Blogging vs Writing Books

I began blogging ten years ago and discovered something unexpected and truly wonderful – a way to make friends at the age of nearly fifty. I was both dumbfounded and thrilled. We have a few friends we’ve grown up with. Many of us have college friends, but after school it seems most of our friends come from out work places. As I turned forty-nine those were the friends I had. I was content, they were nice people and we often talked of the weather, work and occasionally griped about our husbands and children.

Then blogging – wow! I found people my age I could talk to.  These people shared a major life interest of mine and they were willing to talk about it. I could talk about my marriage, my sex life, the fact that my beloved didn’t spank enough – everything! Blogging about these things and receiving comments kept me writing and blogging. It was the interaction that was wonderful. Commenters often agreed with me, sometimes they scolded me, they encouraged me to talk to Nick about things I was holding in. They guarded me, encouraged me, strengthened me and in addition told me I was a good writer, which lead me to my current position of being a sorta, kinda writer and loving every minute of it.

Writing books is such a joy for me, just as blogging is, but I can take longer with the books, work on it, craft it, polish it and hopefully after extensive edits and rewrites the story is presented the way I want it. But there is one way blogging has writing book beat all to hell – blogging has immediate feed back. Friends and sometimes new readers leave comments. You know right away if someone liked your post, agreed with it, disagreed with it or whatever – but you know.

I’ve been an avid reader most of my life, yet for more than fifty years it never once occurred to me to let the author know. Actually until I began writing I gave very little thought to the author, I’d read a book – love it! I might read it over and over and recommend it to a friend, often without knowing who wrote it. I think about that a lot now.

So is this post just a bald-faced attempted to get book reviews? I’ll answer that in a minute. Everyone likes to know if something they’ve created is well received. I’ve gotten some review on the last Cassie book and they have made my heart soar. But I fight the urge to try to find everyone who has read it and ask what they thought.

Did you like it?

Was it too long? Too short?

Did it flow well?

What was your favorite part?

Who was your favorite character?

Were there parts you didn’t understand?

Did I leave anything out?

What do you think of Lily?

And the scariest question of all – would you be willing to read at least one more?

People are buying the book and I’m thrilled about that, but are they liking it?

Back to my questions, is this a plea for reviews on Amazon – yes. But not necessarily just for me. If you read Stephen King or Mary Higgins Clark, while I’m sure they love getting reviews, they probably don’t need then like beginning writers do. If you read spanking fiction or books by authors you know I’m telling you we do need your reviews. It’s nearly impossible to promote a book (if anyone has ideas how we can, please share), reviews do help. Word of mouth helps too, but not many people want to tell folks in the real world what they’re read. Besides helping to promote, we really want to know if you liked the book.

Please consider leaving a review on Amazon for any book you enjoy, you can write a review under an anonymous name if you are uncomfortable using your real name (but probably only those who read spanking books will ever see it). And if it is for an author you know, never call them by their first name. Amazon thinks you’re their friend and sometimes won’t let you review the book. So for two of my favorite authors, Leigh Smith and Donna Steele I leave out the name or say Ms. Smith or Ms. Steele.

Okay off my soap box. Think about it. And we’ll just keep writing.