Weapons of the 21st Century

With a title like that, this blog has to be pretty cool, right? Well, I leave that to the reader to decide, but here’s a spoiler: the weapons I’m referring to are words.

I just did something I try not to do very often. I read my reviews. Not the reviews I’ve written, but rather the reviews people have written on my books. The last 4 were 5 stars, then a 3 star, then numerous other 4 and 5 star reviews. Pretty darn cool, I have to say!

But that’s dangerous too. I’ve figured out a lot of things as a writer with over 20 books published. I’ve learned how to write through adversity and slumps. I’ve figured out what makes the books interesting for me and the readers. I’ve learned the value of good editing. And according to a lot of my reviews, I’ve written some great books and have made some lifelong fans. It would be easy for me to think I’ve peaked and I don’t need to learn anymore. FAR FROM IT!

There’s so many things I want to try and learn that the list is limitless – and that’s just with writing! I haven’t even touched on hang gliding or scuba diving. Reading reviews that praise books like Bound, Bounty, and The Lost Girls leaves me a very warm and fuzzy feeling. Yet it doesn’t teach me anything. Oh sure, it tells me I made some people happy and that’s a great thing. I’m here to entertain, after all, but I want to know what I can do better. The writer that can’t improve his craft has not yet been invented. I certainly appreciate the reviews though, and I hope to earn many more yet to come.

So this blog post is to share some great reviews on the books linked above. It’s also to remind myself and any of my peers paying attention that no matter how good it gets or how great we may feel, we should never take success for granted. Reviews, for example, don’t put food on the table. Working hard and always striving to write the next book a little better than the last one, on the other hand, can help pay the rent.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

 

Pleasing the Many…or Else!

I’ve been monitoring the reviews coming in on my books pretty heavily lately. Well, by heavily I mean I check sometime in the morning every day – if I remember. So maybe not so heavily, but the fact that I’ve been keeping an eye on reviews is a chance for me. The question is why? After all, there’s virtually nothing I can do about them except in rare exceptions.

Amazon has a good system in that it prevents authors from having any impact on the general public’s opinion of a product. As a consumer, I approve of that. But as a provider of content / products, it can be frustrating. I have a few reviews that are irrelevant. A friend of mine has one review that is intentionally spiteful and borderline libelous against her and her family. Yet we can’t do anything about them. On the other hand, I had one reader who copied and pasted the same review and applied it to multiple books, even indicating he hadn’t read all of the books in the review. I did get Amazon to remove those reviews.

So the answer is to write books that everybody likes. Or buy reviews. I’m not in the habit of buying, so that leaves me with needing to write books that are likely to be well received. Since I’ve been monitoring incoming reviews lately, I seem to be doing a pretty good job of it.

But having said that, I was still momentarily stunned the other day when I saw a 1 star review come in for The Lost Girls. I read the brief review and felt a flash of irritation. It said something to the fact that, “I downloaded the book and found it had strong homosexual subplots. I deleted it immediately.”

I have to ask, why was this person so stunned by it? The book is included in a category with the word, “Lesbian” in it. It’s not erotica, but the main character is a hardcore man-hating lesbian. She mellows over time but she’s got a lot of issues she has to work through. And yes, she likes girls. There’s nothing misleading about it, so why did this person feel the need to light a torch and post a 1 star review?

After the brief moment of annoyance passed (it was surprisingly brief, I think that means I’m growing up finally), I let it go. Everybody has a right to their opinion. Unfortunate for me that my book was hit with it, but the review clearly indicated the readers problem and explains that they didn’t read the book. Aside from dragging the ranking down ever so slightly, it does nothing to discourage people who are interested in that type of book from reading it. Clearly it was a case of not being able to please everybody.

Likewise, I’ve received a couple of reviews on this book that I believe were written by men asserting that I had no idea how to write a female character. Conversely, I’ve had more reviews from women that applauded my depiction of the female characters and said I touched them very much because it brought back memories and emotions they’ve dealt with themselves. To the women out there that felt that way – contacted me, I thank you very much! To the men who claim I’d make a terrible female lead – Pthbththtbtbbbt!

Um, hang on. I’m not saying I want to be a female lead. I – aw, crap, you get the idea.

I reasoned a long time ago that I wouldn’t want everybody to like my books. If they did, there’d be no controversy and no reason for people to buy them. Looking back, I don’t fault that line of thinking but I think I’d rather have universally liked books. Then everybody would still by them because they like them. Maybe they wouldn’t generate as much passionate conversation, but I’d be okay with that. Conversation doesn’t put food on the table or electricity in the power lines, after all.

The other unfortunate part is that I can’t write generic crap that everybody is guaranteed to like. My characters are quirky and troubled. They’re often super-heroes in disguise – but I feel that way about every one of us, real or imagined. We’re all the main characters of our own story and we all do amazing things at time, even if we’re the only one around to see it. And we all have faults that we’d like to overcome – or that others wished we would overcome.

I’m disappointed that this person did not read The Lost Girls. I have a suspicion that if they had they might have found that the main character’s sexual orientation didn’t really matter. It’s a story about stopping cruelty and her own path to find acceptance and forgiveness. Those are topics that should be near and dear to all of us. As with just about everything I write the genre and the action is just a backdrop to a more important story, the story of a character (or characters) growing and healing.

So yes, I think my books could please the many, but they won’t. We have too many ideals and morals that prevent us from looking beyond the surface. There are great stories out there, whether they belong to me or somebody, but they require a person to suspend their disbelief and allow themselves to honestly ask the question, “What if?” That’s why I love science fiction and fantasy, they challenge me to be open minded and to wonder at just what possibilities are out there.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

Living My Fantasy

I’ve been quiet lately. Too quiet, perhaps. After a flurry of blogging a few weeks back I dropped off the face of the earth it seemed. All is well, I just got busy. I had to write a host of blog posts for an upcoming promotion I’m doing for my Vitalis book, plus I’m finalizing the sequel to Vitalis (Vitalis: Resurrection) for release in a couple of weeks. I’m also going out of my way to coerce people into writing reviews for Vitalis and other books of mine. Between all that and a labor day weekend long road trip kept me pretty incommunicado.

But wait, there’s more! I’ve been hard at work on Child of Fate, my new fantasy novel. This is going to be a long one and it’s a lot of fun. Hopefully I’m past the halfway point by now but I keep coming up with more things to add into it that I can’t resist! That’s great news for readers because I have hundreds of ideas for things to do down the road as well, which will lead to many sequels. What can I say, I lead a very active fantasy life.

A high level sample of what’s going on right now involves the hero and his friends trapped in a large complex of caves. They’re trapped between several clans of goblins intent on killing them and a small army of trolls and ogres that have been sent to find and butcher them. They’ve managed to escape immediate danger, but only at great sacrifice. And the main character, a farm boy turned warrior before his prime, just opened a door and was greeted by something large, green, and toothy. And Mr. Toothy just invited them into his home…what can go wrong? Did I mention the goblin in the corner named, “Bonky?”

Admit it, you’re a little curious now… hang in there, I promise to finish it as soon as I can! I’m still shooting for an October release on it, although it may be late October at this rate.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

What Really Happened on Vitalis

For those not familiar, Vitalis is a world I created in a futuristic science fiction series. It starts out with a crew on a space transport that have a run in with some inter-stellar salvage experts (read: pirates, matey). Things don’t go so well for any of them and the long and short of it is a new world is discovered outside of the Terran Coalition of Systems (aka known space). Sounds pretty cool, right?

I thought so to, and I released them one part after another. The average length was 20,000 words to 30,000 words and I priced them dirt cheap at $.99. Seven parts in all and sales skyrocketed earlier this year. I had a couple of months with over 5,000 sales for the series and people emailed me and tweeted me and Facebooked me to tell me they love them. Life was good!

Then a handful of people took it upon themselves to get upset with the length of the books. They spent $.99 for something hey liked – something they admit sucked them in – and they were pissed off about it. So they wrote essentially the same review on each book and gave them all a rating of 1. This sunk the series practically overnight. The positive feedback to me was great, but since it wasn’t placed on Amazon on the books themselves, it didn’t do any good. Instead the haters down-rated the stories into the abyss. The lower the rating the less interest Amazon’s algorithms have in it – and the less it’s shown to potential buyers. Thus you see the power of reviews and the power of readers.

All those blog posts and other times when I’ve told people how important reviews are to authors like me? Yeah, I meant it. This entire series and a substantial portion of my financial ability to write new stuff has been sabotaged. It had nothing to do with greed on my part, it had to do with getting new stories in people’s hands as quickly as possible. The pricing of $.99 each was actually detrimental to me, rather than a pricing scheme. And the Vitalis Omnibus, which contains all 7 of the stories is longer than the vast majority of published novels out there and half the price – so no, I’m not trying to screw anybody over financially. As a matter of fact, I kind of feel like the exact opposite has happened because of this.

Whining aside, I’ve taken Vitalis parts 2 – 7 off sale. Yep, they aren’t out there anymore. I left New Beginnings up because it’s free and how can you bitch about free? My desire is for people to check it out and enjoy it as a sample of what’s in the Vitalis Omnibus, then they can go and buy that. Sometime next month I plan to release Vitalis: Resurrection, the novel in the Vitalis series. For the record I said novel, not novella, not novelette, and not short story.

My friends and loyal readers, I thank you all for the support an for continuing to read my books. I also beseech you to remember my story when you read a book (no matter who the author is) and please leave a review and a positive rating. Who knows, you might just be helping them make sure their kids can get into college.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

The Woes of the Written Word

This post is dedicated to editing. Not how to edit, nor what a wonderful thing a good editor is. Rather it’s about the different styles of editing and how very misunderstood the concept of editing is. I’m far from above making the mistake of misunderstanding it as well, it took several books and years for me to be able to wrap my brain around it. Truth be told, I’m sure I’m still missing out on a lot.

You see I hate typos and grammatical mistakes. They infuriate me because they’re so easy to miss. I assumed, years ago, that by sending out my work to an editor they would magically be corrected. Then I’d get reviews or comments complaining about how my book needed editing. I keep my hair short for many reasons, not the least of which is so that it’s too hard for me to pull it out when stuff like that happens.

The misconception is that all editing is the same. It’s not. All of my books are edited, and nearly 95% of those are done by a third party person as well as myself (and sometime by other parties as well). The third party is the content editor. A content editor is reading the story and looking for it to make sense and to make it flow better. They help revise poorly worded areas and also catch other things that drag a story down or make it difficult to read / understand. These people can truly make a story shine, yet to the average reader they have no idea these people exist or that they aided in the publication of a given story.

Then there’s the copyeditors, or proofreaders. They look for the formatting and typographical errors. Copyeditors are the parade soldiers in dress uniforms that people see. They make a writer and a reader feel like they’re being protected from the barbarian hordes wielding fragmented sentences. In reality, the copy editor has less of an impact on the story than anyone else does, yet their work is the most visible. For me, most of my stories have not been reviewed by a proper third party copyeditor. I admit this and regret it, but when it comes down to managing costs it’s a difficult burden to bear. Instead I try to do my own proofreading (shame on me, I know), and try to sucker anyone else I know to do the same. As time and money becomes available I send stories off to be copyedited, but I write faster than I can afford to edit so it’s a growing backlist.

So my friends, when I say I’m a stickler for editing, I mean it. That doesn’t mean you won’t find superfluous errors with no impact on the story though, it only means the story itself has been polished and shined to be something fun and provoking. I’d love to be able afford to provide both, but that requires more sales. How can you help? Tell your friends what you’re reading and how much you like it – it helps even more if the book your reading is one of mine! Tweet about it, post it on Facebook, blog about it, or write a glowing review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, iTunes, Sony, Kobo, or wherever you go it. And keep checking back, I’m always writing the next book – my current project is Black Widow, book four in the Lost Girls series, which I’m hoping to release in August.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

There’s Power in Numbers

It’s been a rough week for me. My book sales have slumped considerably. Oh, I’m not distraught or feeling like the end is near – but it is disheartening. Depressing even, when coupled with the volume of difficulties my day job has been presenting me with lately. But depression isn’t productive, therefore I crawl right back out of the bottle of Jim Beam and get to work on the next project!

In the meantime, I thought I should share some of this on my blog. Firstly about reviews – I’ve gotten a lot of lackluster reviews on my Vitalis series lately because of the length of the stories. Almost every review cites how enjoyable the story and the characters are, then they blast me for the length and assume I’m a greedy bastard for charging $.99 for them. I’ve gotten a larger amount of fan mail telling me how much the stories were enjoyed by readers, but alas the reviews paint a negative picture and may very well be scaring would-be readers away. I even had one guy complain that my Vitalis omnibus edition was only 1/3 as long as a proper book should be. Really? One third? It’s approximately 440 pages. I can’t recall very many books that I’ve read that were anywhere near that long. Perhaps some Terry Goodkind and definitely Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara. Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time books felt like they were seventeen times that many pages, but that’s just my personal take on them. My point is quite the opposite. If people read my books and they went fast, it’s not because they are less than a chapter or shorter than a short story (each one is a novella in length, average at or over 20,000 words. A short story typically maxes out at 5000 words). Perhaps it’s because they liked what they were reading so much they flew through them and, because they lacked the thickness of a paperback book, they assumed that must mean it was short.

So, to jump on the bandwagon many of my fellow writers have already boarded, it’s time for me to ask readers to help a brother out. Leave a review. It can be quick and easy. If you liked it, just share that with the world. Preferably on the Amazon page for the book (or Barnes and Noble, or Smashwords, or iTunes, or wherever), but sending out a tweet or a Facebook status update is mighty groovy too! “I just read (insert book name here) by (insert author name here, preferably mine) and I liked / loved / wallowed in it!” There, that’s a suitable review. It doesn’t need to be drawn out and complicated. Just a little something pointing out that you liked it. It helps me stay in the business of writing, and that means I’ll get more books for you to enjoy out there. There are countless stories yet to be told, whether they’re in the Vitalis world or one of my many other settings.

Okay, I said my piece and added my voice to the power of others who cry out for the same sense of justice, now I can move on. But what am I moving on too? Well my friends, I have a new Voidhawk book coming out very soon (Lost Soul). Like all of the others I have to say I think it’s my favorite one in the series. Take that for what you will. My current project is a new stand alone novel that is different than my usual stories. This one is not filled with fantasy or science fiction – it’s got romance and a love triangle, as well as some danger and thrills. And there’s some naughty stuff in it too. Oh yes, I mustn’t forget to mention the naughty parts. Sadly, I’m halfway through it or more but I don’t have a name yet. Stay tuned, as soon as I figure out the name and get it finished, I’ll be sure to share it! Then it’s off on my next project, either another independent book or perhaps the eighth part of my Vitalis series.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

Fifteen Stars!

Regular readers of my blog know that I don’t recommend writers read the reviews written on their books, or if they do, to do so sparingly. Well, taking my own advice it’s been a while since I dared check for new reviews on my books. What I found surprised me…in a good way!

Wanted, my near future sci-fi book that’s free for the Kindle, wracked up 15 stars in only 3 reviews last week!  It got praise such as, “I enjoyed the whole book because the author really made these characters come to life for me.”, “This book was exciting and couldn’t lay it down for long before I picked it up again.”, and “I read this in 2 days, as I could not wait to see what happened next.” Talk about feeling all warm and fuzzy!

Wanted is the first book in a series, Ice Princess continues the story. I plan to start writing the third book in the series in the near future, hopefully by early May.

Wanted, post-apocalyptic science fiction by Jason Halstead

There was something else from last week in there too: The first review for Voidhawk – The Elder Race (also 5 stars). This one really excited me because the book’s been out there forever, sold hundreds of copies, and only know gotten it’s first review. Here’s a snippet of the review: “It combines 18th and 19th century technology and attitudes with, hell, I don’t know, 23rd century space travel? Nevertheless, the characters suck you in and you start to get into the relationships and all of a sudden you are buying into the whole deal.” Pretty cool, if I say so myself!

Here’s the Voidhawk books, in order, to date: Voidhawk, Voidhawk – The Elder Race, Voidhawk – Redemption, and Voidhawk – The White Lady (new release in March!)

Voidhawk - The Elder Race, on Amazon

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

I’m Reviewing Reviews

I just read a blog snippet off of a blog by a guy named The Passive Guy. He writes some of his own articles and captures bits and pieces from other useful blogs around the web each day. I’m not sure how he manages it all, to be honest, but I make no claim to technological blogging supremacy. The point is this piece of blog I read focused on writers reading reviews. It strongly opined that they should not do so.

The thought behind it is that when a writer finishes a project and publishes it, it’s like entering a child in a competition. If the kid fails we’re disappointed. If the kid is picked on by the parent sitting beside us we’re likely to throw a punch. That’s my kid, damn it, how dare you make fun of them?

I admit I followed the reviews on my books religiously for a while. Just like the writer in the blog, some of those reviews sting. I can take the sting if its thought out and makes sense, but some of the zingers are not. In some cases it’s a personal disagreement, which seems pointless to me. If you don’t like ‘X’ because you’re a vegetarian – don’t down rate it and bash the book for it, sheesh. It’s frustrating and infuriating, at time. At others it can be a kick in the pants that makes you challenge your desire to write anything longer than your name.

The things that writers need to remember is that I see a review posted between .1% and 1% of the time. Meaning for every 100 to 1000 copies sold, somebody posts a review. In my experience, both as a writer and as a consumer, people tend to be more motivated when something irks them. Anger is easily converted to energy and motivation, and that means quite often people are more likely to read a negative review then a positive one. Our news media thrives off of negative stories – as a culture we love watching a train wreck (e.g. reality TV shows).

My fellow writers, is your book still selling? Are there good reviews and ratings? Ignore the poorly written bad review that is entirely opinion based. Not everybody is going to like you. We can’t expect people to write a commendation that’s opinion based and not write a defamation as well. The best tactic I’ve found is to more or less ignore the reviews.

I still check from an eagle eye point of view, but I focus more on the ratings and number of reviews rather than the specific content. The emotional lurch that can consume me isn’t worth the hours of stewing and negative impact it has on my schedule. I get emails from people that love what I’ve written and want to know where and when they can get something else. That means the world to me. Those people and those kind words are what keep me going some days. Sales suffer from time to time but a simple kind word makes it seem insignificant. Knowing I affected one person in a positive way makes it all worth it.

As for the bad reviews? Screw ‘em. Don’t write a review focusing on the author of the book, write it for the book and for other readers. Picking on my son or daughter because you don’t like me doesn’t show what a thoughtful, intelligent, and morally superior the reader is.

And no, I didn’t write this because I received a bad review on one of my books! This was prompted entirely by the aforementioned blog post that I heartily agree with.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

Hidden Agenda

There’s no conspiracy theory or ulterior motives attached to this, I just wanted to put down a rough agenda of what I’ve got planned in the writing world for 2012. With any luck it will build up some excitement for people interested in some or all of my various story lines. If nothing else, it will help to hold me accountable to make sure I get some work done!

Here’s the writing schedule:

Current project: Voidhawk, book 4. Status: 50% ish. Rough draft ETA: February. Story: Logan, Bekka, and Bailynn go off in search of helping Bekka to find herself and to figure out why she’s kind of a lousy sorceress. What they find along the way ends up making Bekka’s quest seem almost insignificant in comparison. There are undead, witches, faeries, and a dangerous encounter with a tribe of half men / half lions. And what kind of a story would it be if there weren’t some romance tossed in along the way? Imagine how complicated a love triangle between a priest, a woman confused about her sexuality, and another woman destined to wear the body of a teenage girl the rest of her life? Now if only I could figure out a title…

Dark Earth, book 2. Rough Draft ETA: March / April. Story: A witch has been sent, complete with a personal guard, to slip through the new Lord Baxter’s portal and open up a passage between worlds of her own. Along the way she will suffer culture shock and question not only the life she lives, but also the mission she’s on and whether it’s worth the price of betrayal. This will be a direct sequel to my original Dark Earth title.

Vitalis, book 5. Rough draft ETA: April / May. Story: Exploring the dynamic of the “tribe” that lives in Treetown on Vitalis, as well as how they must come together to deal with threats. I’m still working out the details.

Wanted, book 3. Rough draft ETA: May / June. Story: I’m working on a couple of possibilities. The characters from the first two books (Wanted and Ice Princess) will probably be present, but only in cameo or support roles.

Dark Earth, Lost Treasures. Rough draft ETA: June / July. Story: Lost treasures is going to open up a new series in my Dark Earth setting. I haven’t figured out exactly which “treasure” will be sought out in this book yet, but I plan to go after the mythological stories lost to time. Except in this setting they weren’t lost to time, they just didn’t exist anywhere other than Dark Earth. (Atlantis, The Fountain of Youth, the City of Gold, The Golden Fleece, etc..)

Vitalis, book 6. Rough draft ETA: August. Story: Depends on how book 5 goes, but I’ve got ideas-a-plenty.

Dark Earth, Black Widow. Rough Draft ETA: Sept / Oct. Story: This will be back in my “Lost Girls” sub-series. Katalina’s on the case of a new serial killer, one that seems to have a fondness for torturing and killing men. She couldn’t care less normally except this time the killer used a man’s wife and young daughter as instruments of torture. The thing that keeps getting in her way is that the man survived the attack and he’s out for vengeance in the bloodiest way possible. Katy has to decide if she’s willing to work with him or against. Oh, and did I mention the pressure she’s getting to visit her father in prison and try to make amends with him?

Dark Earth, Lost Treasures book 2. Rough Draft ETA: Nov / Dec. Story: More of the same as the first book, except a new mythical treasure and some new supporting characters to keep things lively.

And here’s the publishing schedule:

January:

Traitor (already out!)

Vitalis – Parasites

February:

Vitalis – Screamer

March:

Wolfgirl (Dark earth – The Lost Girls, book 3)

April:

Voidhawk, book 4

May:

June:

Dark Earth, book 2

July:

Vitalis, book 5

August:

September:

Wanted, book 3

October:

Dark Earth, Lost Treasures

November:

Vitalis, book 6

December:

Dark Earth, Black Widow

It’s going to be a busy year but I’m excited by it and hopefully so is everybody else! And now you know what’s coming down the pipe. Some of these books and the order they’re in are the direct result of feedback I’ve received from readers. Let that be a lesson – don’t be shy about contacting writers! We want to hear what your thoughts are. It excites us and helps give us direction sometimes.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

You Can’t Fight Crazy

In addition to my day job and writing I also own Novel Concept Publishing with J.E. Taylor. Jane is primarily the editor and person who determines the thumbs up or thumbs down on submissions, but she defers to me when it comes to science fiction and fantasy stories. Thus far we haven’t had a lot of stories in those genres submitted to us, but one early one came from Marc Hamlet and I jumped at the chance to help him out and publish The Capable Man. Great sales on it thus far have reinforced my decision. But that’s just filler and an attempt to drive a little more traffic Marc’s way. Now onto the crazy…

The nature of the game is that for every one title that is accepted, there are a greater number that get turned away. It’s not out of spite and it’s not because we’re afraid to take on the work. It’s because the manuscript just won’t work or it is need of so much editing that we don’t feel we can take it on. In some cases that disappoints me, because I see some potential in a story but I know it’s going to take too much work to bring it out and make it shine. Between my schedule and Jane’s we wouldn’t be able to devote the attention it requires. I had one of those just recently, in fact, and I’m hoping that writer takes the feedback I gave him to heart and acts on it.

Then there’s other submissions that won’t work because they read like a plate of spaghetti. Nothing makes sense, there’s no proper flow to it, the sentences are jumbled, and perhaps even accepted formatting standards are blatantly ignored. I had that recently too. My first thought was to suggest the author try writing it in a version of English I might understand, but I realized that might sound inappropriate. After all, writing a novel is a lot of work and putting that much effort into something deserves a degree of respect, even if it does read like a randomly generated spam comment.

So I sent a respectful rejection letter. There’s no such thing in NCP’s library as a form letter, everything we do is hand written and tailored to each person. We want to help out even those who aren’t ready yet, such as this case. I offered some feedback and suggestions, even a direction I thought the writer should take. At no point was I rude or belittling. The almost immediate response I received from the writer was:

“Piss off and get lost!!!!!“

My reaction? A moment of shock, a moment of sadness, and then laughter. What else can you do? I shared it with my wife, who went through the same emotional process I did, then I shared it with Jane. Her response turned into the title of this blog.

The lesson for writers everywhere is to keep an open mind. Take feedback in every form and use it to improve yourself. Equally importantly, act professional. Burning bridges and flying off the handle doesn’t get you far in the world. Unless this particular would-be writer can open their mind and learn to accept feedback, they’ll forever remain a would-be.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.