Book Reviews

I belong to several writer's forums, and one of the most discussed topics is reviews.  Writers are constantly wanting to know how they can get their work reviewed.  There are all sorts of suggestions on the forums on how to get reviewed.  Some suggest professional reviewers who will review your work for a price.  There are reviewers on the forums who offer such services. 

They claim that their reviews are impartial and unbiased.  But at the same time, their offers are worded in such a way that that their reviews will help your sales...in other words they are saying that you can expect five stars from their reviews.  Otherwise how could they help sales?

Other writers suggest exchanging reviews.  I'll review yours if you review mine.  Of course, all writers involved in the exchange would be expected to give glowing reviews.  Any writer who gives his fellow writer a less than glowing review with only three stars can expect the same in return, even if the bad review was justified.

Still another suggestion is to offer your work for free for a specified period, in the hope that if enough people read it, certainly a few will give a review.  But many writers complain that large numbers of their free books were "sold" without producing a single review.

Fact is, the vast majority of readers just don't write reviews.  If they love a particular book they will simply tell their family, friends, and neighbors about it, which is probably as good as or better than a review.  On the other hand, if they hate your book they will also tell their family, friends, and neighbors.

In reading some reviews, it is glaringly obvious that the writers had friends or family members writing the reviews.  Some writers with lots of reviews even admit to having family and friends doing them. However, they claim that they demanded of their family and friends that all the reviews be impartial.  Yes.

Some writers claim to have gotten awful reviews from fellow writers in the same genre who are in competition with them.  Others claim that bad reviews come from enemies trying to hurt them in every way they can.  Still others say that there are malicious people out there who give bad reviews for the fun of it. 

Some people love to review.  They enjoy reviewing books in much the same way that authors enjoy writing them.  Many reviewers are proud of the long lists of books they have reviewed.  They take pride in believing their reviews to be fair, unbiased, and impartial.

Actually every review is biased to some degree.  If the reviewer is partial to flowery prose, she will be inclined to give better reviews to such writing than to tight, unembellished prose.  On the other hand, a reviewer who is partial to tight prose would be inclined to give bad reviews to wordy, flowery writing.

Every writer has his/her own style.  A reviewer may love or hate your particular style, and this will be reflected in the review.  A reviewer may be partial to graphic descriptions of violence; another reviewer may be turned off by same.  Two reviewers may have vastly different feelings about  graphic descriptions of sex.    

My own feelings about reviews is just to publish your work and let the chips fall where they may.  Only a few of my books have been reviewed.  There were several with five stars and one with only three stars. The one with  three stars is among my best sellers.   My #1 best seller has not been reviewed at all.

Welcome to immigrants

Count me among those who welcome you to our wonderful country. All I ask is that you go through all the legalities that are required of immigrants by this country. This is a land of immigrants. This land was built by immigrants. But the vast majority of those immigrants were legal, and they applied for their citizenship and proudly accepted it when it was granted.

I will admit that the first Europeans to arrive here did not go through any sort of immigration procedures to come here, but then, there were no requirements here at that time. If the Native Americans had organized governments as did Europeans of the same era, I'm sure it would have been a different story.

My wife had to wade through all sorts of red tape when she came to the U.S., including exams to show that she was healthy and carrying no diseases, police checks to show that she had no criminal record, proof that she would not be a ward of the state (depend on welfare) and much more. She studied for years to take and pass the citizenship exam, which most American citizens couldn't pass.

I don't mind if you bring your customs and traditions with you. All previous immigrants did that, and though they kept their traditions, they adapted to American traditions and blended in with immigrants from other countries. Today we have St. Patrick's Day, Oktoberfest, Polish weddings, Chinese New Year, etc, etc.

If our laws conflict with your traditions, religion, customs, etc, then please don't ask that we change our laws to fit your needs. Please adapt to our traditions and observe our laws, or go back to where the laws and traditions are to your liking.

So I welcome you as my country has welcomed all the immigrants before you. All I ask is that you emulate all immigrants who came before you. Is that asking too much?

Personality Cycles

Is it just me, or does everybody have personality cycles? Or maybe you could call them magnetism cycles? Charisma cycles? Whatever you would call it, there's no doubt in my mind that I have such cycles. I can be the life of the party one day and fizzle out the next.

I have days when just about everybody smiles and greets me. No matter whether young, elderly, male, female, black or white. On other days folks will frown or ignore me. On the good days I can wait at the service counter at Kmart, Lowe's, or Home Depot and clerks will rush to wait on me with a smile. If they're waiting on someone else, they will smile and say, "Be with you shortly, Sir."

On bad days I will be completely invisible to clerks. I can stand there for fifteen minutes and someone else will walk up and get immediate attention. I thought it might be the way I dress on a given day, but after a bit of experimenting, it didn't seem to matter how I was dressed.

The only exception to this seems to be kids and dogs. Kids, mostly preschoolers, almost always smile and wave. Of course I guess kids are nice to everyone. And I seem to have a way with dogs, although I'm no whisperer like Cesar.

One day I was returning an item to Lowe's. I waited and watched as several other customers who arrived after me got waited on. Sometimes I would raise my hand, "I've been standing here..." But I was unseen and unheard. Finally a young man comes up and a clerk rushed to help him. The young gentleman pointed at me and said,"He was here first." The clerk looked at me as if I had just materialized. I thanked the young man, and said to the clerk, "Sorry, guess I was invisible for a while."

Let's hear it for Hank

For those who haven't heard, Hank Williams Jr was fired from Monday Night Football. His song, "Are ya ready for some football" was the theme for MNF for some twenty years. The reason he was fired? On an interview with "Fox and Friends" he responded to a question saying that the golf game between Boener and Obama was silly; it was like a game between Hitler and Netanyahu.
Well, to make a long story short, the interviewer took that to mean that Hank was comparing Obama to Hitler. (He wasn't, he was just making an analogy. He might have said it was like a game between a cobra and a mongoose, or Atilla the Hun and the Pope--he was just making a comparison.) But because the interviewer on Fox and Friends made a big deal out of it, ESPN fired him from MNF.
What I like about him is that he didn't apologize for being politically incorrect as so many wimps do when they utter something that doesn't sit well with the politically correct crowd. Furthermore, he composed and recorded a song about the stupidity of the incident. The song is titled, "You can keep the change," and I understand it is fast becoming a hit.

Hooray for Hank.

Voter Fraud

When you vote, be on the lookout for voter fraud. Voting machines in Nevada are maintained by SEIU, a pro Reid organization. Some early voters began to notice that the machine gave their votes to Reid even though they voted for Angle.
Our right to vote is precious. Be careful, and report any suspicious activity to poll watchers.

Whether the glitch in the machines was planned or accidental, some voters were robbed of their right to vote. How many voters paid no attention, but simply selected the candidate of their choice and left the booth.

Hopefully he machines will be repaired. But why the devil was the SEIU placed in charge of maintaining those machines?

The National Debt

Question: Wouldn't it be better for the U.S. Government to borrow money from its own people rather than to borrow from China?

After adjusting for inflation, World War II was the most expensive war America has ever fought. That war was paid for mostly with war bonds sold to American citizens. After WWII, the war in Iraq is our second most expensive war, and is being paid for mostly with bonds sold to foreign countries--mainly China. Because of that war, we have built up a staggering amount of debt to China and other nations.

During WWII, our government had huge success with war bond drives. Movie stars, sport stars, and other celebrities volunteered their time to travel around the country putting on shows and selling bonds. Volunteers went from door to door selling bonds. Bond drives were promoted on stage, radio, and in movies (There was no TV then.) It became an act of patriotism to buy bonds.

It was a whopping success. Our bonds not only paid for our own war effort, but also went to supply our allies with huge amounts of war materials. Now my question is this: why don't we start bond drives to to repay our debt to China, and to support our war in the Middle East? I think the present generation of Americans are just as patriotic as The Greatest generation, but they haven't had a chance to prove it (except by displaying ribbons supporting the troops.)

Wouldn't it be better to be in debt to our own people than to be in debt to foreigners? Wouldn't it be better if all that interest on the national debt went to our own people rather than to foreigners? (After WWII, the interest that Americans earned from war bonds helped people to buy homes, send kids to college, etc., thus boosting the economy.)

Unfortunately, our leaders at the time we went to war in Iraq did not want the American people to know how expensive the war would be, therefore they borrowed from foreigners rather than from Americans. In the eyes of our leaders, war bond drives would only have served to highlight the expense of the war. Now is the time to reverse that kind of thinking.

Let's let our representatives in congress--and the president too--know that that the American people can be trusted to support efforts to eliminate the national debt. Start bond drives on a WWII scale and get foreigners off our back.

Note #1-- Our population has nearly doubled since WWII, so the humongous amount of bonds sold then should greatly increase.

Note #2--Series E bonds have been on sale (as savings bonds) since WWII ended, but there has been no bond drive even approaching the drives of that war.

WE DID IT BEFORE AND WE CAN DO IT AGAIN.

Completed Novella

I've completed "The Psionic Man," but it turned out being a bit too short for a novel, and is classed as a novella. I've also just finished publishing an anthology of scifi, fantasy, and horror, titled "Tales of Wonder." The Psionic Man is available at Amazon and Tales of Wonder soon will be.

I'm in a bit of a writing funk right now, but hope to break out soon and start a new book, or at least a short story.

I have created a new website called Unearthly Tales. My old one, Sullivan's Short Stories, is still going strong.