What is a "Real" Book?

by Mary Sutton / @mary_sutton73

It was a fine day, just like any other day, right up until I read this blog post from Nathan Bransford on the results of his (admittedly unscientific) poll on buying ebooks.

Bransford found that, for the first time, the percentage of people who said you'd have to pry paper books out of their "cold, dead hands" stayed the same. The percentage of people who professed to embrace ebooks also stayed the same.

Okay, so a pretty non-controversial post, right?

Then I made the mistake of reading the comments. And boy oh boy did I feel my blood pressure start to go up.

Again, you had the usual distribution of people who like ebooks and people who don't. Then I got to the comment of a gentleman who referred to RFBs - or real f*-in books. And that's where I lost it.

Okay, I get it - not everybody likes ebooks. And that's cool because hey, everybody's different and who am I to criticize someone's reading preference? It would be like criticizing genre preference. I understand. I'm a converted digital reading person myself because I never thought I'd like reading on a screen until I tried it.

But seriously, some snobs need to get off of their high horses.

Yes, you heard me right - I said "snobs." Because when you get down to it, that's what they are.

So a book isn't "real" unless it's printed on paper, huh? So, my recent ebook release of Power Play isn't a real book because it's digital only?

What about audio books? Are they real?

The three novellas and the novel I wrote aren't "real books" because they currently only exist in digital format on my computer?

The novel that my friend Amy wrote as part of NaNoWriMo, her first, isn't a "real book" because it doesn't exist on paper yet?

I call shenanigans.

News flash: the dead tree matter, leather and glue you hold in your hand is indeed a physical object, a noun, called a "book." But that's not the important part. The important part, the thing that reaches out, grabs you by the throat, and keeps you up at night long past your bedtime isn't the form factor. It's the story conveyed by the words on the page.

In other words, it's something as virtual as anything digital. It can't been seen, smelled, tasted, or touched. Not by your eyes, nose, tongue or skin. All those things are experienced in the depths of your mind.

And when you think of all of the people for whom digital books have made reading a joy again - because their eyesight has deteriorated to the point where they can't see the print, even with glasses, or their arthritis is so bad they can't even hold a trade paperback - are you going to tell those people that they haven't been reading "real" books?

It's time for this to stop. Books are books, whether physical or virtual.

To say they aren't is insulting to readers - and authors - everywhere.

All images used under Creative Commons. Photo of e-readers courtesy of  PiAir. Photo of stacked books courtesy of LollyKnit.

To Review or Not to Review?

by Mary Sutton / @mary_sutton73

I have a confession to make: For years, I never bothered to write book reviews.

It's not that I didn't want to, I just didn't have the time. Or I figured that no one cared what I thought about a book. And the people who did, well, they talked to me personally. So I didn't need to write reviews.

That was before I started writing in earnest. Before I stumbled across someone who said the best thing you can do for an author is leave a review, especially if you liked his or her work. Because by leaving a review on Amazon, or Goodreads, you might influence other buyers.

So I started trying to remember to leave reviews, especially for mid-list authors (you know, not the ones getting six figure advances from a Big Six publisher) or authors I'd connected with on social media. Then one day I ran across this article in the Huffington Post from Nina Badzin: why she doesn't trust online book reviews. And it got me thinking - am I leaving "fluff" reviews?

I have two degrees in English, a BA and an MA, both grounded in literature. So I had to learn how to write a review. When I said Moby Dick was one of the worst books I'd ever read (and it still is), I had to defend that. Likewise, when I said I thought Pride and Prejudice was one of the better classics (and I still do), I had to defend that. And those argument had to be better than "I enjoyed it" or "I didn't enjoy it."

So when I leave a review, I try to say what drew me in and where something fell short. I rarely give a five-star review (in fact, I'm not sure I ever have left a five-star review). To me, five stars means that is the best thing I've read and there is nothing I could have improved. And that just doesn't happen that often.

Wait, I rated the final "Harry Potter" book five stars - and that was more for the entire series than one book. But I digress.

Then the question came up in a writer's group, "If you haven't read the whole book, can you leave a review?" and "Should you ever leave a negative review?"

Here's my take. I recently left a 3-star review for a book. I enjoyed it. I'd buy another from that author. But there was something missing. And I said so, and why that something meant three stars. I don't consider that a "negative" review. That's honesty.

Would I leave one star? If I had to. Believe me, I'd not waste a single minute rating Moby Dick one star. But I'd say why.

As for not finishing a book, well, it's true that one can often realize a book is no good after a few poorly written chapters. But if your criticism is thematic, well, you can leave a review - but you run the risk of missing the development of the theme. Because theme takes more than five pages to develop.

This happened to a friend of mine recently. She got a one-star review from someone who admitted she'd stopped reading the book because of some slights against African-Americans. Okay, fine. Into every author's life a few one-star reviews must fall.

But the beautiful thing about most review sites, such as Amazon where this review had been left, is it allows for comments. And comment I did. And I pointed out, politely, that perhaps the reviewer had done herself a disservice and she should read the entire book.

I hope someday to be published, either traditionally or indie. And when I do, I hope my readers, who I assume are fellow story lovers, will do me the kindness of leaving a well written, thoughtful review. Do I hope most of those reviews are good ones? Absolutely. Do I want my friends to leave gushing reviews because they are my friends? No. I want the truth. If a story is lacking somehow, tell me. But tell me in a polite, constructive way so I can learn. Don't leave a "I just hate your genre so I'm giving it one star" review. That is neither helpful nor instructive.

So tell me, book lovers, do you leave reviews? If you're a writer, how do you deal with less-than-glowing reviews?

Image used under Creative Commons via clarism_4