Category: Site Announcements
A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony
Well, last Wednesday I posted over here, but this Wednesday I’m back guest posting over at We Heart Reading. If you like fantasy and aren’t easily offended by sexism, you’ll love A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony, the first Xanth novel in a series that started in 1977 and is still being written today. (Well, according to that ever-reliable Wikipedia.)
My Review Policy
Since I made a formal book reviewing criteria post, I just want to remind everyone of my policy, which I will do periodically. I didn’t have a formal post until August 1st, but I did mention some points in my FAQs (such as giving me a free book not guaranteeing you a good review). So here is the full post:
What I Review
- Teen-targeted self-help
- All of the major YA genres: romance, fantasy, sci-fi, historical, realistic, etc.
- Nonfiction teens would be interested in.
- Self-published fiction that fits the above guidelines.
What I WILL NOT Review
- Erotica. Not interested, people.
- Spiritual fiction. I will not touch religion on this blog.
- Poetry. Unless you’re Dante, Homer or Virgil.
- Short stories (unless they’re in an anthology).
- Any unpublished work.
So your book fits the criteria, great! What do you do next?
1. You must contact me via the Contact page here on my blog.
2. I check my email three times per day, so I expect you to at check it at least once. I don’t like waiting around for an author’s reply for days.
3. You must have a blog and/or official website as well as membership to 2 or more social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, Fark, Reddit, etc. If I have to take time out of my day to read and review your book, you had better take the time to publicize my review, but only if it’s good. I certainly don’t expect you to publicize a bad review.
4. When you contact me, you must be able to provide me a free copy either in PDF or paperback. I personally prefer physical copies of books, but I know shipping to Canada can be costly.
5. When you give me a free copy of your book, it does not guarantee you a good review. I give full disclosure in a review when an author has contacted me to prevent any conflicts of interest. I review all of the books I read honestly and if you don’t like it, don’t bother wasting my time.
6. You may mention if you want to do a giveaway or interview, but you must wait until I publish your review before we actually go through with it. I’m not going to do a giveaway for a book I didn’t like. You must also have a sizable enough social network to promote it through so I can actually get more than 5 entries. Otherwise, it’s just a waste of my time and your money.
I reserve the right to accept or refuse your request on a case-by-case basis.
The Best and Worst of August
In case you’re not familiar with my “The Best and Worst of…” series, here’s the deal: every month I reflect on my statistics and tell you the top 5 most viewed posts and the top 5 least viewed posts—the best and worst of that month. So what was popular and what wasn’t in August? Well, here are the top 5 articles and reviews (site announcements are not counted) for August:
1. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
3. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
4. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Although school doesn’t start until September 4 here in Saskatchewan, in some places in America (where most of my traffic is from) it has already been in session for a few weeks. This is why all of my top posts seem to be from students doing homework research for novel study as all four of the books listed here are typical novel study novels.
School being back in session is also why my overall traffic is up from 4, 350 views in July (when everyone is on vacation) to 4, 846 in August (a larger spike than I predicted). It helps that I broke a personal record for views per day, which now stands at 305. That doesn’t sound like much and really, it isn’t, but it smashed my old record of 246 views in one day. The weirdest part of that record? It was broken on a Thursday, which is traditionally one of my worst days for traffic, aside from Sundays.
Well, enough about views per day, let’s bring on the five worst posts of August!
1. The Bad Queen by Carolyn Meyer
2. YA Release Dates to Look Forward to
3. Emperor: The Field of Swords by Conn Iggulden
4. Some Thoughts on the YA Genre
5. Isabel: Jewel of Castilla by Carolyn Meyer
I’m not surprised at all to see two Carolyn Meyer books on the bottom 5 because despite being a great historical fiction writer, her popularity has waned over the years. ‘Ya Release Dates to Look Forward to’ is no surprise either because most of the dates listed are now irrelevant as the books have been released by now!
‘Some Thoughts on the YA Genre’ is sort of misleading at #4 because although it didn’t gather many views here on my blog, Mark over at The Masquerade Crew used it as a syndicated post and soon my timeline was flooded with people tweeting about it. I assume that at least half of the people tweeting about it actually read it, so that’s more than enough to put it out of the bottom 5.
Well, that’s it for August! My overall traffic is up now and I expect it to spike again as pretty much all schools will be in session at the end of the long weekend. September will also feature more guest posting than usual because Caleb from 20four12 and I have worked out an arrangement that sees us guest posting for each other every other Friday. My first post for him will be on September 7, then he will post for me on the 14th and so on and so forth.
If you’re looking to guest post for The Mad Reviewer, please read this article. I look forward to hearing from you soon!
The Naming by Alison Croggon
Well, it’s Wednesday today so you know what that means: guest posting. Today I’m over at We Heart Reading, reviewing The Naming by Alison Croggon. If you like epic fantasy, you’ll love how Alison Croggon mixes old tropes with her own new ones to create the world of Edil-Amarandh.
Calling all Writers!
Are you a short story writer and have been aching for a chance to have your work published in an anthology? Have you been sitting on that time-travel story, waiting for a market? Well, look no further!
No, yours truly is not publishing an anthology. I have enough on my plate at the moment (more on that later). However, one of my blogging friends, Mark Lee from The Masquerade Crew, is. Here is the prompt for the anthology:
In the spirit of H.G. Well’s “The Time Machine,” one character or a group of characters travel many years into the future. What do they find there? Are they able to come back home, or are they trapped? What has become of mankind? Is life better or worse? What’s the political climate? The real climate? (IOW mother nature) The choices are up to you.
The minimum word count for all short stories is 5,000 words and the maximum word count is 10,000 words. Since Mark is just getting into publishing, the anthology will only be available as an ebook, but the future holds endless possibilities.
One of the huge advantages of entering your story for consideration in this particular anthology is that Mark has always been, and likely always will be, an advocate for indie and self-published authors. That means, if your story is accepted, you will be included in the publishing process: editing, cover design, the works. Unlike in major publishing houses, your opinions will be heard and considered. It also means that you, not Mark, will retain the copyright of your story.
Okay, so you’re probably asking yourself: who’s going to do the editing? Will you have to hire an editor? This is where my involvement starts.
I’m going to be one of the editors of the anthology.
Yes, I’m finally expanding my repertoire beyond book reviewing, but don’t worry! I’m not about to give up The Mad Reviewer anytime soon; I’m having far too much fun for that. However, it does give me a chance to work closer with authors than I have before and get paid for doing what I love (as I obviously don’t make any money from my blog).
The best part is that the anthology is going to put more power into the hands of authors as well as indie publishers. So if you’re interested in submitting a short story for the anthology, or even just asking more questions, you can email Mark at msl_007atlivedotcom.