What a difference a few words make....

I have another book giveaway going on Goodreads.com and I've decided to check on it yesterday. I was surprised to find a new text review posted on my book. I think it was by one of the previous winners.

fantastic novel. i have really enjoyed it. Can't wait to read future readings by this author

These few words have made my day. That's the life of a self-published author who is still trying to figure out how to get the word out and sometimes, not often, but still often enough, lose hope in seeing this work widely read, even with a measure of good feedback I get from various channels.

I truly appreciate this feedback because book reviews are incredibly difficult to come by, even by your good friends. Maybe because they don't want to feel bad about writing an unflattering one, but I'm not looking for a falsely good review. I'm looking for an honest review. I want my book to stand on it's two feet. I, for one, get a little suspicious if a self-published book is just loaded with 5 star reviews with no real substantive details in the review. This makes me wonder if this reviewer has read the book at all. Having said that, of course, I appreciate a good review. It makes my day and keeps my hope alive for awhile longer.

My next book update:

It's highly unlikely that a mother would find her own child ugly, even if the truth is staring at her face. Well, I'm going through some thorough editing on my 1st draft and I still find my own book fascinating, which makes me wonder if I'm only seeing what I want to see.... Two of my good friends have read the first two sections and they tell me this book is very interesting. So, I'm hoping that they are good enough friends to tell me honestly, before I send out query letters and partial scripts to agents, if something sucks or doesn't work.

A couple of months ago, I've editing first 20 pages for a friend of mine and I was very honest, with a lot of comments, because I knew that's what I'd want from someone reading my manuscript. I think she appreciated my efforts.

I want my friends to tell me if my book child is ugly. I'm not sure I'd appreciate such comments about my human children. Did I tell you I find them fascinating to talk to? Sometimes I wonder if that's how small my world has gotten since I started staying home with them. Yikes!