Many authors don’t read their reviews. Or they say they don’t. Perhaps they are wildly successful and have too many reviews to keep track of. Or maybe they really do blithely move on to their next book, not caring what anyone thought of the last one.

I care. And I often learn from my reviews. What was unclear? What didn’t resonate? What bothered someone? It doesn’t necessarily mean I wish I could go back and change the story. But since stories form in the isolation of my own head, there are lessons to be learned in how it connected, or didn’t, in another person’s imagination.

It’s very hard to get reviewed these days, with so many writers out there trying to get their book noticed. So I get really excited when a reader or blogger reviews my book. And I am over-the-moon when I feel like they really got what I was trying to do.

I had a few blog reviews for Wild Horses that made me teary-smile. Because I felt like my book was understood. Here are two that come to mind.
Harlie’s Books. And Ms. Birdlady, The Intellectual Blog.

And this one, from San Francisco Book Review was just plain fun. The reviewer went with the wild horse metaphor to an extreme!

Reviews are important in so many other ways. They help a book be discovered. For example, the more reviews a book gets, the more it might show up in a coveted ‘also buy’ slot on Amazon. Reviews help readers decide whether a book might be right for them. Which is so important because who wants to spend their hard-earned money on a book they don’t enjoy?

And real reviews help counteract the depressing troll reviews. The person on Goodreads who one-stars books for fun. The Amazon reviewer/publicist who leaves a negative review that then promotes other authors.

As you can see, reviews matter. Reviewers matter. If you’ve read one of my books, I’d love it if you would write an honest review. And if you’d like to review my upcoming July book, Return to Marker Ranch, feel free to let me know by emailing me at cmcewen.writer@gmail.com!