Critique Groups

With the revolutionary changes in the publishing world today, presenting a clean manuscript to an agent or publisher is important.

A critique group is one of the easiest ways to get eyes on your manuscript for free, before sending it out. My experience in the small critique group I attend works well for me.

The five of us are published authors, we meet once a week and can read up to ten pages. We must have copies for the other participants to read along and  to write comments on as each of us reads our pages aloud. This can be time consuming, but is helpful. Then we take turns critiquing what has been read. At the end of the critique, the pages with notes go back to the writer.

I find each part of this process important. It helps encourage me to write so I can produce the ten pages, an easy task since I’ve finished writing long before reading the last chapter at the critique group.

Reading aloud lets me discover awkward phrasing or mixture of words that look good on paper but sound horrible when read out loud. One of the members has an editor complex and enjoys marking up my pages from an editor’s viewpoint. People pay for this, I get it free.

As happens, sometimes I’m told my pages move the story along and as often as not, I’m told they make no sense in moving the story forward. Usually, the comments fall in-between. On occasion all four participants agree and it’s usually that what I wrote doesn’t advance the story. When that happens, I pay attention, go home, read the notes on the pages returned to me and see what I can do to correct the problem. I wouldn’t have seen the problem if it weren’t for the critique.

The critique process works in different ways for different people. I attended the local ‘writers guild’ session and found it too big, too unorganized and more of a social gathering than a critique session.

A critique group has to be honest. Sometimes that honesty hurts, but if it is helpful, it’s priceless. Writers have to have a thick skin and my critique group has helped prepare me for reviewers!

A good critique group’s honesty should cut both ways, pointing out why your selection doesn’t work and/or why it does work. A writer should walk away not bleeding but curious as to why things where said and what he/she can do to fix it. If it’s praise, the writer needs to see what he/she did that brought on the praise and try to repeat that style of writing, just as he/she should not want to repeat what caused the confusion with bad pages.

I wanted a critique group that had mystery writers/readers. For me, having to explain over-and-over why you did something in the story to someone who doesn’t read my genre is a waste of time, especially since it takes away from others who may have a better understanding of the story line.

What I didn’t want in a critique session is someone saying, “If I was writing this . . .” I am not interested in anyone else style, just mine. I want to know what’s confusing, what slows the pace or what makes no sense.

While it’s always self-rewarding to show your writing to family and friends, unless that includes Stuart Neville, Ken Bruen, Louise Phillips, Declan Burke, Tana French and the like, family and friends don’t constitute a critique group. Enjoy their comments and then go look for a critique group that will tell you the truth.

The more colleagues’ eyes you can get onto your pages, the better the book will be in the end. You must be as giving and honest as you want the others to be. Sometimes that’s not easy.

I wouldn’t admit this in my group, but more often than not, the critique group’s questioning something I’ve written has been more helpful than their praise. My ego is stroked with the praise, but my book becomes better with the questions, even when I bleed a little from it, and I become a better writer too.

One size doesn’t fit all. Check out more than one critique group to see if you are comfortable with the other participants. If not, move on. If all else fails, you are probably not alone, so why not form your own critique group of fellow writers/readers. In case you do that, remember what turned you off on the other critique groups and avoid those mistakes.

Why a print book? Book Release Party, of course!

Today’s publish world is changing faster than I can swill a Guinness. I, like many others, have benefited from it. My last three books have been independently publish. Each has gone through the editing and cover design once offered by my traditional publisher. Two differences, I pay for the editing and cover design and like the result much better.

I have to do my own publicity, but then publishers have cut much of the PR budgets, so writers who are not on the NY Times bestseller list probably have to do that too, if they’re traditionally published. It’s time consuming until you get the routine down and then many of the markets still are hard to break into. That will change as more and more bestselling authors become independently published. The upside of going independent is the money. From Kindle I receive 70 percent and the Kindle website gives me daily sales numbers and a 30-day graph of how my sales are doing. Something the NY publishing world says they can’t do.

I still do offer my books on Amazon as POD trade paperbacks. The sales are not worth mentioning.

So why do it?

I have books to give family and friends, books to use for PR purposes and for signings. While some independent bookstores will agree to hold signings for non-traditionally published writers, here in Key West I hold my book release party for NOBODY WINS at the Smokin’ Tuna Saloon in Old Town.

I don’t have to give the saloon a 40-percent cut of the sales and that's a big thing. More money for me!

I will also be at the Kilkenny House Irish Pub in Cranford, NJ on the 20th of the month, around 5 pm, and Barry, the owner let me use his pub for a few chapters in NOBODY WINS. It’s an unofficial book signing, but I’ll have a few copies so stop by if you’re in the neighborhood.in my pocket. I will be having a book release party on Saturday, Sept. 13, 2-4 pm at the Smokin’ Tuna, so if you’re in Key West, please stop by. We’re a small community and everyone knows everyone. In this case, I know the local Budweiser man and he has donated a keg of Mich Ultra. Buy a book and get a free draft of beer. I’m not sure if anyone will be keep track of who gets the drafts, so the curious may also get a free draft. The local rep for Pilar Rum has donated a few bottles and there will be specially priced Pilar Run drinks. All this makes the book release event more of a party, Key West style.

Other than book release parties, I don’t really sell many traditional books. You would think that the big publishers would take notice. More and more writers, like me, are having good sales on Kindle. Writers that the NY publishers weren’t interested in.

While I love books, to hold it while reading, to see its spine on my bookshelf, times are changing and when my kids inherit my book collection, they will probably be inheriting antiques. The same with newspapers. I want to hold it, smell the ink and hear the rustling of pages as I turn them. Not to mention that when I spill my café con leche on the newspaper it’s still readable. Not sure what a Kindle or tablet would do with my coffee soaking it.

book-release-poster-kilkeeny-8.5x11

Why books? Book Release Party, of course!

Today’s publish world is changing faster than I can swill a Guinness. I, like many others, have benefited from it. My last three books have been independently publish. Each has gone through the editing and cover design once offered by my traditional publisher. Two differences, I pay for the editing and cover design and like the result much better.

I have to do my own publicity, but then publishers have cut much of the PR budgets, so writers who are not on the NY Times bestseller list probably have to do that too, if they’re traditionally published. It’s time consuming until you get the routine down and then many of the markets still are hard to break into. That will change as more and more bestselling authors become independently published. The upside of going independent is the money. From Kindle I receive 70 percent and the Kindle website gives me daily sales numbers and a 30-day graph of how my sales are doing. Something the NY publishing world says they can’t do.

I still do offer my books on Amazon as POD trade paperbacks. The sales are not worth mentioning.

So why do it?

I have books to give family and friends, books to use for PR purposes and for signings. While some independent bookstores will agree to hold signings for non-traditionally published writers, here in Key West I hold my book release party for NOBODY WINS at the Smokin’ Tuna Saloon in Old Town.

I don’t have to give the saloon a 40-percent cut of the sales and that's a big thing. More money for me!

I will also be at the Kilkenny House Irish Pub in Cranford, NJ on the 20th of the month, around 5 pm, and Barry, the owner let me use his pub for a few chapters in NOBODY WINS. It’s an unofficial book signing, but I’ll have a few copies so stop by if you’re in the neighborhood.in my pocket. I will be having a book release party on Saturday, Sept. 13, 2-4 pm at the Smokin’ Tuna, so if you’re in Key West, please stop by. We’re a small community and everyone knows everyone. In this case, I know the local Budweiser man and he has donated a keg of Mich Ultra. Buy a book and get a free draft of beer. I’m not sure if anyone will be keep track of who gets the drafts, so the curious may also get a free draft. The local rep for Pilar Rum has donated a few bottles and there will be specially priced Pilar Run drinks. All this makes the book release event more of a party, Key West style.

Other than book release parties, I don’t really sell many traditional books. You would think that the big publishers would take notice. More and more writers, like me, are having good sales on Kindle. Writers that the NY publishers weren’t interested in.

While I love books, to hold it while reading, to see its spine on my bookshelf, times are changing and when my kids inherit my book collection, they will probably be inheriting antiques. The same with newspapers. I want to hold it, smell the ink and hear the rustling of pages as I turn them. Not to mention that when I spill my café con leche on the newspaper it’s still readable. Not sure what a Kindle or tablet would do with my coffee soaking it.

book-release-poster-kilkeeny-8.5x11