Wednesday's Writer Shout Out - Guest Author Michele Drier

Today I'm handing over my blog to author Michele Drier who has something very pertinent to say on the subject of reviews, as well as some great reviews to share.

Who Has a Review?

In every old movie about Broadway, there’s a scene when the cast and author wait until four a.m. with bated breath for the early editions of the New York newspapers.

Critics who came for the opening night rushed back to their offices and wrote reviews that everybody believed could make or break the play.

There are still critics and there are still newspaper reviews...and some of them may make or break a play, but there’s also the morass of reviews for books.

If you have a big publisher, they’ll print ARCs (Advance Reading Copies) and send them to big newspapers, magazines and review sites a few months before your book hits the sales venues.
Some rave reviews will probably make it onto the book itself before going to print. This is the hype that gets your book noticed, picked up, read and with luck onto a Best Seller list.

There are other reviews though that help or hinder a book in the sales wars, and these are from readers, smaller review sites, bloggers.

As an indie author, these are the ones that count. Without some number of reviews, and more that four stars or so in overall ranking, your can’t even buy a spot on the targeted sales sites like BookBub, Ereader News Today or Pixel of Ink.

I write in two genres, and for each I have review sites that always get copies of my latest and a request for a review.

And I’m incredibly pleased that my most recent book (SNAP: All That Jazz, published in ebook format at the end of June) is in the “rave reviews” category.

Paranormal Romance Guild said, “I loved all of the Kandesky books but there is love and there is LOVE, and this one I LOVED. I loved Nik and Jazz and their love for each other is beautiful in spite of the inherent problems, i.e. being a vampire and the violence. I can't wait for book nine to find out what happens with Nik and Jazz and Maxie and Jean-Louis.”

I have to admit that this reviewer has become somewhat of a fan. In her review of the previous book, SNAP: White Nights, she said, “There is always something new in each book but the characters remain the same.  There is romance, love and sex and always danger of one kind or another.  I can't wait for the next book in the series, so Ms. Drier please just sit at your computer and write.”

The other site that’s always on my send-to list is The Reading Cafe. Their review of SNAP: All That Jazz said, “...this of course, is a must read! Like the rest of the series Ms. Drier has woven an intricate tale of two completely different societies and the issues of falling in love and the adjustments needed to male room in their lives for each other....     Grab your favorite beverage (cause you won’t want to stop) (personally, I found a fan handy). This is a series, you can read each book as a stand-alone, but it’s soooo much better to read from the beginning. Enjoy, everyone, I really, really, really love it!”

As wonderful as these are, they’re like the icing...the cake is the reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, B&N by the readers. Almost every book I read today on my ereader has a plea from the author about posting a review.

The game has changed and we’re never going to get an opening night New York Times review, but we still write the best books we can, put them out there and hope that readers and reviewers will love them as much as we do!

About Michele Drier

Michele Drier was born in Santa Cruz and is a fifth generation Californian. She’s lived and worked all over the state, calling both Southern and Northern California home.  During her career in journalism—as a reporter and editor at daily newspapers—she won awards for producing investigative series.

SNAP: All That Jazz, Book Eight of The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, was published June 30, 2014.  The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles paranormal romance series include SNAP: The World Unfolds, SNAP: New Talent, Plague: A Love Story, DANUBE: A Tale of Murder, SNAP: Love for Blood, SNAP: Happily Ever After?, SNAP: White Night and SNAP: All That Jazz.  SNAP: I, Vampire, Book Ten in the Kandesky Vampire Chronicles is scheduled for publication early 2015.


She also writes the Amy Hobbes Newspaper mysteries, Edited for Death and Labeled for Death. A third book, Delta for Death, is coming in 2014.

For more information, visit Michele's website by clicking on this link.