Question and Answer time…

Hello everyone!  We have a lot of ground to cover today.  Fruit Fluff, Book Sprout, and ARCs.

Are you asking yourself if that last sentence was supposed to make sense?  Although it doesn’t mean anything to you, I know exactly what it’s there for.  See…my mom does that all the time.  We talk at least twice a day, yet she’s always forgetting what she ‘had’ to tell me.  So I’ll answer the phone and she’ll say some random string of things like, “Zucchini, Thunderstorms, and Recalls.”   Unfortunately, I’ll know exactly what she means.  The conversation will proceed as follows…

“I have to tell you three things before I forget.  Zucchini, Thunderstorms, and Recalls.”

“Okay, mom.  What’s up?”

“I got some amazing looking zucchini at the grocery store.  Do you want one to make zucchini bread?”

“No, I’m too lazy.  You make it and then give me some.”

“No.  I’m going to fry it in the pan with butter.  The next thing was ‘thunderstorms.’  We’re supposed to get nailed later with a bad front passing through.  Make sure to listen for sirens and go down into the basement if it gets bad.”

“Okay, I’ll try not to die.”  (I have no fear of storms.  In the same way that I feel deep in my bones that a lottery win is not in my future, I don’t think I’ll die in a tornado.)

“The last thing was a recall.  Did you see on tv about that big new recall that came out on your car?  You better have it looked at!”

“I’ll get right on that.  Talk to you later!”

If the parts haven’t fallen off my car by now, they’re probably not going to.  But I digress.  Your three terms for today are:  Fruit Fluff, Book Sprout, and ARCs.  Ready?  Let’s go…

FRUIT FLUFF.  No less than two readers of my new book commented on my mention of ‘fruit fluff’ in the storyline.  Basically they wanted to know what the hell it was.  I have a tendency to forget that total strangers read my books and might not know what I’m talking about due to regional slang/cuisine.  ‘Fruit Fluff’ is a dessert-ish salad type of thing made with a wide variety of ingredients.  I live in the Midwest United States and everyone has a fruit fluff recipe that they bring to summer picnics, church potluck meals, and family gatherings.  It consists of fruit (fresh, frozen, or canned), cool whip (whipped topping), marshmallows, and sometimes coconut or any other sweet ingredient you want to throw in there. Fruit fluff is fantastic and I highly recommend you google a recipe.

BOOK SPROUT:  No less than two people who filled out the form to sign up for an advanced copy of my new book were kind enough to mention a website called ‘Book Sprout’ that allows authors to submit their new release in exchange for reviews.  You download your book to the website, Book Sprout posts it on their site looking for people interested in reviewing (up to 20 people I think) and then the readers get the book and leave a review in a certain length of time.  While this sounds like an excellent way to get reviews (and very simple too), I’m already signed up with the site and I had a bad experience there.  Let me first explain that I value honesty above all else.  I’m not opposed to getting a bad review.  Life is not all roses and unicorns.  No one wants a bad review, but you’re not going to grow as an author if everyone just gives you ass-kissing praise all the time and doesn’t point out rough spots.  Let me share two negative reviews I’ve received so you’ll see the difference and why I’m not happy with Book Sprout…

REVIEW ONE (Someone bought my book and didn’t like it…this is for MOWED):

When reading about this book it looked like a potentially good story. Well the concept was good but the characters sucked !!! The H is a winey ass male( my abbreviation I use at my place of employment, a WAM) who goes from trying to be a dominant male to a submissive. A man who lets who he was in high school direct who he thinks he should be now. I’m sitting here crying my a$s off about poor Jason not being popular anymore, not having everyone look up to him as a God anymore, my ex-wife cheated so I won’t be in another relation ship. Boo hoo grow a pair and grow up!!! Aww and let’s not forget Pepper “a big girl” that is probably noted 5 thousand times in this book. I get it she’s not a size 2!! What she is…is a doormat to everyone in her life, she has a horrible body image outlook, no confidence and no self esteem!! Everyone and I mean everyone puts her down either directly or indirectly (her mom, her cousin). There is not one good redeemable character in this whole bloody book! Jeez talk about a book that pis$ed me off! I read for enjoyment not to feel angry on behalf of women everywhere because we aren’t all shallow superficial bean poles!!! Avoid this book unless hay you are a superficial, shallow bean pole who makes fun of anyone different, then this book’s for you!
Fyi I’m a happy size 8-10 and I don’t see myself or any of my friends smaller or bigger than me different because of the size of their jeans!

This person disliked my story enough to give it a one star review because she hated my characters.  That means I made her feel something for them.  I took a fictional idea and made it seem real enough that it pissed her off.  An author’s job is to make the reader connect with a character and feel an emotion.  Even if the emotion is anger, I made her feel something.  So that review is her honest opinion of the book and I’m glad she shared it.  No harm, no foul.

This next three star review came from a reader on Book Sprout:

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
If you are into rest stops, blow jobs, and gay/bi-curious situations this is the book for you. I’m not personally into any of those things so this probably wasn’t the best choice for me, but I tried it anyway. There were a few grammatical issues in the writing, and the italics when one character spoke was distracting.

This person specifically said they’re not ‘into’ any of the things that this book is about, even though the synopsis clearly states that this is a book about two men who have a random hook up at a rest stop.  Why did they download the book if the topic is not something they like to read about?  Why get it then?  Because it was free on Book Sprout.

So you can see why the ONE star review was fair and the THREE star review was sort of…not.  That is why I don’t want to put any more books on Book Sprout.

This leads us to ARCs.  Last time you heard from me, I offered an advanced copy of my book in exchange for a review.  In the past, I’ve sent out ARCs from my old yahoo email address and had very few problems.  This time I sent them from my Gmail account (Gmail is awesome and has no spammy ads, unlike Yahoo) and I had nothing but problems.  It seems like only half the people actually received the books I sent.  If you are one of the people that signed up for a book and did not receive it, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!  I’m not withholding books to be some sort of dictator asshole, it’s just that gmail did not deliver.  Sometimes technology hates me.  Simply let me know and we’ll try it again.  And again.  And again.  I’m persistent.

Have I covered everything?  Not quite!

If you did not sign up for an advanced copy, but would like to read ‘Her Invisible Soldier,’ it’s going LIVE on Amazon today!  As a matter of fact, I just checked and it’s ready to rock and roll.

Here’s the link!

https://www.amazon.com/Her-Invisible-Soldier-Military-Romance-ebook/dp/B07F3FDQ74

I would like to thank everyone for their support of my new book release and I hope you have a wonderful week.

Happy Fourth of July if you’re in the states!  I’m going to watch fireworks and try not to get bitten by mosquitoes!

Til next time….

Grace Risata