You Read What You Pay For, a Post by R. Clint Peters

When my friend told me several months ago to “read, read, read to learn more about writing”, I signed up with several readers websites, including BookBub, ReadCheaply, and a couple others that slip my mind (I terminated the subscription.)  Knowing I would be reading many books, I have been choosing the free books available.  This choice has proven the old adage, that you get what you pay for.  (One of the reviewers of The Alberta Connection had the same comment when he gave me two stars.  He’d gotten the book for free, and felt he’d wasted his time.)

I have discovered free books are free for a reason:  to get them reviewed.  I am delighted that The Alberta Connection received 115 reviews, but my delight is tempered by the 3.2 star average.  Granted, it’s 64%, which is a passing grade, but I’d rather be a little higher on the curve.

My latest “free” book, which shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, had several problems.

The first notable problem with the book was the desire of the author to exceed every known record for incorporating crises in a novel.  This made the novel top-heavy in disasters and turned an action-adventure novel into a fantasy.  I continued to read long after I should have deleted the book from my Kindle only because I wanted to see what the author would do to the poor hero.  This didn’t encourage me to give the novel a better review.

The second problem was in the format.  The author had four perspectives he was attempting to intertwine: the hero, an ally group, and two protagonist group.s  A new paragraph initiated new activities of a group.  Unfortunately, figuring out the group was often difficult, and jumping between the groups made the flow very choppy.

The third problem was also in the format, this time in the dialogue/action arena.  Often there would be dialogue-action-dialogue-action-dialogue-action, all within the same paragraph.  I kept going back several paragraphs to refresh my ideas of what was happening.

Unfortunately, I removed the novel from the device I was reading it on (there are more than 150 books in my Kindle library), so I have not researched the book reviews of this novel.  I confident they would be interesting to read.

We have returned to the main thought of this blog: you read what you pay for.  And that begs the question:  as an author, what are we writing?  Initially, I wrote because I thought I had some untapped ideas.  Lately, I am writing because I have learned something new about how to write, and those new ideas must be incorporated into my writing.

I don’t want to be known as a 64% author.  I want to be known as a 95% or better author.  I want my books to be purchased and read, not be handed to every potential reviewer for free.  What will it take to move up to 80%?  Or 90%  I hope to find out.

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