First press review for my book. (not good)

[Boota]

This is from a weekly entertainment paper in Indianapolis called The Spotlight. I'm going to send the guy a thank you note for taking the time to review it, even though his words are less than glowing. LOL. I somewhat agree with him about some of the things he says.

_______

Bookman finds Mr. Undesirable just that

Twice a week I play one set of selected numbers and one quick pick each for Hoosier Lotto and Powerball. I never win, and I have no expectation of winning, but I continue to play because it's the closest thing I have to a retirement plan.

Have you ever fantasized about what you'd do if you won the lottery? Would you purchase a Robin Leach-worthy estate, or a fleet of classic automobiles? Would you use your riches to travel the world and party with the jet set, eventually developing a serious drug habit and burning through three or four marriages before losing everything and dying broke and alone in a Hong Kong alley?

Or maybe you're more altruistic. Perhaps you would donate to charities, endow scholarships, sponsor a youth group. Would you subsidize public transportation, or endow a hospital? Would you genuinely try to make the world a better place before eventually developing a serious drug habit, burning through three or four marriages, losing everything, and dying broke and alone in a Hong Kong alley?

Lenny Kapowski, the title character in Scott Carpenter's novel Mr. Undesirable, wins a $158 million lottery jackpot but does none of those things. Instead, he uses his new-found fortune to make life miserable for the man who publicly humiliated him more than a decade before.

Mr. Undesirable is a pretty good book, but with the assistance of a competent editor it could have been a terrific book. Carpenter has a real talent for dialogue and his descriptive powers, though easily overlooked, are undeniable. However, the book's flaws come close to overshadowing the author's strengths.

As a rule I have no objection to strong language, but Carpenter uses the universal adjective as every part of speech. This book has more cussing than a Soprano family reunion. Not only that, but it's obvious that Carpenter has no more than a nodding acquaintance with the rules of grammar.

However, language and grammar are the least of this book's problems: Far too much verbiage is devoted to the adventures of the lesbian rock band; chapter fourteen is nothing less than a train wreck; the mystery of the identity of Kapowski's lawyer's secretary is a waste of space, and the book's ending is stupid and mean-spirited.

And it's really too bad, because Carpenter is a very funny writer. You know that little blurb in the back of a book called "About the Author," which describes the accomplishments and credentials of the person who wrote the book? This is what Scott Carpenter's says:

Scott Carpenter lives in Kokomo, Indiana, where he sits in a dark room with a bottle of tequila and a loaded gun. To unwind, he puts away the gun.

Carpenter has a real talent for storytelling, but he's immature and lacks discipline. With a little judicious editing to rein in the self-indulgence Mr. Undesirable could be a story that would rank with the early work of Donald E. Westlake and Lawrence Block. And that's good company.
________________________________________

It's almost not a bad review. LOL. I don't think my ending is stupid, but it was definitely mean-spirited. I meant for it to be.(Strangely, the ending is what I get the most compliments on.) I wish I could have afforded to pay an editor before I went to press. I had to do it myself and I have never been very good at editing my own work. I just don't see some of the things that would glare at me from someone else's writing. Maybe the 'train wreck' comment was a little harsh. LOL. (Maybe not. ) I particularly liked the part about the Soprano family reunion. LOL. I'm not too worried about the things he didn't like. I like those parts, and so far my readers have liked them. I can't please everyone, and I don't really want to try. I intend to continue working on the weaknesses he mentioned, the ones I agree with, and I want to capitalize on the strengths he mentioned.

Generally, I don't think my novel is all that bad for being only the fourth thing that I have ever written in my life. Besides songs, that is. Sure, I probably jumped in too soon. But that's how I do everything. LOL. I wrote three short stories to get ready to write the novel and said, "Hell yeah, I can do this!" LOL. Until the novel was finished that was the extent of my fiction writing.

 

[Couture]

I thought it was a very good review. They aren't called CRITICS for nothing.

 

[lexium]

I think you are taking it very well, with a positive out look. Just keep doing what you do, and you will reach your goal.

BTW, do you think that the lanuage your characters used show their personality?

 

[Omni]

What do they say Boota, any press is good press

But, really, I am like impressed that a paid for his livelihood reviewer says "has a real talent for storytelling"

It is better to receive a winningly great review, Boota. However, after explaining this is your first book, you edited it yourself, while not being keen on grammar such and such. I say WOW.

First off, look at the information in the review that is priceless. People send manuscripts off to publishers receive no thanks, but no insight into what might make it better.

This review says to me, you got the talent now, do as we all hope to do, hone it to make it better.

Some ain't even got the talent to start with.

Oh and congrads on getting reviewed at all, not a given easy thing. And, feel free to snip good parts of review for uses elsewhere. ~Laughs, they ALL do it.

Omni

 

[shereads]

Lenny Kapowski, the title character in Scott Carpenter's novel Mr. Undesirable, wins a $158 million lottery jackpot but does none of those things. Instead, he uses his new-found fortune to make life miserable for the man who publicly humiliated him more than a decade before.

Mr. Undesirable is a pretty good book <snip>Carpenter has a real talent for dialogue and his descriptive powers <snip> are undeniable.

<snip>This book has more cussing than a Soprano family reunion.

<snip>Carpenter is a very funny writer. You know that little blurb in the back of a book called "About the Author," which describes the accomplishments and credentials of the person who wrote the book? This is what Scott Carpenter's says:

Scott Carpenter lives in Kokomo, Indiana, where he sits in a dark room with a bottle of tequila and a loaded gun. To unwind, he puts away the gun.

Carpenter has a real talent for storytelling<snip>Mr. Undesirable could be a story that would rank with the early work of Donald E. Westlake and Lawrence Block. And that's good company.
________________________________________

There. With a little judicious editing, you've got a damn fine review there.

Seriously, honey, this is more impressive even without the snips than you realize. You're too close to it, and you forget how the unwashed unpublished look up to you few who have been reviewed in actual newsprint.

Congratulations.

 

[Boota]

Thanks for the positive words everyone. I agree, I do think it is a pretty constructive piece of criticism. I'm not bothered by it at all. Mostly what he did was point out weaknesses I kind of knew were there anyway. I do disgaree with him on some parts, but that's just a matter of taste on our respective parts.

Couture, yes, they do call them critics for a reason. LOL.

Lexium, I think the language from my characters is almost a defining element of their personalities. The book is in first person and the narrator, Lenny, is a foul-mouthed, porn addicted, binge drinking malcontent. (Says so right on the back of the book even. LOL.) It is the only way to write that character. I tried to keep all the dialogue the way that Lenny would talk. And some of the grammar "mistakes" he may be talking about are things that I left in on purpose. Certain incorrect ways of saying things were left in because that's how Lenny, and a lot of people, actually talk. Until this review, the only one who ever complained about the language was my brother. He said I swore too much. What he didn't know was that I based Lenny's language on HIM! LOL.

Omni, you're absolutely right. And I am proud of the compliments I was given in the review. But at the same time I am willing to own the criticism. I would have LOVED to have gotten criticisms like that during the submission process. And I would tend to think that Westlake and Block did have access to professional editors when they were published. LOL. On the other hand, if an editor had cut out enough to make this reviewer happy, I probably wouldn't have been happy with it.

Shereads, thanks for the snip and tuck on the review! That just glows! LOL. I think I'll use that. I do appreciate that it is an actual newsprint review. And I don't think anything he said would necessarily stop someone from picking it up if they were considering it. He did say I was a very funny writer. That was good. I find myself hilarious! LOL.

One of the things that seemed to put him off was my About the Author section. I put that because I had nothing else to write. I don't drink or own guns. I just had no resume as an author. All I was going to put is, "Scott Carpenter absolutely fucking hates talking about himself in the third person."

 

[shereads]

And I don't think anything he said would necessarily stop someone from picking it up if they were considering it.

Good lord, of course not! The business about the frequent use of bad words is a plug beyond price.

 

[Guest]

Boota, I'm with everyone above, the reviewers compliments are praise indeed. He may even be wrong about the negative crit. All in all, congrats again! Obviously, keep writing! And thank you for sharing this.

Perdita

 

[lucky-E-leven]

Nice work, Boota! Guess I need to go to the bookstore, eh? I enjoy a great deal of swearing and mean spiritedness at times.



Wishing I were in your shoes, buddy.

~lucky

 

[Liar]

Hey, this means that you've got a published book, and a published review (even one that says that you have talent). That a hell of a lot more than I've got.

Congratulations.

#L

 

[cloudy]

Congratulations!

I think the review, overall, was actually very good. He had to find something to criticize, after all, he is a critic.

Published, and a good review - life is good!

 

[sweetnpetite]

So the only question now is- "where do we get a copy?"

Is it available on Amazon?

 

[KarenAM]

You are to be congratulated, Boota; with my own novel I've found that getting a media review is harder than writing the book itself (I have gotten some very nice feedback from readers, one of whom wrote a review that is so well written it certainly deserves to be published as literature in its own right).

Most of all, you've gotten attention and publicity, and it's clear from the four reviews you've recieved over at Amazon that not everyone agrees with this reviewer's objections. And quite frankly, the story idea itself is much more interesting than 99% of the books published today, and the reviewer saw this too and gave you credit for it. That counts for a lot.

 

[sweetnpetite]

found it!

(silly me, all I had to do was look)

 

[Sabledrake]

Like the others have said, Boota, congrats on getting a review no matter what! Even when they're not so great (which I know from personal experience, having been dunned in Chronicle as a writer of "competent but uninspired fantasy"), they're at least attention! Anything that helps get you out there can't be all bad.

Sabledrake

 

[rgraham666]

Way to go Boota!

Now if I could just come up with an idea for a novel.

I recall Heinlein's aphorism on critics.

A critic is someone who creates nothing and so feels justified in judging the work of creative people. There is some merit in this. He hates all creative people equally.

 

[Guest]

Amazon Link

 

[Boota]

Thank you all for the support. I really appreciate it. I'm also of a mind to think that any attention is good attention. I've written a reply to the reviewer thanking him for his time in reading and reviewing my book. Word of mouth is how I get most of my sales, and if one person picks it up there is another chance for another sale. I have a lot of great things going on with this book, so this review did nothing to slow that down. As long as the reader likes it I could care less if a critic does. Critics have hated some of the greatest artists in history and it didn't stop them. I'm not comparing myself to the greats, but I am sticking with it, just as the greats would.

Here's how I opened the letter to him:

I would like to thank you for taking the time to read and review my book, Mr. Undesirable. Although your review may be considered less than glowing, I want you to know that I appreciate the professional and constructive manner in which you offered your criticism. I also appreciate the compliments. I’ll take a measure of pride in those and I will gladly own the criticisms. I think you were pretty much on the money with a lot of it.
__________________________________________

After that I politely discussed differences in opinion and thanked him again.


As for finding my book, I have another option besides Amazon and the retail outlets online stores. www.mr-undesirable.com will take you right to my page on the AuthorHouse site. The book is a little cheaper there, too. $16.50 as compared to $21.95. A lot of people still prefer to buy from Amazon or a place they already ahve an established account, though. Can't blame them. My page has an excerpt you can check out, too.

Again, thank you, all of you.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Well I didn’t think the review was that bad. He complained about some specific areas, but his overall impression was pretty good.

I think the big thing is that he chose to review your book in the first place. How many first-time authors does that happen to? And not only did he choose to review it, but he decided after reading it that a review would be worth writing. That doesn’t happen to that many books either. He must have thought your book was of some interest.

And like Omni says, the only bad publicity is no publicity. Saying that a book is long on the f-word isn’t the worst endorsement you can get these days.

I don't know about the protocol of thanking someone for a review, but may I suggest that you italicize the name of your book in your sentence:

I would like to thank you for taking the time to read and review my book, Mr. Undesirable.

Otherwise he might think you're talking about him.

---dr.M.

 

[CharleyH]

This is from a weekly entertainment paper in Indianapolis called The Spotlight. I'm going to send the guy a thank you note for taking the time to review it, even though his words are less than glowing. LOL. I somewhat agree with him about some of the things he says.

_______

Bookman finds Mr. Undesirable just that

Twice a week I play one set of selected numbers and one quick pick each for Hoosier Lotto and Powerball. I never win, and I have no expectation of winning, but I continue to play because it's the closest thing I have to a retirement plan.

Have you ever fantasized about what you'd do if you won the lottery? Would you purchase a Robin Leach-worthy estate, or a fleet of classic automobiles? Would you use your riches to travel the world and party with the jet set, eventually developing a serious drug habit and burning through three or four marriages before losing everything and dying broke and alone in a Hong Kong alley?

Or maybe you're more altruistic. Perhaps you would donate to charities, endow scholarships, sponsor a youth group. Would you subsidize public transportation, or endow a hospital? Would you genuinely try to make the world a better place before eventually developing a serious drug habit, burning through three or four marriages, losing everything, and dying broke and alone in a Hong Kong alley?

Lenny Kapowski, the title character in Scott Carpenter's novel Mr. Undesirable, wins a $158 million lottery jackpot but does none of those things. Instead, he uses his new-found fortune to make life miserable for the man who publicly humiliated him more than a decade before.

Mr. Undesirable is a pretty good book, but with the assistance of a competent editor it could have been a terrific book. Carpenter has a real talent for dialogue and his descriptive powers, though easily overlooked, are undeniable. However, the book's flaws come close to overshadowing the author's strengths.

As a rule I have no objection to strong language, but Carpenter uses the universal adjective as every part of speech. This book has more cussing than a Soprano family reunion. Not only that, but it's obvious that Carpenter has no more than a nodding acquaintance with the rules of grammar.

However, language and grammar are the least of this book's problems: Far too much verbiage is devoted to the adventures of the lesbian rock band; chapter fourteen is nothing less than a train wreck; the mystery of the identity of Kapowski's lawyer's secretary is a waste of space, and the book's ending is stupid and mean-spirited.

And it's really too bad, because Carpenter is a very funny writer. You know that little blurb in the back of a book called "About the Author," which describes the accomplishments and credentials of the person who wrote the book? This is what Scott Carpenter's says:

Scott Carpenter lives in Kokomo, Indiana, where he sits in a dark room with a bottle of tequila and a loaded gun. To unwind, he puts away the gun.

Carpenter has a real talent for storytelling, but he's immature and lacks discipline. With a little judicious editing to rein in the self-indulgence Mr. Undesirable could be a story that would rank with the early work of Donald E. Westlake and Lawrence Block. And that's good company.
________________________________________

It's almost not a bad review. LOL. I don't think my ending is stupid, but it was definitely mean-spirited. I meant for it to be.(Strangely, the ending is what I get the most compliments on.) I wish I could have afforded to pay an editor before I went to press. I had to do it myself and I have never been very good at editing my own work. I just don't see some of the things that would glare at me from someone else's writing. Maybe the 'train wreck' comment was a little harsh. LOL. (Maybe not. ) I particularly liked the part about the Soprano family reunion. LOL. I'm not too worried about the things he didn't like. I like those parts, and so far my readers have liked them. I can't please everyone, and I don't really want to try. I intend to continue working on the weaknesses he mentioned, the ones I agree with, and I want to capitalize on the strengths he mentioned.

Generally, I don't think my novel is all that bad for being only the fourth thing that I have ever written in my life. Besides songs, that is. Sure, I probably jumped in too soon. But that's how I do everything. LOL. I wrote three short stories to get ready to write the novel and said, "Hell yeah, I can do this!" LOL. Until the novel was finished that was the extent of my fiction writing.

 

[CharleyH]

________________________________________

Boota said: "It's almost not a bad review. LOL. I don't think my ending is stupid, but it was definitely mean-spirited. I meant for it to be . . . "

Boota:

Honestly, as a qualified (the only thing I am qualified for) Reviewer - Critical Whore. Each person has their take. I have not read your novel, and yet I can say proudly . . . why worry, babe? Its fucking published!!!! BLAH and

I WISH for a bad review that so qualifies as great PR.

 

[Boota]

Thanks Dr. M and Charley. I was really glad to see it get a review at all. The positive things he said about it seemed pretty balanced with his criticisms. He must have liked it at least a bit because he posted his review on my Amazon page and gave it 3 out of 5 stars.

I have no idea on the protocol for responding to reviews either, but I appreciated it and I thought I'd let him know. He could have just ignored it and went on to a book he really liked. I don't think the swearing in my book is going to put anyone off. I expected it to, but so far I have heard relatively little about it.

Dr. M, you're right. I probably should italicize Mr. Undesirable. Just to be clear.

 

[Guest]

Hi Boota,

Congratulations!

I read that as a glowing review of you as a writer. He obviously thinks you are very talented; he said some very positive things about your writing and the book, as well as giving his own personal opinion on how it could've been improved.

You've had a book published, now you've had a good and balanced review. More power to you!

Lou

 

[Boota]

Thanks Lou. I think I'm kind of glad that I got a review like I did instead of some piece that came off worshipping my book. I wouldn't have really learned anything from that.


"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into
thinking they can't lose."
--Bill Gates, Microsoft founder

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Boota this is wonderful news. Congrats on your publication. Can I say I knew you when?
Best wishes to you!!!!!!!
~A~