goodreads « Robin Writes

It happened again. A bad review. At least this guy gave me two stars, and not just one, and it didn’t show up on Amazon. Yet. And my book – REDUCED – does average over four stars.

But is the title of “THIS IS NOT A FIVE-STAR BOOK!” really necessary? And, um, yeah – I said it was over four stars, after all, not five. I skimmed it – and have NOT gone back to read more – but in essence he griped and complained about almost everything. Whatever, dude.

So, instead of reading the review, refuting it, stewing over it, I did the next best thing: I looked up HIS books. He has four, all published on Kindle in the last year. His print versions were done with Random’s SP division and were released from 2010 until 2012. He has ONE review on GR, and TWO on AZ. Three reviews on four books. Wow. He’s on a roll. And most of the things he complained about in REDUCED were present in HIS books too. Wow. Projection much?

His covers make my eyes hurt, and his books aren’t selling.

Guess I just got “lucky,” since I don’t know the guy at all, but it sure sounds like he’s lashing out at authors whose books sell, and I got picked to take the brunt. Or maybe he read the first edition, which, I’ll admit, included some rookie errors, like justifying the right margin. But he didn’t like the story either. Odd, two of HIS books are a similar story. [shrug]

My point is that, while I won’t jump a reviewer publicly, I will do what anyone often does and that’s find something to make me feel better. A professional would NEVER write a review like this in the first place. A pro would either be vague and speak in generalities or simply not leave a review. A pro might message an author in private, if he thought he could help.

Of course it still irritates me – but now that I “know” this author, I see why he did what he did. Good luck to him in his future endeavors…

This week, I’m going to tell you how it all started and why some people think I’m a prepper. Am I? Maybe…

I grew up on a farm. My great-great-great grandfather started that farm in 1850. We lived there from the time I was born until I was three, then again when I was 13 until I left for college. My earliest memories are playing in the yard around the old farmhouse, washhouse, smokehouse, and in and out of the barns and chicken coop.

Those of you who are wondering about that last, well, my abject fear of birds came later, when I was about six or seven!

My great-grandfather was still farming in the late 1960s and I followed him around the garden and played with his pet squirrel, Curly. My dad took over in the 70s and that’s when the Monsanto connection began. Keep in mind, please, before you shut your browser and delete me from your friends’ lists, this was before the average person – including many farmers – knew about GMOs and what they did.

Growing up, I loved being outside. I camped and rode our horses, hiked, explored. And I was very interested in history and the “old days.” If I’d had a time machine, I would have gone back, not forward.

I’ve been writing for years, and kept saying I was going to write a book. Someday. No one ever discouraged me, and in fact kept telling me to it – now! So, finally, the book that had to be written was started and finished last year. REDUCED came out in late August 2012. REUSED followed in mid-December, and RECYCLED will be released next week.

Three books in one year – I don’t recommend it!

The basic premise of REDUCED is “what if.” “What if” one of these government screws we read about on an almost daily basis reduced the population to nearly unsustainable levels? “What if” everyone had to start over – no electric, no Internet, communications towers inoperable? A lot of people think this could happen, regardless of the catalyst, and the more I read, the more intrigued I became.

As an old Girl Scout, I know the value of “be prepared” so I started doing a little preparing myself. Just a little. I’m not a fanatic or anything, although I do apparently have a crazy cousin who’s planning to gather people to move to Oklahoma at some point.

Anyway, I do some prepping, sure. And the characters in my books did, too. And after it all went down, they had to scramble a bit to survive – although it helps when the competition for supplies has been, er, reduced!

My characters heard about something going down, soon, but there was no announcement, no emergency sirens, nothing like that. And they were ready, for… well, they didn’t really know how bad it was going to be. And they spent the next ten years or so surviving. And fighting back. But, when it’s all over, for the most part, this decade-long crisis, it’s time to buckle down and go back in time and start over. And no, I’m not talking about time travel – back to pioneer days, homesteads, and again, surviving.