Last post I wrote on the importance of reviews. Since
then I paid Kirkus to review A Collection
of Angels. While this means I literally paid for a review, which has an
awful connotation in the implication I paid for a good review, there was no guarantee on the quality of write-up. This
isn’t a dirty deed. I could have landed with a reader who hated the novella, or
someone who thought it was only passable, and either scenario would have
entailed a write-up I’d never want to see the light of day.
Paying Kirkus was a gamble, but I wouldn’t have taken it
if I didn’t believe in the quality of my book. Still, Monday
I had a moment of anxiety when I saw the email, “Your Kirkus review is ready,” a
week earlier than expected. I know it’s wrong to let others dictate how you
feel about your craft, but this is a professional reviewing service. They carry
clout. A choice excerpt from Kirkus
Reviews is much more of a selling point than “The best novel ever!” --Close Friend to Jesse. It would have destroyed my week to discover a
professional reviewer had just trashed my book (at my own financial expense, no
less).
Here’s the review.
It’s not AMAZING, at no point does the reviewer actually recommend the book, but it’s not bad. I enjoy (and I say this earnestly, not
facetiously) that the single criticism levied against the story is it “threatens
to go overboard in creepiness.” A few sentences read awkwardly, and I’m not crazy about ending the
article with "will make some cringe and
others gag." In the context of the rest of the review it’s not damning, and the part of the sentence that precedes those final words is great, but
taken alone, this suggests Collection is nothing
more than gross-out horror, and as the last thought, it ends the review with a whimper as opposed to a bang.
So I’ve got a decent Kirkus review. What now? By itself,
this review does little. But for the sake of future advertising, I can now superimpose something like:
“Leaves a lasting
dread.
An undeniably disturbing, reverberating
story.” –Kirkus Reviews
on my cover, and I can also take comfort in the fact that
any potential buyer browsing the book's Amazon page will see a professional reviewer's comments in addition to reader reviews. Will this prove to be worth the $400+ investment? Way too soon to tell.
