Not an Overnight Success
Building a website and building its reputation are not an easy thing to do. I'm giving you fair warning up front. In fact, to create a website that draws the attention of some of the big publishers takes a labor of love and plenty of time.
In the web world, that "plenty of time" is referred to as aging. It means your site is not a fad, flash in the pan, or feeble attempt on your part. It means you are committed to making it work and keeping it going. The months and months of building up it's content may not see a single reward other than your joy of writing about your topic.
My love of reading mystery novels turned into a website. That was my own labor of love. Each new mystery I read turned into an article reviewing that novel. Like my love of Jana DeLeon and her Miss Fortune novels (www.mysterybookworldlive.com/mystery-book-of-the-month/jana-deleon-and-the-miss-fortune-mystery-series).
The Mystery of a Reputation of a Reviewer
It's not really a big mystery of how to build a reputation as a reviewer. In fact, it's simple. Be honest.
Sounding like the back jacket of a book cover won't garner any respect from readers. But, giving them the good, bad and the ugly is being honest. Oh, yes. There were plenty of novels where I just couldn't find any bad or ugly. But that was still honesty on my part.
I also had to be honest with those offering me free books to read. I have been asked to review books that really did not fit my genre. Certainly, it was nice to be asked. But I had to decline. I had to be true to the reputation I'd worked hard to build. And that reputation was with my readers, not with the book publishers!
Reaping the Rewards the Right Way
Those wonderful times when a publisher requests a review, and the mystery novel is right for my site,
I love doing that. It's exciting for me to discover new talent bursting on the mystery book scene. Most especially when I can enjoy the story, characters and setting, then look forward to more from that author.
Rory Flynn happens to be one of those. I was asked to review his first mystery novel, Third Rail. And am I glad I did. Take a gander at my review: Enter Eddy Harkness in Third Rail (www.mysterybookworldlive.com/mystery-genres/new-mystery-releases-enter-eddy-harkness-third-rail). You'll see why I'm anxious awaiting the next book in his series.
Yep, reviewing the world of mystery books has it's rewards, but it takes hard work and time to be able to get to this point. For me, it was all worth it.
Posted by: BuckHawk
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