MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - What If the South Had Airpower?--New Historical Novel

Worldwalker · 09-02-2010, 12:53 AM

The past few weeks have involved things like a hospital and ICU, which I'd really rather forget. Due to this, I've been seriously behind in my MR reading.

To respond, briefly, to Mr. Klein, I read the first 20 pages of the sample, neither to like nor dislike the book, but to find out what kind of a book it was. That is the same thing I do with every author, amateur or professional. I was planning to read more of it, but I couldn't endure it. This has nothing to do with the technology involved (I never got far enough into the book to really evaluate the technology) and everything to do with the style and content of the writing. It is in desperate need of a proofreader and an editor, not to mention brutal excision of at least 3/4 of its content. I am not being kind here; I am being honest. Take it as it's meant.

You obviously think it's perfect as it is, of course. There comes a point, however, when you need to look at hard facts and decide which matters more to you: a book exactly the way you wrote it, even if the market rejects it in that form, or a book that a significant number of people will actually read. If the former, then by all means keep the book exactly as it is, accept that people who are looking for something other than your personal statement are going to be dissatisfied with it, and move on. If the latter, however, then it behooves you to listen to the people who post on MR, who have read more books than you have written, and take their advice very strongly to heart. They are -- we are -- your market, and it is a market which must be wooed, not bullied, into reading your work. Are we losing something by not reading your book? Possibly. But there are hundreds of books published every day, and we can only read a small number of them; it is the job of the author to convince us that we should read this and not that. So far, many other authors have done that job much better.

In the past few weeks I have read at least 50 books. I read fast, and I've had little else to do. You did not successfully prove to me that yours should be one of them.

09-02-2010, 12:53 AM	#45
Worldwalker Curmudgeon Posts: 3,085 Karma: 722357 Join Date: Feb 2010 Device: PRS-505	The past few weeks have involved things like a hospital and ICU, which I'd really rather forget. Due to this, I've been seriously behind in my MR reading. To respond, briefly, to Mr. Klein, I read the first 20 pages of the sample, neither to like nor dislike the book, but to find out what kind of a book it was. That is the same thing I do with every author, amateur or professional. I was planning to read more of it, but I couldn't endure it. This has nothing to do with the technology involved (I never got far enough into the book to really evaluate the technology) and everything to do with the style and content of the writing. It is in desperate need of a proofreader and an editor, not to mention brutal excision of at least 3/4 of its content. I am not being kind here; I am being honest. Take it as it's meant. You obviously think it's perfect as it is, of course. There comes a point, however, when you need to look at hard facts and decide which matters more to you: a book exactly the way you wrote it, even if the market rejects it in that form, or a book that a significant number of people will actually read. If the former, then by all means keep the book exactly as it is, accept that people who are looking for something other than your personal statement are going to be dissatisfied with it, and move on. If the latter, however, then it behooves you to listen to the people who post on MR, who have read more books than you have written, and take their advice very strongly to heart. They are -- we are -- your market, and it is a market which must be wooed, not bullied, into reading your work. Are we losing something by not reading your book? Possibly. But there are hundreds of books published every day, and we can only read a small number of them; it is the job of the author to convince us that we should read this and not that. So far, many other authors have done that job much better. In the past few weeks I have read at least 50 books. I read fast, and I've had little else to do. You did not successfully prove to me that yours should be one of them.