BookSprout
Recently I woke to my third (!) independent book review of The Invisible Woman on BookSprout. I learned about the site through fellow writer @avajanuary and was entirely sceptical in the beginning.
A few weeks ago I found my first two reviews on the site, which had been uploaded to GoodReads - these two were my first GR reviews ever (both readers reviewed my first two works back to back - The Invisible Woman and The Invisible Fight). As their names are publicly listed on GoodReads I feel comfortable saying a massive thank you to Deb, Ingrid, and now, Susan. The past few months have been fairly up in the air on many fronts in my life and I had found myself struggling to get back into the swing of writing, I thought my getaway recently might help kickstart some more inspiration.
As I type, I am about 1/2 way through the manuscript for The Assistant (which I had intended to finish by May 1) and 1/4 through The Invisible Rise. Reading reviews from independent readers including phrases such as ‘loved it’, ‘couldn’t put it down’, and ‘fantastic storyline’ brings me many tumultuous emotions. I’m elated that there are people who don’t know me, reading and loving my work.
No matter how unbiased my friends and family claim to be, there is always that small niggle of doubt in the back of my mind, that they might be afraid to tell me what they really think. I have had a select few tell me directly that it just isn’t their genre, they have no interest in reading it and I genuinely appreciate their candor. As I’ve written about previously, I’d hate for someone to read something they knew they wouldn’t enjoy, that doesn’t help anyone!
There also comes the fear that one day the reviews aren’t going to be so kind. There will come a day when someone will write about their distaste for my work, and I will need to be prepared for it. I’m not sure how exactly one prepares for that, but I suppose I will learn that in time.
Thank you again to my BookSprout angels, your kind and enthusiastic words mean so much to me.
x Anna
