Shamelessly (& Endlessly) Promote Your Blog/Website/Review site

[jhempel24]

So what makes a good cover vs just a good piece of art??

Award winning designer Farah Evers stops by my site to explain!!

http://topoftheheapreviews.com/gorge...vers-explains/

[kennyc]

Excellent review Joe!

[Dr. Drib]

Moderator Notice

Remember: Posts that violate our posting guidelines for self-promotion will be deleted. NO PMs will be sent out.

Most reasons include: Image size; verbosity; bad links.

[jhempel24]

I'm guessing the image was too large....a notification to fix would have been more helpful than just deleting the post.

Anyway....

This review was tough to write. I hope my 1700 word review did it justice.

For God, Country, and Coca-Cola by Mark Pendergrast

http://topoftheheapreviews.com/for-g...k-pendergrast/

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by sgoldin

Joe, some of the best reviews ever written were for stinkers. Dorothy Parker made a career of it. "This is not a book to be put aside lightly. It should be thrown, and with great force."

Or, for a play starring Katharine Hepburn: "Miss Hepburn ran the emotional gamut from A to B."

I'm not a fan of that type of review myself. I try wherever possible to treat the author with respect. Unfortunately, that has a side-effect. If you feel upset with what I've written about your work, that was me trying hard not to be offensive.

I used to be quite casual about slinging mud around when the authors were just names on a cover, but when people submit requests to me for a review there is an undeniable humanity in it that I can't ignore regardless of what the author should or should not expect from me.

It's not practical for me to accept every request or even get into a conversation with every author making a request, but once I've actually chosen to feature an author's work on my site I feel like I should make an effort not to be a total bastard just for a cheap laugh. I'm not interested in becoming a literary drag queen.

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by jhempel24

Caleb, another top notch review!! Love how you do those things..I need to read more of them and learn a bit more to make my reviews better.

Thanks for that jhempel. That review was hard to write. It's difficult giving someone a luck-lustre review when I feel there was a possibility that it was I who was lacking.

Actually, all my reviews are difficult to write. Words don't flow freely enough for me and just a few paragraphs quite often takes at least a couple of hours of writing, deleting, rewording and starting all over again. I've now got a formula I follow and the structure helps quite a bit, but there's a reason why I'm several reviews behind and struggling to write one review a week.

[sgoldin]

Originally Posted by caleb72

It's not practical for me to accept every request or even get into a conversation with every author making a request, but once I've actually chosen to feature an author's work on my site I feel like I should make an effort not to be a total bastard just for a cheap laugh. I'm not interested in becoming a literary drag queen.

Great line. Speaking as an author, I always hope to get honest reviews, even if they're bad. They give me a person's reflection on what I've written, and how other people are seeing things.

It's fairly easy to spot the "literary drag queens." In those cases, when the reviewer is simply trying to sharpen their claws rather than give an honest opinion, I simply ignore the meat of what they say--if there is any--and see if they have any clever lines I can steal...er, borrow.

[jhempel24]

What a touching Christmas story....yeah it's a horror story too. It was actually beautiful...seriously.

Today's Flash Friday is by Joe R Lansdale. Christmas With the Dead


http://topoftheheapreviews.com/flash...oe-r-lansdale/

[caleb72]

My latest review is for an awesome action/thriller set in the seedy underbelly of Bangkok. Head off the tourist trail and see the real Thailand with Bangkok Wet.

Review: http://papyrus.calebblake.net/2013/0...y-simon-royle/

[kennyc]

I updated an older post "The Milky Way Galaxy" with few edits in preparation for my upcoming publication.

http://kennyachaffin.blogspot.com/20...ay-galaxy.html

[jhempel24]

Hey Caleb!

Who published that book?

Reason I ask is that I just read and reviewed (will be up next Monday) a book that takes place in Singapore, and they are a new publisher. Just thought it was funny that around the same time we are reviewing books that take place around the same area. (kind of)

[jhempel24]

Kennyc: Really cool post! Tried to comment on your blog but it wouldn't let me.


I never really thought about math being the culprit in getting the image of the Milky Way.

It makes sense, especially when 99% of the space photos are layered to add color, as no color exists in space.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by jhempel24

Kennyc: Really cool post! Tried to comment on your blog but it wouldn't let me.


I never really thought about math being the culprit in getting the image of the Milky Way.

It makes sense, especially when 99% of the space photos are layered to add color, as no color exists in space.

Really. Not sure why it wouldn't let you. It should be open for comments.....I'll recheck though.

Thanks for taking a look.

P.S. I took a look, it does require 'openID' - that's the most open before allowing anonymous postings which I don't want to allow. Either that or you have to 'join' the blog and can then post.

[jhempel24]

They are....wordpress is just being a turd at the moment.

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by jhempel24

Hey Caleb!

Who published that book?

Reason I ask is that I just read and reviewed (will be up next Monday) a book that takes place in Singapore, and they are a new publisher. Just thought it was funny that around the same time we are reviewing books that take place around the same area. (kind of)

It's a self-pub and was released in January of this year. He publishes under I & I Press, but I think this might be a branding thing.