Joanna, perhaps more known to some of you as Ficbot, is a real champion of Indie work. Asides from writing for Teleread for a long time, Joanna also reviews indie books at her blog, and also runs the Indie eBook Hall of Fame.

“This might sound a little harsh, but honestly, what I am looking for is a book that is of a high enough quality that I could actually picture it being sold in a store. If indie authors want true credibility, that is the bar they need to aim for, and that’s why I give very few 5/5 ratings.”

Joanna 6 February 2011

About Reviewing

How did you get started?

I have a background in journalism, and although that is no longer my day job, I do still dabble in areas that interest me. I started reviewing tech and writing other articles for Teleread a couple years ago after former editor David Rothman found some of my stuff elsewhere and sought me out. I actually demurred for a long time because I didn’t think I would have enough to write about!

As far as the book reviewing, I think the turning point for me came when Fictionwise started cracking down on geographical restrictions. As both a tech blogger and as an avid reader, I really identified with the frustrations customers were feeling as a result of this change. I recognized that there was a growing voice saying ‘but you do have other options…’ and the e-indie book boom had begun. But it was hard for customers to find honest, detailed information though since many of these books did not have a lot of (or any) Amazon reviews and those that existed were often one-liners or promo blurbs. So I started reviewing the books myself, the way I thought they should be done.

How do you review a book? Is it a read first, and then make notes, or do you make notes as you go along?

I read it straight through, and if I have a note I want to make or a passage I want to quote, I use the Kindle’s highlight feature. I don’t often make notes (I read fast and have a good memory) but I have at times clipped a passage for quoting in the review.

If the book is shorter, I will read it straight off the Smashwords website. I don’t really have a dedicated workspace at my day job (I am a specialist teacher and travel between multiple classrooms without a home base) so at times, the only place I have to sit during a break is at a lab computer. I usually keep one book going off the website so I can take advantage of those moments if I want to.

What are you looking for?

This might sound a little harsh, but honestly, what I am looking for is a book that is of a high enough quality that I could actually picture it being sold in a store. If indie authors want true credibility, that is the bar they need to aim for, and that’s why I give very few 5/5 ratings.

What generally makes a book stand out for me is really memorable characters. There is only one commercially published author whose books I buy, sight unseen, as soon as they come out, and her main series has a character with a super-compelling backstory. If I read a summary that doesn’t immediately let me know why this book is different from every other cop story or medical thriller or whatever, I am not as likely to choose it. Character, done right, definitely trumps plot for me!

I also enjoy non-fiction, but that can be a two-edged sword, because again, I look for something different or unique or unusual. I read a memoir from Smashwords once where the author had the same job I do, and I couldn’t help but compare his anecdotes to my own experiences and find his stories very run of the mill. My review was not as favourable as a review might be from someone not in that business and for whom his fairly standard stories might seem a little more exotic.

If a book has a great plot, great characters, but the grammar is less than perfect, how do you deal with that?

Honestly, that does detract, for me. It does make it feel like you are reading an ‘amateur’ book and not a polished, professional-quality title. If I notice this in the sample, I won’t read further. If I do finish the book and review it, it’s something I’ll definitely mention. Credibility is important to me—I know many authors, respect the work they do and love books and reading. But I think reviewing is more for the reader than the author, and if I recommend something that is not up to par, my readers won’t trust me. I want that trust so that when I do have a book that blows me away, I can drive deserved sales the author’s way. And I want readers to know that they can rely on me for the truth about a book before they put down money. It’s not like I am reviewing Stephen King here. Readers can’t necessarily find information about the book from a ton of other sources.

How long does it take you to get through, say, an eighty thousand-word book?

About two days, depending on what else I have going on. I can read something like a 50k Star Trek novel in an afternoon! I have always been a naturally fast reader.

How did you come up with your rating system, and could you explain more about the rating system?

I am a teacher, and my brain thinks that way when I am reviewing, so honestly, it’s a lot like the scale I use on my report cards! It’s a subjective grade out of five. Three is in the middle, four is very good, and five is excellent. I don’t typically write reviews that score less than that because if the book is terrible, I probably won’t finish it.

I am stingy with the fives though. To me, a five is a book I’ll remember for the ages. I have reviewed a number of 4/5 books which were great fun and heartily recommended, but not, for me, an eternal and timeless book I’d read again. I would never give a Star Trek novel a five, no matter how good—for a Star Trek novel—it might be. I treat indie books like any other. An indie book on the same level of literature as a Star Trek novel will get a 4/5 if it’s excellent. The 5/5 is for books which truly transcend.

What advice could you give to authors looking to get their books reviewed?

It’s not just the book that matters—your emails and your on-line presence are part of your ‘image’ too. Bloggers have a ton of books to choose from, and bloggers like me who are getting a bit of a name get a ton of queries. So if your email doesn’t grab me, I may not even get to the sample of the book itself. And your behaviour on message boards and on-line communities gives an impression too, whether that’s fair or not. You want that impression to be a courteous and professional one. There is one author whose works I won’t read because he makes such a jerk of himself on a well-known message board that I just can’t bring myself to spend 300 pages with him.

Most bloggers have submission guidelines, and it’s important that you read them and submit accordingly. I have had people write me and say ‘I know you don’t read such and such kind of book, but…’ And honestly, that is just wasting everybody’s time. You won’t get a review that way. The rare time I make an exception on a genre I don’t generally read, it’ll be because I know the author, or because I found it myself and it really sucked me in. I’m not trying to be mean with the submission guidelines. I just know, from prior experience with thousands of books (over 100 last year alone!) what sorts of books I’ll like and what sorts of books I won’t, and I don’t you to focus your efforts on me instead of on a more suitable venue. The likelihood that your fantasy epic is going to be the one that wins me over to that genre is so remote that, given what else is on my plate, I’m not even going to explore it.

Understand, too, that the review won’t necessarily go up right away. I have a full-time day job, a part-time day job, take a course once a year and try to have a life a little too. I read fast, so I get through more books than many people do. But this is a hobby and not a job, and I have limited time to spend on it. If I say I want to read it, I will eventually read it. But it might not be right away, and that is nothing personal. You have to think long-tail here—even the instant gratification internet doesn’t make fame and fortune immediate!

Do you get readers emailing you and thanking you for a review?

That hasn’t happened to me yet, but I do get authors emailing me.

My advice to authors on getting a “bad” review (hasten to add that might mean a perfectly honest, well written, fair review – just bad from the author’s point of view) is to take what you can from it and move on. Under no circumstances to “argue” with the reviewer – would you agree with that?

Definitely. I think an unfortunate mistake new writers especially can make is to take things personally. One person saying ‘this book was not my thing’ doesn’t make you a bad writer. It doesn’t even mean you have a bad book! My stepmother submitted a short story to a kid’s magazine many years ago and got a rejection letter with a hand-written note at the bottom that explained that the magazine only published one short story a year, and last year’s story also had a girl character, so they needed a boy story that year. It was a rejection, but more a rejection of timing than anything else!

I once gave a review that was less than perfect, and periodically I will get a Google Alert on my name which will be this author complaining on a message board post about how I hated his book. I didn’t ‘hate’ his book. To me, this is completely ridiculous. It’s an unprofessional attitude and it reminds me of the parents I deal with who come in and complain about what their child got on his report card. Teachers avoid these parents like the plague when we see them coming! There were things about this author’s book which worked, which I gave him credit for. There were other things which for me didn’t work, and I pointed those out and explained why. If you read the review and you think these same things will be an issue for you, then you have been warned and you can save your money. If those things are not deal-breakers in your mind, go ahead and enjoy it.

I see this all the time in the exercise video community, with which I am also involved. Some people really care about the music, or the clothes the background exercisers are wearing, or whether the instructor mirror-cues or not. They will reject an otherwise suitable purchase on the basis of these things. I once gave away a video because the instructor’s yoga mat was crooked, and it drove me crazy. It’s personal taste. That’s why I always explain my reasons for feeling a certain way—if something bothered me that won’t bother you, it’s important that you know that so you can make your own decision. It’s not about having any personal feelings—hate or otherwise—for an author or a book or a person.

About Reading

We talk a lot about writing here on the blog, and possibly enough about reading, which is after all why we’re all here. Why do you think people love reading. We’re seeing lots of statistics that say reading as a past-time is dying – do you think that’s the case?

I think reading as a pastime is growing, actually. Casual readers can buy a book right on their phone these days! I needed more heavy-duty hardware because I am not a huge music person so the text to speech option on the Kindle appealed to me for the gym, and because I read in French and make use of the built-in dictionary feature when I do. But I have an uncle who happily reads on his iPad using the Kobo app, and my sister read on Palm PDAs for years before she got a Kindle.

I think part of the reason these statistics can be misleading is that the time investment required for reading a novel compared to, say, listening to a song, can be misleading. My mother considers herself a heavy reader, and reads about a book a month. When you have someone who thinks they are a good customer making maybe fifteen purchases a year, you can only imagine what people on the lower end are buying! I read about 100 books a year, but I am an outlier. Most people enjoy reading as a pastime, but are slow enough at it that they don’t make much of a dent in sales figures.

About Writing

What are the most common mistakes that you see authors making?

Aside from grammar or spelling issues, I think the most common errors are timeline problems and poor fact-checking. I used to watch a television show where the two main characters had a firm dinner date with another  character every Friday. So the recappers on a television recap website I frequent used to drive themselves crazy trying to figure out the timeline of the episode based on these dinners. The episode would open with the Friday dinner, then an event would be happening on, for example, Thursday—but then the characters would be at Grandma’s for dinner again in the middle of the episode, and the event on Thursday hadn’t happened yet, and the poor recapper would be bashing her head against the wall…

I admit, I have found this challenging in my own writing, and it’s something I always caution my ‘beta’ readers to watch for. I’ll say ‘oh yes, something is happening on Tuesday’ without having a proper sense of when in the narrative this is and what has to happen before we get there. It’s something I usually fix in editing.

As far as fact-checking goes, there is really no excuse for that other than being a total amateur who put the book up without a proper vetting. I remember reading a book once that was even from an indie small press who brags about its editing, and it had a Wizard of Oz reference that was completely wrong. An editor should have caught that! Too many of those can really make a story seem less professional.

We’re told that the first page, paragraph, chapter, is absolutely key in making or breaking a book. Agents typically request only the first five pages of a novel, what do you think about that; if a book hasn’t grabbed you by the first five pages, do you put it down?

I wouldn’t say I have a hard and fast rule about how many pages I’ll read, but in this age of e-abundance, I am more aware that I used to be that there is plenty else to read if this one isn’t working. I can access about 1000 to-reads on my Kindle at this moment, without even getting up and going to the computer. So if I find my mind is wandering or the book just isn’t sucking me in, I will absolutely throw in the towel, especially if it’s a library book, a review copy or a classic and I didn’t pay for it.

There has been a lot of talk recently about the Page 99 concept, what are your thoughts on that idea?

I’ve never tried it. I am not sure how I even could find page 99 when I am reading electronically. I don’t put much stock in rules like this, anyway. If I am enjoying the book, I’ll read it. If I am not enjoying it, I’ll stop.

Is there anything you will not review?

I am a little choosy as far as genre goes—I don’t do sci-fi, fantasy, straight romance, erotica, politics or religion. There are exceptions, but they are rare ones, and in those cases it will usually be because someone has personally recommended it to me.

I know some authors feel a bit rejected when they write to me and I decline their book, but there are two reasons why I am fairly hard to convince if the book falls outside my genre. First of all, there is only so much time I can spend on this. If I only have x hours to read, I want to read something I’ll enjoy. I also don’t want to be forced to comment on something I don’t have a broad enough range of experience with to fairly evaluate. I did have a few reviews I wrote where the book really interested me and I took a chance on a genre that was outside my preference. In a handful of those, I felt that some of my resulting difficulties were my own problem and not the authors, and I declined to rate the book.

Very occasionally, something will come my way that I think my sister (a fellow Kindle owner) will enjoy, and I’ll pass it on to her for a guest review. But she has a child, and less time for this than I do, so I definitely would not encourage anyone to pitch to me based on the chance of that happening.

About Publishing

What do you think of the oft quoted comment that the “slush-pile has moved online”?

Totally true. But I think too that there is a growing community of bloggers like me who are trying to help people through that, and over time, crowd-sourcing will help weed out the real clunkers.

Do you think attitudes are changing with respect to Indie or self-published titles?

Maybe. People like my mother probably don’t know the difference. A book is a book to her, and she doesn’t care where it comes from. She has a Kobo and it’s still registered to my account and I load all the content onto it for her. She has no clue where any of it comes from. Among industry people, I think there is increasing attention being paid to the kind of numbers someone like Konrath is pulling in, but whether they respect him more or not as a result is something I couldn’t tell you.

Do you have any ideas or comments on how the industry can “filter” good from bad, asides from reviews?

I would love to see Smashwords introduce some sub-collections to help refine the database a little. For example, I am very interested in the growing cadre of authors who have regained backlist rights and are self-epublishing them. I would love to be able to easily search for just these books. A simple checkbox in the book submission process could flag such books in the database. I also think that Amazon’s ‘people who bought this book also bought…’ is very useful, and I think more vendors will integrate matrices like those into their storefronts.

End of Interview