Reading

Reading Trad vs. Indie

Much of my reading is fiction by indie authors, but lately I’ve read several traditionally-published books. Two are recent nonfiction, one recent fiction, and another fiction originally published more than a century ago, reissued in the 1960s. Reading these books has given me an opportunity to compare reading experiences, trad vs. indie. Here are my observations.

Trad books have more precise editing and are better designed and formatted, with professionally designed covers. Consider that it takes a year or more between acceptance and publication, with teams of editors, designers and publicists involved in production of a trad-pubbed book.

Let’s face it, though—the purpose of the cover, book description, and overall design of a book is to attract attention and sell the book. Once a person has purchased it, those elements don’t really matter. They are sizzle; the story itself is the steak.

Recent traditionally-published fiction presents urgent stories with high drama, aiming to hook and hold readers, because books have to earn their keep immediately upon release. Publishers no longer want to carry a bunch of mid-listers. Go big or go OP.

Self-published authors also produce stories with hooks, conflict, and gripping prose. But indies can take more chances to produce unusual stories, i.e. ones with leisurely pacing or a contemplative tone, or just offbeat. Imagination isn’t exclusive to writers with publishing contracts. Unless the prose is so clunky that the story gets bogged down by it, there are some fantastic stories published by indies.

Indies aren’t pressured into the “book as commercial product” mold. They don’t have to adhere to someone else’s schedule and crank out stories with rushed endings, or recycle their characters and plots until they’re threadbare.

Trad books have better visibility. Publishers are linked to distribution networks and have established procedures for distributing advance review copies. The publisher-funded book tour may be a thing of the past for most authors, but publishers do contribute to building buzz. Indies, on the other hand, have to do all the work themselves (if they choose to).

In the end, it’s all about the reading experience.

So did the trad-pubbed books I read offer a better reading experience than the indie authors’ books? Once I was into a book, did I look forward to reading trad more than indie? Did I give higher ratings to one or the other?

The answer to all three questions: No. I’ve rated and reviewed both types of books similarly, and once engaged with a book, I’ve been equally keen to continue reading it, regardless of which end of the publishing spectrum it came from.

Photo by Perfecto Capucine on Pexels.com

Writers who publish their own books can now offer a reading experience equal or superior to that provided by traditional publishers, even the big corporate outfits. There is a greater variation in quality among self-published books, both in writing and in presentation, but there are many self-published books equal in all aspects to the traditional publishers’ product. They are harder to find than trad-pubbed bestsellers, however, because of less exposure and the sheer number of books available.

Reading time is constricted by the huge variety of other entertainment options available. If potential readers’ attention is taken up by traditionally-published books, they are not likely to discover great indie-published ones. This is why word-of-mouth (or on blogs and social media) recommendations are so important to self-published authors.

Apparently April was the month to celebrate indie artists and authors everywhere, something I didn’t know until I read this post by Mark Paxson, who is also an indie author. But let’s make every month Read an Indie Book Month!

Fellow readers (and writers), do you prefer to read traditionally-published books or those by indie authors? How would you compare them in terms of reading experiences?

She Who Returns by Audrey Driscoll

Here is a good review of She Who Returns, by Dave Higgins.

Davetopia

Driscoll blends learning and esoterica with complex characters, creating a story that evokes classic tales of occult scholarship without any of the dryness that can creep in.

This novel is the sequel to She Who Comes Forth and describes events in Driscoll’s Herbert West series. Possible spoilers for both ahead.

France Leighton has built a satisfying life reading Egyptology at Miskatonic University and working as a shelver in the library. However, the arrival of two half-brothers she never knew she had not only puts degree and job at risk but also threatens to drag her into her grandfather’s experimentations with reanimation and the occult.

With references to Nephren-Ka and Herbert West that are integrated into the story rather than veneered on, this novel is very much an homage to Lovecraft. The amount of Egyptology that appears and the academic protagonist similarly echo the sense of scholarliness that fills many of…

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Three for a Girl is here!

A new book from Kevin Brennan!

WHAT THE HELL

Here we are again. Launch day.

This time, friends, it’s my new novel, Three for a Girl, available today as a Kindle book ($2.99) or in paperback ($8.49).

Here’s the plot, in a nutshell:

LeeAnn Heartney, seventeen and desperate to get away from her dysfunctional family in the summer of 1973, cooks up a plan. Her mother, Arlene, has rented out the top floor of their quirky, ramshackle house to a three-man ambulance crew, and LeeAnn thinks their old beaut of a machine—a converted ‘58 Caddie—would make the perfect getaway car for her dreamed-of flight to California. The only kink in her strategy is what to do about her sister, Jeannie, three years younger and in no way ready to deal with the craziness of life in that house without LeeAnn to watch her back.
It’s the summer of the Senate Watergate hearings too, and Arlene Heartney is obsessed…

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What Happened Last Week

In a word (or two), not much. Or, a number of small things.

In the Garden…

The highest temperature so far this year—17C (63F). Not much rain; March has been dry. Anticipating summer drought, I’ve already laid out three of my six soaker hoses and acquired a new sprinkler. It can be set to about 1 foot from the ground or raised to 3 feet. A three-armed whirly-twirly thing on top flings water around generously. It’s definitely not a water-conserving model, but the idea is it will supplement the soaker hoses in seriously dry times.

Tomato seeds have sprouted, and the 1-inch tall seedlings are on a south-facing windowsill. Pepper seeds are still awaiting emergence on top of the hot water tank.

Ornamental cherry trees are in full bloom on the boulevards, adding a froth of pink to the scene. Daffodils are almost done, but tulips are about to bloom. So is the magnolia.

Early ornamental cherry on boulevard April 1, 2023

Last spring I congratulated myself on pulling up every single plant of shotweed (Cardamine oligosperma or maybe C. hirsuta) in the entire garden before they could bloom, thus ensuring no shotweed here this year. (Gardeners who know this weed will be laughing now.) I must have missed one or two, so have been pulling up tiny shotweeds for the past several weeks. They are pretty when young, but absolutely cannot be allowed to shoot their seeds all over the place.

The little plant of Rosa mutabilis that was deer-nipped to 2 inches from the ground in December appears to be alive. But two old pelargoniums, that survived many freezes in past winters, are dead. I should have brought them inside when temperatures of -8C (18F) were predicted last December, but told myself that they would be OK covered up. I was wrong. Pelargoniums (tender geraniums) are easy to replace, so it’s not a huge loss, except in principle.

Shopping

Along with the sprinkler, on a whim I ordered this cute little pocket knife made in Czechia. It’s only 8 cm (about 3 in.) long, folded up, but feels surprisingly weighty.

Rybička fish-shaped pocket knife from Czechia — More info at www.mikov.cz

Reading

I thoroughly enjoyed Jim Webster’s delightful adventure tale Tallis Steelyard. A Fear of Heights. I’m halfway through Once Upon a Tome, by Oliver Darkshire, a book of anecdotes about working in an antiquarian bookshop in London. And I’m more than halfway through A Rooster for Asklepios by Christopher D. Stanley, an absorbing historical novel set in Graeco-Roman times.

Writing?

Not much. Yet.

Thinking?

Lots. Thoughts yet to be organized and turned into writing.

A New Cover Image…

…for The Herbert West Series Complete. It’s a so-called “box set” of all four ebooks of the series, available on Amazon and other ebook stores.

This is the old image.

The Herbert West Series Complete ebook cover image

The colours are associated with alchemy (which has a symbolic role in the books): black, white, yellow, and red. The caduceus represents the main character’s role as a physician.

Despite all that, I thought the image wasn’t interesting enough, and the font (Cinzel), although slender and elegant, did not show up well in thumbnails.

So after days spent in the garden, digging, raking, pounding stakes, and ripping out unwanted plants, I put together a new image:

The Herbert West Series Complete new cover March 2023

Okay, the font I chose (IM Fell English Small Caps) isn’t all that much more visible in thumbnail sizes than Cinzel, but it suits the image better than some blocky sans-serif fonts I tried.

The image is based on others I played around with in the past year, like these:

Science or Magic image for Herbert West Series

Stories from an Imaginary Land: the Sanctuary Series by PJ O’Brien

There are many books set in places that exist only in fiction. Most of these fictional lands are distant in time and/or space, in other galaxies or alternate universes. But for the past few months, I’ve been reading about a nonexistent country that—if it were real—would be in our present time and right here on Earth.

The country is called Sanctuary. Here is what its creator, author PJ O’Brien, says about it:

She was challenged to write a genre-bending mystery after losing an argument with ducks about the inevitability of violence. She dreamed up a country founded upon the ideals of fairness and peace, and then added characters that had to abide by the framework of their culture. They were given the traditional provocations to fighting (e.g. limited resources, invasions, religious & ideological differences) as well as some natural horrors that plague people. The characters were allowed to evolve on their own and respond to crises as they saw fit. They had only to be true to their culture, retain essential elements of modern humanity, and be charming when not dealing with threats that could potentially end the world as they knew it.

Now that I’m well into the fourth and last book of the series, I can list some basics about Sanctuary:

According to the author, Sanctuary may be located anywhere on Earth that readers would like it to be. I picture it somewhere in Asia, between India and China. My reasons: the languages named, customs relating to tea-drinking, etiquette involving bowing and an elaborate system of honorifics, the importance of martial arts. Also the climate, in which snow is rare and serious cold isn’t mentioned. There are dry, bare rocky places and sandstorms. Also, the country was occupied in WW2, so is not in the Americas or Australia/NZ.
Despite the above, the inhabitants are pretty up on American movies and popular music.
Everyone has a cell phone and many use the internet, but CDs are the main vehicle for recorded music. There are national TV and radio stations.
The only agricultural area is situated close to the country’s only forest. The Forest and the Purple Mountains are central to Sanctuary’s history and a source of conflict and mystery.
The Forest and its people occupy a unique position, especially its women, some of whom have special talents.
The country has a policy of pacifism and sends humanitarian missions to conflict zones.
Members of the Masters Guild are trained to different levels and types of martial arts. They carry out the roles of police, security, and (when needed) defensive armed forces.
The country’s monarchs are brother and sister, with succession through women. There is also an elected Assembly.
There is no capital punishment, even for serious crimes. Wrongdoers are confined in temple complexes for rehabilitation.
There are multiple religions, but no official faith (although the Royals have an official set of rituals). Much discussion of religion occurs in the books.
Courtiers are a somewhat privileged group focussed on the Palace (which is located away from the capital city), with an interest in gossip and intrigue. But the life of a Courtier isn’t always easy.
Sanctuary’s history goes back more than 1,000 years. Legendary and historic figures are often mentioned in discussions of contemporary matters.
Some pretty grim stuff is mentioned at times (war, starvation, massacre, murder, rape, etc.), but there is a lot of warmth and humour.
These books show individuals and groups working out large and small challenges and differences within the parameters as outlined above. Readers will find most of the situations relatable.

Dialogue is the primary mode of conveying the narrative, interleaved with brief scene-setting descriptions. In general, description of people, landscapes, buildings, etc. is minimal. This is hard to believe, considering each book is over 1,000 pages (between 400 and 500K words). The dialogue is often realistic and snappy.

There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of characters, with a core of a couple of dozen. Point of view shifts among them, with occasional out-zooms to omniscience. Each scene features an issue or situation of interest to someone, who talks it through with one or more other characters. This sounds like it might be confusing, but it’s not. The place and time of each chapter are always indicated.

By now, those reading this will have realized that the Sanctuary Series books deviate somewhat from the beaten track of fiction. I’m not sure what genre they belong to, if any. The author has used the term “speculative ethnology,” which certainly describes aspects of them. Keywords applied to the books include “mashups,” “utopias,” “fantasy,” and “mystery.” One might also call them speculative family sagas.

Why? Because of Sanctuary’s unique way of managing marriage and family life. Every adult must be part of a House, i.e., a family. And said House must consist of at least two, and often includes more than two, couples who are married to all the others. Everyone has several mothers and several fathers.

Ooh, group marriage! Yes, but don’t expect group sex. In fact, there are few sex scenes as such in these books, and none that could be described as explicit. There are strict rules around marriage and House formation, as well as a degree of flexibility and quite a few challenges. It’s certainly a different type of social organization and permeates the entire series. And House names are charming, interesting, and sometimes quirky.

There is also a concept of “teaching stories” woven into the plots of the four books. In a way, the books themselves perform this role. Instead of “Once upon a time…” we have “What if there was a country where…”

I have found these books to be engaging and will be sorry to finish reading the last one in the series. They are like a long-running TV series that becomes part of one’s life. I have looked forward to reading regular “episodes” in the past year. I recommend an unhurried approach to reading these books. There’s no need to race through them to find out how they end. Let the stories unfold slowly. Start with the first book, Surviving Sanctuary, and allow yourself to be drawn into life in this imaginary land.

More information about PJ O’Brien and the Sanctuary Series may be found at Goodreads and at Smashwords, where Read an Ebook Week has commenced!

Featured image from Pixabay. Cover images from Smashwords.

Not Blocked, Just Lazy

Despite the block of wood in the photo, I can’t say writer’s block is why I’m not cranking out the prose right now.

I just don’t feel like writing.

There are so many books to read…

Waterloo Sunset (Book 4 in Sanctuary Series) / PJ O’Brien
The Bright Black Sea / C Litka
A Trail if by Sea / Laura Seabury Smith
From Unseen Fire (Book 1 of the Aven Cycle) / Cass Morris
The Basement: A Novella by Mark Paxson
Tallis Steelyard: A Fear of Heights by Jim Webster
Infamy: A Journal of Our Darkest Year, 2020 / Kevin Brennan
What Happened in Vienna, Jack? / Daniel Kemp

And it looks like Spring has been postponed.

Okay, this photo is from February 25, 2011. But things are similar today. (Same daffodil too!)

What about you, fellow writers—and readers? Are you writing, thinking about writing, reading, or doing other things altogether?

Book Reviewing: Further Thoughts

Since I started blogging, I’ve written at least half a dozen posts about book reviewing, the most recent ones in 2019. I just read over them, but didn’t think I’d finished with the topic. A recent post by a fellow writer inspired me to revisit it.

I read a lot of books and write some sort of review about almost all of them. I also assign star ratings. Sometimes I have reservations about the whole process.

Seeing Stars

One of these is the familiar 5-star system used on Amazon, Goodreads, and by many individual reviewers. It’s a blunt instrument, reducing the worth of a complex piece of writing to a number. It has been used for malicious attacks, in which a group assigns a bunch of 1-star ratings to a book in order to pull down its overall rating. But many potential book buyers (including libraries) use a book’s star rating as an indicator of quality when deciding to buy or not.

Many reviewers avoid 1- and 2-star ratings. This is the opposite of the malicious attack. Low ratings are considered unkind. Sure, but if a book is badly written, doesn’t it deserve a bad rating?

If 1 and 2 stars are avoided, that leaves only three ratings: 3 stars (OK), 4 stars (good), 5 stars (excellent). I assign 4 stars more often than any other rating. Sometimes I look at my list of 4-star books and realize how different they are from one another, in quality, genre, and voice. How dare I equate all these books with a number? Imagine rating your friends that way!

One idea is to decouple the star rating from the review. Even if the review points out problems with the book, the rating is benign. But doesn’t this muddy the reviewing waters and mislead potential readers who pay more attention to ratings?

Then there’s the rating without a review. As both a writer and a reader, I disapprove of this practice. I suppose 5 stars without a review is a quick way to indicate a reader liked the book, but any other rating, especially a low one, needs an explanation. The “Before You Go” prompt at the end of a Kindle book, that asks the reader to instantly supply a rating, may account for some reviewless ratings. It’s too easy to rate and run.

Book Reviews or Reading Experience Reviews?

In the old days before the internet, book reviews were written by literary types and appeared in magazines and newspapers. They were lengthy and serious, and were mostly about “important” books. Popular mass-market books weren’t considered worthy of such reviews. Many of them had endorsements by other authors in the front, but that was more like advertising.

Now anyone can write any kind of review of any book, on Amazon, on Goodreads, on their blog, or on social media. Writers plead for reviews at the end of each book, earnestly informing the reader of their importance. They seek out book bloggers and “BookTokkers,” hoping one of them will supply a review.

The word “review” covers everything from a couple of sentences to multiple paragraphs of praise or condemnation. For some readers, a book review is suspiciously similar to the book report of school days, or the paper for the college course on Literature. Especially an objective, analytical review, that compares a book to standards for its genre and examines its place in the author’s ouevre or a literary canon. It’s much easier to write an emotionally-based review, which isn’t so much about a book as the reader’s experience of reading it. Let’s face it, it’s easier to express feelings than organized thoughts.

Reviews by writers are instantly recognizable by phrases like “too much telling,” “too many filter words,” and “needs a developmental edit.” But a review of a published book isn’t the same as a critique group comment or a beta reader’s report, something reviewers should keep in mind.

Types of Reviews

My reviews fall into several categories.

First are quick, casual reviews for trad-pubbed books that already have hundreds or even thousands of reviews. A few remarks, or even a rating without review are enough, unless I have strong feelings about a book that simply must be expressed.

For most indie-published books, I write longer, thoughtful reviews.

I’ve participated in several Reading Rounds on Goodreads in the last few years. The deal with those is you don’t select the books you are obliged to read and review, which means a book may not be a good match for its reader. In such cases, I evaluate the book by the standards of its genre, more than my personal views of it. This is also a good approach when I dislike a well-written book for some reason.

I write my short, casual reviews directly on Goodreads and copy them to Amazon or Smashwords, depending on where I bought the book. Goodreads Reading Round reviews must be posted on both Goodreads and Amazon, regardless of where the reviewer obtains the book. I always write my RR reviews on Word, as well as any others I want to brood over for a while before posting. If I’m making critical comments about a book, I want to make sure they are precisely worded and not flippant or malicious.

Positive Reviews Only?

Some readers write only positive reviews. Three stars or better, with few critical remarks. If a book has serious problems, they simply don’t review it. In the case of books by fellow writers, a personal communication with the author replaces a negative review.

On the face of it, this seems like a good policy. “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.” Good advice from Mom. But is it really helpful to writers and readers? If readers write only feel-good reviews, doesn’t that distort the picture for everyone? If a book has no reviews, does that mean it’s undeserving, or merely undiscovered? In the absence of negative reviews or ratings, how would a reader know the difference? I believe it’s possible to write critical reviews in a way that benefits both writers and readers.

That said, I have never given a book a 1-star rating, or written a totally negative review. If I find a book to be that bad, I generally abandon it soon after starting to read it, and I don’t review books I haven’t read in entirety.

As a reader, I tend to pay more attention to thoughtful critical reviews than enthusiastically positive ones. I uniformly ignore 5-star raves (especially those with attached gifs) and 1-star condemnations (especially those with profanity).

Reviewing Friends’ Books

This can be a tricky one. A bad review from a friend can damage the friendship, especially if it’s unexpected. In such cases it’s probably a good idea to communicate one’s concerns about the book privately and not write a public review at all. There’s always the option of the hypocritical good review, but that has its own problems.

Have you noticed the contradictions in this screed about reviews? Negative reviews are okay, unless they’re for books by friends. Ratings without reviews are irritating, but fine for books with hundreds of reviews. Avoiding low ratings distorts the review process, but I’ve admitted I rarely give 2 stars, and have never used the deadly 1-star rating.

If nothing else, this shows how complicated book reviewing is. So…

Why Write Reviews?

Writing a review takes time and effort. Readers with TBRs bursting at the seams are eager to get on with the next book. Finishing a book means we have to marshal our thoughts about it and express them in readable prose. This can feel more like a duty than a delight, especially for books that don’t generate enthusiasm.

But…

Well-written, thoughtful reviews are helpful to writers and readers.
Reviews are a great way to validate our fellow authors’ achievements in writing and publishing.
Reviews are a great way to display our writing skills.
Writing reviews for the books we read is a writing assignment we give ourselves, a discipline that reinforces our role as writers.

In conclusion, I encourage writers to write reviews for the books they read, especially those of fellow indies.

For those who haven’t had enough, here are links to some of my old posts on reviewing:
Views on Book Reviewing from November 2010
Book Reviews and Readers’ Appetites from January 2011
The Elusive Review from July 2015
Book Reviewing: a Murky Business This one, from 2019, is so similar to the current post, I think I’ll just shut up about reviewing, already!

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The Dubious Art of Book Reviewing

I’ve been thinking a lot about the whole book reviewing thing lately, so was happy to see this post by JF Kaufmann, which opens up some significant issues about indie authors and book reviews.

JF Kaufmann, Author

I don’t write reviews often; it takes time and effort to come up with a meaningful retrospection. When I do write them, I have different rules for different types of books, and this customized approach is most apparent within two major publishing categories–indie books and traditionally published books.

Sometimes I’m so moved with a book that I feel inspired to put down my impressions. It usually happens when I really like it and want to share my excitement (or recommend it) or, less frequently, when I’m frustrated or disappointed. The second scenario–a pissed-off review–usually occurs with a work of fiction unjustifiably praised, in my opinion, for qualities it doesn’t possess.

There are no consequences for the author as I don’t have any influence outside my limited blog space. Even if I did, such authors are fair game: they’ve been paid for their books…

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Brain Limits

I’ve heard you can’t really multi-task, despite people who claim they can.

I don’t entirely agree. I can do more than one thing at a time, but only to a point. For example, I can perform simple familiar tasks, like washing dishes, while thinking about something I’m writing or intend to write. And listening to a news program. In fact, I need to have some sort of mental input while doing manual work, even something like sewing, which is not simple or familiar.

But there are limits. I’ve tested them.

First, let me describe the usual scenario in my writing and blogging space. There’s the computer, with a bunch of weather-related tabs open, plus WordPress, plus Goodreads and a few others. Also email, of course. There’s an old-fashioned mini-stereo setup behind and to one side of the computer. It can play CDs and even cassette tapes, although it’s hardly ever called upon to do that. Mostly it’s a radio, and if I’m at the computer, it’s always on, cranking out music, news, or a current affairs program. Sometimes there’s music on the radio and at the same time a podcast on the computer, talking to me through one earbud. And as well as listening, I’m reading blog posts, or even writing one.

multitasking head media colourful — *Image from Pixabay*

Is this ideal? Probably not, but it seems to work. Is it multi-tasking? No. It’s sequential tasking. The old brain can deal with only one or perhaps two of these inputs at a time. The music seems to seep through the other stuff, but if it fully engages my attention, I disengage from the other tasks so I can listen properly. Otherwise, I’m taking in and focussing on only the words I’m reading, writing, or listening to, for sequential short intervals. I have to admit, I miss a lot of details of the radio programs while paying attention to blog posts or whatever I’m writing. Quite often, my attention is caught by the host thanking the interviewee or announcing the performer, having missed whatever was said, played, or sung. Annoying, but there it is.

When this input-juggling is working well, I can actually get things read or written and switch focus in time to get something out of whatever I’m listening to. It’s not the best way to absorb information, but it’s the only way I’ve come up with to keep up with the blogs I follow and what’s going on in the world, as well as creating blog posts and other writings.

Maybe this is why by the end of the day I don’t trust myself to write comments on people’s blog posts. The brain is worn out!

A final thought: if a long writing session is too challenging, a five-minute one jammed in between other mental tasks is manageable. Several such sessions actually produce visible results. Note: I don’t write first drafts of novels this way; that’s a whole other process!

Ideal combinations:

manual work + informative radio program
reading blogs + informative radio program or music
reading fiction + music
writing + music

Ideally, only two inputs at a time, you notice.

On the other hand, I don’t watch anything. At all. Well, maybe the odd video, but only if it’s a short one. No TV, no streaming. I read a lot of books. I do this reading away from the computer and even the radio, mainly during meals and before going to sleep.

Fellow bloggers, how do you avoid brain overload? Do any of you multitask?

Audrey Driscoll's Blog

Elements and Transformations

Reading

Reading Trad vs. Indie

She Who Returns by Audrey Driscoll

Three for a Girl is here!

What Happened Last Week

In the Garden…

Shopping

Reading

Writing?

Thinking?

A New Cover Image…

Stories from an Imaginary Land: the Sanctuary Series by PJ O’Brien

Not Blocked, Just Lazy

Book Reviewing: Further Thoughts

Seeing Stars

Book Reviews or Reading Experience Reviews?

Types of Reviews

Positive Reviews Only?

Reviewing Friends’ Books

Why Write Reviews?

The Dubious Art of Book Reviewing

Brain Limits