Every day when I wake up, I check my Amazon sales. It's become a habit, since the free promo days ran earlier in the year and Planning Before Writing actually began to sell. It's gotten to the point where if it sells even a couple of copies overnight, it'll reach a Top 100 position in a sub-category most of the time. In seeing that it had, in fact, done that, I went to the Amazon page to see where it ranked. I didn't expect much.
I expected, much less, to see a review there from May that hadn't been there when I saw the review from June. When I received the June review, a 3-Star review (which isn't bad), I wasn't exactly over the moon. I think I was mainly put down by the star-rating, because I didn't see how it was justified. But then, I was being a bit biased. But it was the only review visible. I literally could not see another review on the page. There was only one.
This morning, two.
I looked at the second. I read the date. I got confused. Then I completely ignored the fact that Amazon hid a review from me for two months to look at the star-rating. The reviewer thought that the ideas in the book were so worth reading that she gave it 5 stars. 5!
I was shocked. I wanted to happy dance all over the house. My brain was too tired to process that sort of movement, though, so I just let myself get giddy. I pretty much stayed that way all day. It was an awesome surprise to wake up to. It was a justification of the work I put into the book, and the sort of mind-set I was in when I wrote it; I was in Teacher Mode, and I knew what I was talking about. I had to, during class, for the sake of my pupils, and for those four weeks that carried through into my writing. And someone acknowledged that something I wrote had some value beyond just the price-tag.
See, that's the thing about reviews. A good review doesn't just say "I was willing to spend to the money to buy this book". It also says "I think this book is worth reading", and sometimes you might even add "Buy this book, even if you're put off by the price". My book is only 99 cent USD, so I'm not sure that really applies in my case, but you get the point - a good review says something about the value of the content, not just about the price of the book as an object or file.
So, that was awesome.
I was then able to arrange to get to go see a play starring one of my very bestest friends in the whole wide world, the ever-lovely Clara McQuaid. She was the lead in my first play-to-the-stage The Rest is Silence, she ran Drama Soc last year (and happened to be chosen by two directors to be leads in two productions during the year) and in the short space of time that I've known her, she's managed to go from being nervous she couldn't do a character justice to having her first professional job as a stage actor. And, well, that's just brilliant. I didn't think, after seeing her in The Rest is Silence, that I could ever be more proud of her, but I was wrong.
I've got the play to look forward to during the week, tickets already bought. It's looking to be a fantastic show (and lots of people are talking about it!).
Oh, and as for the writing... 1,000 words done tonight, but I intend on staying up a bit longer to keep working. Just as soon as I grab more tea.
No comments:
Post a Comment