As part of our great push to get my novel ready for second submission to the publisher, I leveraged my wife's Yahoo! groups and was able to target about 900 people to see if anyone was interested in reviewing the ms at a lickety-split pace. As an incentive, we offered $10 gift cards to Amazon.com to 10 reviewers who read the entire book and filled out a questionnaire. Close to 60 signed up. Now, they only had about 12 days, and a number of them did not make it in time.
However, we got excellent feedback (we here means me and my wife, who was a tremendous help). Helpful suggestions on a number of places to strengthen, clarify, expand, simplify, and such. A couple of readers had trouble--and that led to some important changes in the text as well.
Most gratifying to me was that most of the target audience kids--ages 9-13--loved the book. The boost to the ego was just extraordinary. The kids said things like, "It was amazing; I loved it; exciting, action-packed, fun!"
One 11-year-old boy answered the question, "Would you ask your parents to buy this?" said 'No--I'd buy it myself.' Wow. I just felt really grateful.
So, to all you reviewers out there, thanks a million. It's a much better book for your efforts. And I'm a much more excited writer as well.
So, the book went back to the publisher on Tuesday. Now they've asked to see it again, but they did tell me that this early in the game there are no promises and that I can still submit elsewhere. I'm querying agents now. Two out last night, and a number to go. We're on a roll!
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