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美国华人
Also welcome you!

The praise comes from averaging fifty friend requests per day from readers who all e-mail me. The most touching, a single mother of three and avid reader, who wrote to tell me just how much she enjoyed my book and why. There was no hidden agenda just book talk. These are the e-mails I treasure so much!

I have a joint review blog with a friend and we try to post at least every other day. We’ll review a book if we read it. If we liked it or not.

Great to hear MySpace is bringing you results, and I hope skeptical authors could take a pag off your experience.

Karen S – I have excluded international readers from my contests because it was quite costly to ship 3 books overseas. I feel bad about that. :( Can I cop to the excuse that I am not an author?

Miki – Thanks for the heads up. Penguin’s ebook department needs a kick in the ass.

Mica – I am unsure about AAR’s numbers. LLB had a blog post about her numbers, but it was a “private” one so I couldn’t link to it and I didn’t want to quote from it either. But I thought she indicated that they had several hundred thousand “unique visitors”

Kat – Weird crap is indeed annoying. I went to one website last night that had one of those “flash” pages which you had to see before you could get to the website and it loaded music and a silly animation. I clicked away.

Kristie J – Readers blogs are very subjective but I love reading about what works and what doesn’t for readers.

BevBB – authors blogs do tend to be boring but I still skim them for good tidbits on what is coming next. That’s really my main reason for reading blog posts. I like Vanessa Jaye and HelenKay Dimon’s blogs. They are less boring than some of the other big name blogs.

Katherina – how interesting. I definitely see some review sites that have upbeat reviews for everything. Please send us a link when you get your blog up and running.

Robin – I hope that more readers come onto the internet. It’s a great clearinghouse for readers.

Tara Marie – Oh, cover quotes are great aren’t they? I have a whole blog post about those in December.

Nora Roberts – I love it when you suck up say nice things about the blog. Sigh, I am so easy. Oh, I think Brockway’s friends did enjoy the book but it just lacks credibility after reading the love fest they have for each other at Squawk Radio everyday.

Alison Kent – wow. That’s remarkable. Do you also tell the authors to do myspace overlays? Because many myspace author webpages are so hard to read. Also, do you tell them that when Sawyer from “Lost” friends them, that it really isn’t Sawyer? I had to laugh when I saw a couple of authors excited about a celebrity friending them.

I was checking my webstats at the first of the month, and saw that for October my MySpace page was my #13 referrer. So far this month, #3. And the MySpace demographic is much younger overall, so I’ve been very vocal on author loops about reaching readers this way.

I’m a strong proponent of online marketing (heck, I even do this for a living), and IMO, the modern day author without an online presence (be it through own/ branded website, blog, forum or messagae board participation) risks alienating themselves from new and younger readers.

The web is one of the best medium to market/ promote to a niche audience, and authors should think of themselves as a brand/ entity, not just a writer. Just at a the number of fan sites and Harry shrines that’s sprouted ever since Rowling launched him into the reading world, and you can already imagine what the web can be. And guess what? These are all created by the readers!!

So, yeah, like you, I’m always happy when I hear of new, and younger readers discovering the wonders of books.

The power of the Internet.

As to the blurbing on, say, Brockaway’s new book, it’s very possible her friends really, honestly enjoyed it. She’s a strong writer. I’ve blurbed for friends before BECAUSE I liked the work. In fact, I’ll be doing a cover quote for Patricia Gaffney’s MAD DASH. I asked her if I could give a quote; she didn’t ask me. I just loved the book. Recently, I turned another friend down–and believe me that was difficult–because her book simply wasn’t for me.

On the cover of Hot Dish, there are cover quotes from almost every Squawker: Christina Dodd, Theresa Medieros, and Elizabeth Bevarly.

This drives me crazy. How can you trust this, they’re bestest friends–LOL.

Anyway, I think reader blogs, as opposed to both author and fan blogs are revealing a segment of the reader population that was perhaps somewhat disenfranchised before the Internet created so many online communities. By disenfranchised I mean that these readers are more inclined to discuss their views, to exchange recommendations, to see reading as intrinsically a community activity. Over time, I absolutely think the more vocal presence of a diverse online readership will measurably influence the Romance industry, even if the effects are not felt now. Most industries are slow to change, and I don’t think Romance is any different. But I very much agree that more reader blogs = more exposure and discussion of Romance, which IMO means more free advertising for authors and more resources for readers. Your viral blogging experiment might not have gotten Slave to Sensation on the besteller lists, but I know personally that I would probably not have bought the book so quickly if it hadn’t been for that web chain you created. Why not try one of those a quarter — maybe a different reader blogger can start it? I’ll bet you’d see a steady build in the number of bloggers who join in each time.

If an author, though, has no interest in tapping into the community of online readers, or if she/he doesn’t think it’s important, IMO that author should by all means stay away from the Internet. Why? Because an author who is unmoved or unconvinced by the latent influence of a growing online readership isn’t, IMO, going to be approaching a website or web marketing with any sincerity or respect. And I guess some authors might find such an endeavor intimidating for whatever reason, whether it’s the risk of encountering strong opinions of dislike or hesitation at self-promotion. Discomfort with crafting an online presence can be charming or off-putting, and there might be authors who really wouldn’t (or don’t) do themselves any favors by attempting it.

Pretty many other review sites gives deceptively positive reviews. When reviewing for these sites myself I was asked to increase my ratings on several occassions and eventually dropped out of this role from inevitable conflicts of interest.

I have made this experience myself. With an evaluation chart from 1 to 5 points (5 being the best) the reviewer was asked not to give a rating below 2.5 points. I pretty fast dropped out after hearing that.

There’s only one review site I really trust, and that’s AAR. Even if I don’t like the book that got an A from them I still can follow the reasoing how the reviewer came to this result.
Otherwise I rely on recommendations from my emailgroups or reader blogs. Rosario’s was a real treasure trove, and currently I am even considering to start a review blog myself, mainly to improve my English, but also because it’s so much fun to communicate with readers who think alike.

Of course, I’ve never been that big on author interviews either so that might be part of it but still.

Besides which I have way too many reader blogs, both individual and group, to keep up with anyway. On the whole they’re a lot more interesting to read so I keep collecting more. And more. And more. Oye.

With regards to Karen’s comment about competitions, I remember when Alison Kent ran a comp specifically for international readers only, which I thought was really lovely. (The free books were lovely, too! *g*)

Their front page gives those stats but does not call them uniques, just visitors, and considering the ongoing nature of the comments and conversations there, I’m more inclined to believe a lot of those are returns. Not downplaying their traffic at all, just saying they don’t call them uniques. As you know from checking your own stats, there’s a big difference between the two.

It’s listed electronically at Powell’s, too, at a discount.

Fictionwise tends to get them a week after eReader…but I wonder if it’ll show up tomorrow in Fictionwise’s “new releases”…?

I frequently buy books with high reviews and find them to be average at best. Yes, as a writer I know why this happens–online reviewers want to be nice, they are grateful for their free books, many are also writers and sites want to stay on good terms with publishers. But reviews are there primarily for the benefit of readers and although good reviews benefit publishers and writers, the absence of honest mixed and negative reviews undermines the whole purpose of a review and leaves readers bemused and put off.

Reader’s reviews can be harsher but I would rather have no gold than fool’s gold. These are the reviews that effect my buying habits because they really tell me something about the book.