One of the opportunities open to a Pal who has written a number of reviews is the equivalent of an author guest post. I reminded those who were eligible about this a few weeks ago and Pete decided to grab the opportunity. Then I had to figure out what to call them since a Pal isn't really a guest, "guest post" was the wrong term. I quickly focused in on words that started with a 'P' because everyone loves alliteration. After considering and deciding against several possibilities (Pal Peeps didn't sound strong enough and Pal Propositions sounded dirty), I settled on "Pal Pronouncement."
In our first Pal Pronouncement, Pete gives some insight into his process of choosing books from those submitted for possible review. I hasten to add that my process as well as that for each of the other Pals are different from Pete's and also different from each other. Each Pal has access to the same database of submitted books, but how they choose from that list is up to them.
I think this process should be of interest to our readers and I'm sure that authors hoping for a review will get something out of it as well.
Last night, as I discarded the twenty-eighth Amazon
book sample in a row chosen from Big Al’s list of submitted works, I despaired
of ever finding another story I could commit to reading.
“Why is it so hard?” I mumbled.
“Go to sleep,” my wife grunted.
So I laid down my Kindle and turned off the light, but
sleep didn’t come. Instead, my question churned and bounced, “Why am I
struggling to find a book I want to read?”
And an odd thought occurred to me. Like every wanna-be
novelist, I cringe at the hurdles the traditional publishing world places
between me and my potential reading audience: A 250-word query letter, or if
I’m lucky, the first five or ten double-spaced pages of my story will be read. And
based on that tiny sample, a masterpiece of modern literature will probably be discarded
like a piece of trash. Never mind that I spent twelve months writing and
rewriting my opus. And don’t even think of sending in a genre that the agent or
publisher isn’t looking for—gasp, horror!
Well, what goes around comes around. As a reviewer for
Books & Pals, I’m faced with a ‘slush pile’ of fifteen hundred titles. I’m
the one who has to choose which of these works of art I’m willing to commit
eight or ten hours to. And wadda-ya-know I’m using many of the same criteria
the dreaded, unfeeling, mean agents use.
Al tells me about one in four of the books submitted to
the site get read and reviewed. Authors who’ve read some of my reviews might
wonder if they even want to be picked! So, if you do, or equally, if you don’t,
here’s my current selection process.
I maintain Al’s to-be-read -list in a spreadsheet in ascending
submission date sequence. So the oldest titles get the first crack of the whip.
That only seems fair. I select by genre. My genre tastes are varied, but there
are some I won’t read:
Religious
fiction—I think it’s a ridiculous category—do only religious
people read religious fiction? I mean, do I have to be a hobbit to read Lord of
The Rings?
YA
or children’s books—I’m grown up now, and my grandkids don’t
live close enough for me to pick books for them (they probably wouldn’t listen
anyway). I don’t understand young people enough to judge the language level or
story arc acceptable to young adults (although I do find them useful for
programming phones and TV remotes).
Horror—I’m
chicken, and I read at night, but mostly because I’m chicken.
Time
travel—it hurts my brain to work out what can and can’t
happen, and for some reason I can’t suspend disbelief over traveling back and
forward in time. Quite an oddity when you consider the many less feasible ideas
I have no problem with, but, heh, we’re all different.
Short
Story Collections—Shorts are a different animal from novels,
with different constructs. I don’t intend to write shorts, and one of my
objectives in reading and reviewing other authors is to learn and improve my
craft. That’s right, you heard me, I’m
self-serving.
These criteria are personal choices, but they help to narrow
the field. Once I have a candidate, I copy and paste the title and author into
the Amazon search field and click.
I read the blurb. If there’s a grammatical error, or
typo, or multiple adverbs, I go back to the list. Staggering, but this is not
an uncommon occurrence.
If the author has managed a grammatically correct blurb,
I check the word count. I don’t attempt anything over 100,000 words. Really?
Come on. Once you’re an established author like, say, Mr. King, feel free to
slap as many words down as you wish, but as a newbie don’t spare that red pen.
I may miss a few gems, but I’d warrant not many (and I save hours).
If the blurb sounds interesting, I eyeball the review
count and star-spread (on the Amazon bar-chart). If the book has some three or two-star reviews, I’ll click on one or two,
not to see if they liked the tale, but to see if the reviewer found some of my
red flags and saved me time (more on this later). If not, I’ll download the
sample and return to the list, repeating the process until I have six or seven
candidates.
So, later that evening, tucked up in bed, I open my
samples and, well, sample the stories. Here are a few of my red flags:
If the first few sentences have poor grammar, typos,
repeating words, or multiple adverbs, I pick the next title. If the writer
hasn’t combed through those first few sentences, there’s a snowball’s chance in
hell that he or she has taken care throughout the book. No excuses. There’s
free software out there to show you repeating words if you can’t see them
yourself, and they grate on me. And before you start whining, I’m no
adverb-Nazi, but five or six in a chapter, please, not five or six in the first
page—there are many vivid verbs available.
Something else that grates is a prologue. I’ll read it,
but it doesn’t put the book in a good light for me. Why can’t you merge that essential backstory within the tale? Too
difficult for ya? Rather have the reader do the work?
Beyond the first paragraph, I want to be immersed in
the action as soon as possible. Two or three pages of narrative will have me
glazing over. The characters are what it’s all about. I need to empathize and
root for them, not the weather, or the scenery, or the history of the town/family/creatures
of the forest. Save me from recollections of how the MC got to where I find him
or her. At this stage, I don’t care enough about them to wonder. I love a first
chapter that shows me the action, soaks me in the MC’s experiences and makes me
wonder what’ll happen to him or her.
And for Pete’s sake (yes me!) read the dialogue out
loud. People speak in spurts not in long multi-sentence diatribes.
That’s not all of it, but it’s a big part.
And, believe it or not—I love to read a good book.
Pete Barber, aka-The Grinch.