[Hitch]

Originally Posted by BookCat

I totally agree with Hitch and wonder if your critique group and beta readers are just being nice by telling you what you want to hear. What demographic are they?

That's what I wondered. You know, unlike "back in the day," critique groups today seem to be emo support groups, or cheerleaders, not, well, critique groups. I've been appalled at what I've seen, when I was trying to find one for a family member. UTTERLY worthless, for critique work, anyway. I guess it's fine if you want a 12-step support group, but..there are millions of those. A decent critique group is worth its wieght in gold, these days.

I've had an idea about that--Gregg, what about submitting it to Critters? www.Critters.org ? Get an independent critique, apart from us, and your existing Betas and critiquers? Voices that don't know you, at all? Critters has a ton of trade-pubbed authors, etc., who are really excellent at providing the type of feedback that a dedicated writer really needs.

I imagine many readers will be inclined to purchase your book because of the animal rights angle, then be horrified when they read the plot and tone.

I'm not sure that they'll be "horrified," but I just feel very strongly that what Gregg thinks he's written, and what he's actually written, have a disconnect. Hell, maybe it's not a send-up; maybe with some tweaking, it's a different type of (successful) book altogether. That's all I'm saying.

It might be interesting for you to have this book read by a beta reader who has been involved in animal rescue or welfare.

I suspect that those reads would be very heavily biased, and given what Gregg THINKS he's written, it might not be a great demographic for this particular book.

As for the oft-repeated blurb, I really dislike the negative:
"Not all men are so bad, and not a few of them are attracted to her . . " Why not just say "Not all men are so bad, quite a few of them are attracted to her . ."

I confess, I tend to use the negative, as well, so it doesn't faze me at all, BUT, I would say that BookCat's point is well-taken--in this day and age, reading comprehension is not what once it was, and people might struggle with that a bit. Have you run your descriptions through any of the reading comprehension level programs, to see how they come out?

I checked it very quickly with Hemingway, the desktop app, and it marked it Grade 8, and noted that 1 of the 13 sentences was "hard to read;" that there was one sentence that was "very hard to read;" used two adverbs (invariably and systemically) and noted two uses of "the passive voice."

Offered solely FWIW.

Hitch