We don't all have to enjoy everything
Give me an honest review any day
NEWS:
As hinted at last week, I had a piece run last weekend in The Independent on the subject of that guy who’s started a male-author-focused imprint. Alas, it’s paywalled at the moment, but my words in a National, that’s something1!
This is my last chance to remind you that the Norwich Independent Book & Zine Fair is NEXT SATURDAY (17th). It’s my first event of this type so wish me luck.
Parallels will be published in just 12 days, which means there’s still time for you to pre-order your copy.
I found out this past week that I wasn’t chosen for the last of the Writers Residencies I applied for for this year. I don’t know whether that’s a wall I’m going to want to keep banging my head against - I have a gut feeling that I’m not what people are looking for. Something to think on.
ON WRITING:
Those of you who also subscribe to The Deixis Press Occasionally2 will know that this past week Angel made reference to a couple of less-than-enthusiastic advance reviews we’ve had for Parallels.
I’ve been wanting to say something about that but wasn’t sure it was the done thing to draw prospective readers’ attention to it, though it was certainly on my mind when I wrote about reviews back in March.
I’m not, I’ll say straight off the bat, unduly concerned about the reviews in and of themselves. It’s unfortunate that anyone looking on NetGalley will see that my book hasn’t been universally acclaimed and I’d go so far as to say that it’s irritating that those negative reviews found their way onto Goodreads whereas the positive ones did not. However, the bottom line is that folk are allowed to not enjoy my books3.
I personally think there’s a place in literary hell for those people/sites that will take money from authors in return for guaranteed positive reviews, and those authors that use them - ultimately this helps nobody. I’ve gotten some great reviews in the past and those have been earned, not paid for, and I feel that the value of those reviews is diluted every time somebody hands over some cash for a five-star review from someone who promises to overlook the actual quality of what they’re reading. Reviews are supposed to help readers decide what’s worth picking up, and if you don’t know which reviews you can trust and which have been paid for, the whole system falls down.
I don’t even ask friends and family to get out there and big my work up. I ask for reviews and ratings, sure - activity on a title on something like Goodreads or Amazon always helps. But I only ever want those reviews and ratings to reflect peoples’ honest opinions. After all, my goal isn’t to sell books, it’s to have readers enjoy my books. Lots of readers, hopefully, but the enjoyment is the key. If people are just saying they’re great because I told them to, what’s the point? I may as well be Donald Trump at that point. A bad review may not be an enjoyable experience, but at least my readers know, because I do get some bad reviews, that the good ones are genuine and given without incentive.
Of course, one can focus on these things too much. A slew of good reviews for Greyskin didn’t make my fortune on that book, so I can but hope that a couple of negative ones don’t sink Parallels. The best thing you can do is buy a copy and make your own mind up…
I don’t know what state pre-orders are in for Parallels, but if you are thinking of getting a copy, getting in there early doors would be great and I absolutely would love to hear what you think about it - what you really think about it.
I have enjoyed:
Fall - I love a high-concept trapped-in-a-thing movie. Ryan Reynolds in a box in Buried, some teens on a ski-lift in Frozen4, some teens underwater in 47 Meters Down, Blake Lively in… some shallow water in The Shallows5. Just now, looking up the title of 47 Meters Down, I found out there’s a film called 12 Feet Deep where two girls get trapped in a public swimming pool when the manager inadvertently puts the cover over it with them still inside and now there’s no film I want to see more. Anyway, in Fall, Virginia Gardner and Grace Caroline Currey play two young women who climb an abandoned 2,000 metre tall TV tower in the middle of the desert and get trapped at the top when the ladder collapses. That’s it, that’s the film. ‘Nuff said.
Ninety minutes of this basically. The Girl on the Pier - Entertaining little 1953 film about a love triangle involving the owner of a waxworks on Brighton pier, his wife, and the man he once did a crime with who’s just got out of prison and is after recompense for keeping his mouth shut. Also involved are the Chubbs, a family on holiday whose youngest member is obsessed with crime and becomes desperate to convince his police inspector father than something’s afoot. Inspector Chubb, however, just wants to spend some quality time fishing. It’s an endearing caper, some gentle family humour mixed in with fellas pointing guns at each other and a genuinely thrilling chase sequence at the end.
“Look, stop clowning around…” Naomi Wood - Lucky enough to attend a talk at the Book Hive this week with the author discussing her short story collection This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things. I’ve a huge respect for the short story as an artform and believe it to be much under-appreciated, so it was great to see Wood and hear about her collection, even if I was in the midst of a massive anxiety episode at the time and probably looked like a loon.
Naomi Wood and her book, This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things. Taskmaster - I knew the s19 line-up was going to be golden before it even started. I have not been disappointed.
I love this woman.
Purchase Greyskin (Deixis Press) and Playtime’s Over (Propolis) direct from their respective publishers, as well as from all the usual places, online and off.
Pre-order either of my upcoming titles from Deixis Press.
Ray Adams’ self-published books are available online.
This newsletter is currently free but obviously takes time to produce. If you’d like to support an indie author still finding his way, I have a Buy Me a Coffee account. Your call.
I also review books on my website, most of which are available through my affiliate book shop on uk.bookshop.org - it’s a great alternative to certain online leviathans owned by Trump-supporting billionaires, and supports independent bookshops. Affiliates also get a % of books sold through them, so go have a look.
If you do get to read it, I didn’t choose the headline and I certainly didn’t put quotes around the word cishet like some kind of boomer.
Which you definitely should. If you think I’m great, you should get a load of the other authors they publish. Whoo, boy.
Though to the guy who said “countless times I also ran into a word or phrase where I couldn't tell if it was a typo or if it was simply a saying used in UK English that isn't used in American English.” - if you don’t know, maybe just assume it’s the former and give me one star, eh?
Not that one.
Lively chose to make The Shallows partly as a response to husband Reynolds making Buried, fact-fans.