IWSG: Reviews Help Both Reader and Author

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post!  In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. The challenge to my writing that began last Thursday and lasted through Monday was a cold. That shows us winter is here, doesn’t it? I didn’t want to push myself too hard because I didn’t want to get more sick. If a writer doesn’t take care of their health first then they eventually won’t write well. I did get some work done on my current story that I'm revising for my upcoming book of short fiction, "Bad Apps" but it was very minimal. And I just barely posted my weekly blog post, which happened to be the monthly Book-To-Movie review, Monday evening in which I normally do that by the morning. I’m finally just getting back into my normal routine.

IWSG Monthly Question

Now for the optional IWSG question of the month: Book reviews are for the readers. When you leave a book review do you review for the Reader or the Author? Is it about what you liked and enjoyed about your reading experience, or do you critique the author? I try to leave a book review for both reader and author. I feel both can get something worthwhile out of it. The reader can use the review to help them decide whether it would be worth their time and/or money to read the book, and the author can use it as input that will help them better write the next book. So, I believe it's important to leave a review for the benefit of both reader and author. 

Author’s Newsletter

There was no newsletter last month because of the Thanksgiving holiday that kept my family and I busy enough. I was also still trying to recuperate from October's Halloween newsletter.  And the Christmas season is just as hectic, if not more, as the previous two holidays. However, I always try to come out with a Holiday edition of my author's newsletter each year and so will be working on that for the next couple of weeks. So, I'm going to try to release that about a week before Christmas. To sign up for my free author's newsletter, click here. In this upcoming issue I’ll try to give more details about "Bad Apps" and will talk about my most current story that I'm revising. 

That's all for this IWSG post. Because there have been two posts here at the Far Out Fantastic Site this week, this one and Monday's Book-To-Movie, I'm going to skip posting for next Monday as I usually do after an IWSG. I’ll resume Far Out Fantastic Blog posts the following Monday. By then, I may even have the newsletter released! 

Today’s IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts: C. Lee McKenzie, JQ Rose, Jennifer Lane, and Jacqui Murray! IWSG was founded by awesome author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels! 

Do you leave book reviews for the reader, author or both?

Until next time . . .