It is a little-known fact that the old trope of a piano falling on someone’s head was inspired by every Irish person ever who felt proud of themselves for even five minutes. In this post I deal with misplaced pride, indie publishing scams, bogus bestsellers, my difficult childhood, and why if you want to be original, you should never read anything written by anyone else. Ever.
It’s time you stopped blaming that book you wrote or recommended for the fact I didn’t like it. It’s time you started blaming me instead. With a little help from quantum physics, I explain why loving any book is a miracle, why my bad mood became your problem, and why writing a book is like putting an unseen cat in a poisonous box.
Amazon’s algorithms don’t like the concept of General Fiction. If books are being sold more on the basis of genre than content, is content changing to suit genre fads? I think so. And if you’ve ever read a book which promised something it didn’t deliver, or seemed like two different plots or styles clumsily slapped together, you might think so, too.
No matter how good a Grip-Lit book is, there are only so many psychological thrills we can stomach in a row. With the help of some tenuous and downright cheesy food metaphors, this week I’m asking you: what’s for dessert? What do you, the reader, want to read next? Shouldn’t we, the actual consumers have a say?
Why are bad reviews more useful in book selling than good reviews? Because they contain much more useful information, that’s why. Here are 10 kinds of bad review which make authors weep and wail, but are actually working harder in the background to sell their work than any 5* review ever could.
Have you ever read a book and thought – there’s something not quite right here, but I can’t put my finger on it, so I might just go and watch that thing everyone’s been talking about on Netflix instead? Me too. And as usual, I’ve been looking for people to blame. You’re welcome.
What happens when the price of a book makes no sense? Who does it hurt? Is it the publisher, the bookshop, or the author? Oh, come on. You know the answer to this already. You’re only here so I can tell you how smart you are…
A book that you’re wading through is like a bad boyfriend who eats all your time and never pays his way. And I’ve decided from this day forward I’m kicking him out. I know it’s Valentine’s Day, but you don’t come here for fluffy love, do you?
I want to blow my mind with a book, but the publishing world is consistently offering me the literary equivalent of aspirin. Unfortunately, what I want doesn’t seem to fit into those narrow marketing categories which now dictate everything we read. Don’t they know that the biggest blockbusters of the last few decades didn’t fit in either, and that’s kind of the bloody point?
Being a book reviewer is a tough gig, which is why I’m glad don’t do reviews on this blog. But because I spend so much time shouting and roaring all over the interweb about booky stuff, people often ask me for recommendations. It never ends well. Once it ended up in tears, recriminations, and a mud-wrestling pit. Who knew bookish types were so volatile? Well, actual book reviewers, for a start. And they’ve known for a while.
Tara Sparling writes 