My Book Reviews

            When I tried to get my books reviewed, some of the first places I thought to go to were blogs and Youtube book reviewers.  They were the logical choice considering the fact that they were themselves self-publishers.  I was shocked and amazed at how many of them refused to review self-published materials, never recognizing their own hypocrisy.

            I’m a believer in putting your effort where your mouth is, so I did a Youtube book review show where I only reviewed independently published books.  It was the only one on Youtube of its kind.  I was proud of it, and I mixed it with doing my weight loss as I would read the books while out on walks, and check my weight after doing the reviews.

            What was frustrating was that the views never got to be very high.  I would get the people whose books I was reviewing, some of their readers and friends, then I would get completely different viewers the next week.  None of them were watching other reviews, supporting other independently published authors.

            It’s frustrating seeing this sort of every man and woman for him and her self.  This whole industry is very difficult already, and we’re competing with large corporations that have many employees.  The best thing we can do for ourselves is to band together and help each other.

            I want to go back to reviewing these books.  I feel strongly about independent publishing, and I want to help others as I want to be helped as well.  But I’ve been taking a break from it for now as the effort was going to waste while I was ignoring my own projects.  Hopefully that will change.