then take a few to sell after the day had passed, certainly if it was successful.
Are you frustrated by the lack of willingness by bookshops to even consider something beyond their normal lists?
Has the marketing world for books changed beyond recognition in the UK especially?
Do you give bad book reviews?
(Next week I’ll be reviewing a lovely poetry book published by Eventispress,
Inhabiting the House by Roderick Hart)
Diana Jackson 