The reviews for Captain Moxley and the Embers of the Empire are starting to come in and they're pretty great! Well, some definitely are. I'm too terrified to actually go and see the rest for myself.
I used to be a reviewer of books, so this part really shouldn't scare me. It's not usually personal, it's all about the words on the page and sometimes a reader doesn't connect with them and that's fine. But, hey, we've all seen the reviews that make no sense for our favourite books. Or reviews that can be downright mean. And while it's easy to brush it off when it's someone else's work, I quickly realised that it would hit home with me more than I thought it would. Suddenly that one bad review among all the brilliant ones would be magnified as 'the truth' and everything else would be people just being nice. Which is silly, but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in thinking like that.
Anyway, the good news is that reviews are for readers, not authors! So I made the decision early on not to go seeking them out and quite honestly it's really taken the weight off. Rest assured, I still like hearing nice things about the book so tagging me in positive reviews is ABSOLUTELY FINE, but I definitely won't be jumping onto Goodreads or Amazon to see what people are saying because it's not really any of my business.
Another reason for this approach is that right now I need to keep my confidence levels up to keep writing. Why? Because I got a writing gig! One that I have to be entirely vague about, so that's all I'll say about it. Other than it's exciting and I can't wait to get writing. But also we're still kinda in the middle of a pandemic (I mean, we really are, no matter how bored the government has become of it), so it's going to be ridiculously tough to write anyway. I can't compound that difficulty by seeking out reviews that weren't meant for me and might accidentally shake my ability to focus.
However, I'm extremely happy to share I was tagged in some absolutely lovely reviews recently and here are some snippets:
- Publishers Weekly
- Andrew at SparklyPrettyBriiiight
- Barry at Geek Syndicate
- Mada at Al Alhambra Book Reviews
- Dean at FanFiAddict
Like the sound of all that? The book is out in September and you can preorder from any of these fine outlets!
Bay Tree Books (if you're in the UK, this is my local indie store!!) Blackwell's