April Fools on me...

The first of every month is my usual post day. For some reason, I couldn't get the dates straight so I'm a little late in the game. There's a lot of catching up to do but I am excited to announce that not long ago we received wonderful news that Publisher's Weekly would like to review our books! This is phenomenal news and proves that the industry is finally taking notice of our amazing authors! I'm thrilled and now need to get something written for one of our lines! :)

In another exciting news, The Romance Studio gave ART OF SENSUALITY a 4 1/25 out of 5 Hearts review!

This leads me to reviews...as authors, we spend way too much time anticipating whether they're going to love us or loathe us. There's sites like Mrs. Giggles, Smart Bitches, and so on...that love to bash authors...not to say that they don't also rave when they like a particular book, but being at the receiving end of a bad review...it's tough to take sometimes. I spent plenty of time not trying to pay attention to reviews, except for the ones that count (in my book) like the Romantic Times BookReviews or Publisher's Weekly. But what I've learned from all this is that whether a negative or a positive review is issued, I feel like it's free promotion. Even if it's a scathing review, chances are, a reader will pick up your work just to see if the critic has been too harsh. I know I view the reviews like movie reviews, there are often critically praised movies that totally disappointed me so I give those poorly reviewed movies a fighting chance.

Over the years, I've learned to grow a thick skin because in the journey of writers, not every book we write is our best work. It may be the best that we could write at that moment, but we have to keep in mind that even literary greats have been panned. We just need to remember that although most reviewers aren't writers, they don't know how difficult it is to finish a book, to tell a story the way we do, or to understand the workings of our mind as we write. When I see a poor review, I have the urge to tell the critic to try to write a book....let's see how quickly they'll understand all that goes into finishing one. Again, it's just opinion and the next time a review comes in, I am just grateful I have a book to submit to be read by someone.

So, how do you cope when you receive a review? What ticks you off, what makes you feel bubbly inside? I wanna know how you deal with reviews...