Trapping Neighbors into Reading Your Books and Giving You Face to Face Reviews

Let's face it. I'm never going to get rich writing. No, this isn't a pessimistic viewpoint. It is what it is. If I published simply in the hope that I'd get rich, I wouldn't have done it. I just want to leave something of myself behind. Not that getting rich would be a bad thing, but it's not what I'm striving for. And I'm not setting myself up for disappointment.

That said, I still want people to like what I write. And to be honest I do have thousands of fanfic reviews from readers who like my take on things. I even have a couple of hundred on original stories I've posted, mostly positive. But I'm telling you, there's nothing like talking face to face with a person who likes your work.

When my first proof arrived for Sahara, I had it for five minutes before I went to my neighbor Joanne's house, and asked her to read it. She gave me a look like "Oh God." I could tell she had little faith in my storytelling abilities. Joanne has to be one of the most opinionated people in the complex. But, she didn't want to tell me no.

That's exactly what I was counting on. She said it might take a while because she was "busy." That's code for "your book is probably so boring it's going to take a lifetime for me to read it." or "I've got better things to do with my time."

Perfect reader. Not in love with me, doubtful, critical and ye of little faith all combined.

Today, she saw me outside and called me over.

"I'm hooked," she said. "What I like is you don't fill the story up with a lot of unnecessary details. I don't need to know how many veins are in a leaf twirling in the wind on a tree."

I saw my book resting on a small stool in front of her favorite chair, a bookmark stuck in the middle of it. She picked it up and said, "See the bookmark matches the book!" She was all enthusiasm.

Now, Joanne will probably never ever leave a review on Amazon. She's not a net person. But as she talked about the characters and what they did (like I didn't know) I felt very fulfilled, happy, because my story made an impact. It doesn't matter the world will never hear her enthusiasm.

I did.