By Writing is a lonely pursuit. You spend all those hours on your own, writing and rewriting your novel, hoping that it’s working, hoping that your readers will enjoy it, worrying that maybe you’re kidding yourself, that maybe you’re producing the literary equivalent of the Hollywood bomb.
Thus nothing makes an author more jittery than news that Kirkus Reviews has just published a review of your next book. Those reviews generally come out about two months before your book’s publication date. They target an audience of bookstore buyers, public librarians, and other retailers who are trying to decide which books to order for the next season.
In the publishing world, Kirkus has earned its reputation as a tough critic. A very tough critic. To quote the lyrics from that Frank Sinatra classic, “If you can make there, you can make it anywhere.”
And thus as my next Rachel Gold mystery, The Dead Hand, approached its two-month pre-publication date, I started nervously checking the Kirkus website.
Click.
Nope.
Five days later. Click.
Nope.
Another five days.
Click.
And there it was, with the headline: “A high-water mark in this inventive, ebullient series.”
To read the full review, here’s the link.
Thank you, Kirkus!
What do you think?