Being Published

Being a published novelist has bought some new experiences for me.

When I was an unpublished writer, I lived in a bubble, writing (mostly) for my own pleasure and satisfaction. That’s not to say that I didn’t have that dream in the back of my mind that one day I would be published and my books would be reviewed in the national press – it was just less important than the writing itself. For most of the time, I did not share my writing with anyone, not even friends or family. It was a hobby, of sorts, simply a way to satisfy the creative side of my personality. To improve my skills, I joined a writers’ group, and occasionally attended creative writing courses. When I became internet-savvy, I even posted sample chapters on a writers’ website for evaluation by the other members of the site. I did receive some feedback – although the feedback from those sources was generally a particular ‘writerly’ sort of feedback: technical advice about sentence construction and character development and plot devices. The writers giving their opinion frequently said that they liked my stories, but that was within the context of a writer giving a professional judgement on a piece of work, not a reader who read the book purely for pleasure.

Now that I am published, my book is available for the reading public to buy and read. People who are complete strangers to me, people who I have never met (nor am ever likely to meet) have picked up or downloaded my book and read it simply because they wanted to be entertained. None of them are under any obligation to provide me with feedback, if they don’t want to. For all I know, some of them may have absolutely hated it – although if they did, I will probably never find out. But I know that some readers have definitely enjoyed my book because they have been kind enough to post reviews on the internet saying so.

Now, I am not the sort of person who likes to blow his own trumpet, but I have to say that all the reviews for Five and a Half Tons posted so far are very positive. A few have had reservations, naturally, but I expected that. There are reviews on both amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. There are also reviews on Marlene Lee’s blog, Reader’s Favorite and Our Book Reviews Online. Gerry, the reviewer at Our Book Reviews Online, has even picked Five and A Half Tons as one of his books of the year! Big thanks to everyone who’s taken the time to write and post a review.

If anyone who has read Five and a Half Tons would like to write a review of their own, on Amazon or Goodreads, I would love to read what you thought of it.