Yesterday I copied to our website a quote from the most recent review of Six for Gold. I don't expect there's enormous interest in these reviews. There might be cases where someone wants to see how well the critics have received our work (and no, the few bad notices don't get posted to our site!). Mostly, though, we collect reviews for our own amusement. Save for an occasional note or blog comment (thanks!) they're pretty much the only comments we receive.

So far, with the book due out any day now, we've seen ten reviews, along with some other mentions such as a Pierce's Pick of the Week at January Magazine and a citation as a BookSense Notable for December. Generally we'll see between fifteen and twenty reviews, which is very good for a book from an indie publisher.

Then again, while the novels sell a few thousand copies, my dittoed science fiction fanzine Groggy, with a circulation averaging maybe 70 back in the late seventies and early eighties, regularly garned 30 to 35 letters of comment, or locs as we called them. Most of them far longer than a typical book review. Toward the end of the zine's run I noticed that over the years I'd received more than 1,000 locs.

So it felt like more people read Groggy than read our books.

With professional work there are sales figures to look at and some compensation, but I'm not sure such things translate very well into that pleasant certainty that someone is actually perusing your words.

The feedback explains why I've spent so much time on amateur writing when I could have been seeing my stuff in print elsewhere. This blog is similar to my old fanzine in that, within a few days, I'll receive more comments than I'll ever get on a book.

Now, don't make a liar out of me!