Bookcast Episode 41: Reading, Writing, Reviews & Ratings

DL White [00:00:00]:

You. Hello and welcome to episode 41 of the book cast by Dale White. It's my platform for sharing short fiction and updates on what I'm reading and writing. The bookcast is hosted by me, Dale White. I am an Atlanta based author of romantic fiction featuring black men and women. I am also a big fan of books, so this podcast is book heavy with a smattering of writing updates. I messed up my intro, but I am not re recording it. We're doing it live.

DL White [00:00:38]:

If you like this kind of thing and want to support it, I welcome you to do so. I won't turn it down. I don't have a patreon, but you can buy me a coffee. Head to my support site, it's Coffee Kofi.com Booksbydlwhite and make a one time or recurring gift to support me as an author or this podcast. Mama has audiobooks. She needs to record lots of little shiny things she wants to buy. Every little bit helps. If you are new here, a seasoned listener, a bibliophile, or just looking for a good read, I hope you'll enjoy today's show.

DL White [00:01:13]:

I am so happy to have your ears for this time and I'm excited to share my love of reading and writing books with you today. I have a couple of things I want to chat about. I want to talk about what I read this week. I got in some good reading this week, y'all. Good reading. What's on the list for this upcoming week and progress on my work in progress, my book club meeting last weekend, three star reviews, which is a thing that's going around the socials and the summit that I'm attending this weekend. Today is Saturday, May 6. You all at 06:41 a.m..

DL White [00:01:50]:

I do not know why I am awake this early. I did fall asleep early last night. I think I was asleep by 930 or 10:00. And this is what happens. I wake up at 04:53 a.m. On a Saturday. So I got up and I made some coffee. I am, as I mentioned, attending a summit this weekend begins at 10:00 a.m.

DL White [00:02:10]:

And I have this podcast I want to record and a couple of books I want to get into. Might even crack open my work in progress before I log in. So I thought, well, let me just go ahead and get up and get moving. It is dark. I don't know what the weather is because the sun is not up yet. I have a mic. I am ready to dig in. The sun is just coming up.

DL White [00:02:37]:

But first, coffee. I bought this beautiful red Yeti coffee mug because the way my stomach works, I just can't drink a lot at one time and coffee was always getting cold before I even got to the second sip. This Yeti keeps it piping hot for some time. I am in love. I also bought a big yellow Yeti tumbler and let me tell you, having ice like ice water all night is like when I get up the next morning and I still have ice in the tumbler. It is the best thing. Is this adulting when you get excited about having hot and cold drinks? I think. So let's chat about the books I read last week.

DL White [00:03:30]:

I know I said last week I was starting to slow down on the reading and not so much. Not so much. I had a bit of a busy real life week, and so that always kind of affects how much I can write. But if I'm going to be in the car or sitting at my desk at work, the work floors are so empty. There was like three people on the floor. It's just quiet. So I stick in my earbuds and I listen to books or podcasts or whatever. So I had a little bit of time last week.

DL White [00:03:59]:

I read six books. I am 25 books ahead on my goodreads challenge. The train is careening. Yeah, I was trying to slow down, but I like books. So I said last week I was reading Hay Auntie by Jason Graham. That was a reread. It originally came out November 28, 2021. I reread it because book two in the Hay Auntie series, Say What You Mean, came out last Friday, April 30.

DL White [00:04:31]:

Can I just tell you guys something, just between me, you, and the fence post. If you're not reading Jason Graham, at least hey, Auntie And, say what you mean. I want you to fix your life immediately. These two books are so good. It is an older woman, younger man, trope listen really good. I can't even talk about it. I can't even talk about it. But super good writing.

DL White [00:05:04]:

Lots of intimacy. I want to know more about the day to day with them. But it's a long distance relationship, so day to day is hard. I feel like Jason has left the door open for another installment in this series. And I'm hardly ever vouching for multiple books in the series on the same couple. But Miss Liza and David Marcus. We need more. We need more.

DL White [00:05:34]:

There's so much there to play with. Say what you mean. As good as hell. There should be more. I have let Jason know under no circumstances is he allowed to end this series here because yeah, good read, good read. Dig into it. I read through the storm I think I said I was reading that last week. I read through the storm on my Beverly Jenkins reread.

DL White [00:06:02]:

That is Levek Family Book One. Truly enjoyed that one. There were characters from previous books I read, like Galeno from Indigo shows up. I read The Trapped Girl, which is Tracy Crosswhite book four. Another in the Robert Dugoni series. The trapped girl is actually pretty good. Then I read The Taming of Jesse Rose by Beverly Jenkins. Also really enjoyed that one.

DL White [00:06:29]:

And then yesterday I was just toiling around scribbed because what they do is when you listen to a lot of audiobooks, they start to throttle your account and if you haven't downloaded the books, you can't access them until like, a certain point. So I couldn't read the next book in the Robert Dugoni series until May 6 and there's a bunch of books I had stacked up to read. I could not access them until today. So I was just kind of bouncing around. I'm like, let me find something short. So I read or listened to the illumination of Ginger by Nicole Falls. It's a holiday. Sisters number four.

DL White [00:07:10]:

Really good. Listen, it was like two and a half hours. It was perfect for a Friday afternoon. I want to get in and out. Just give me a good book. Just give me something good. I may have problems. I might have, like, book addiction issues.

DL White [00:07:24]:

Anyway, I went to Hoopla and borrowed Always and Forever by Miss Beverly Jenkins because Scribb was playing games and wouldn't let me borrow it because I have listened to too many audiobooks. Whatever. Always and Forever by Beverly Jenkins. I just started that one. It is really good already. So coming up this week you know what I hate when NetGalley does this? When I request to read an advanced copy and they choose to approve me three days before the book drops. Thing about home by Rhonda. McKnight comes out May 9, so I'm going to try to get that read and reviewed by Tuesday.

DL White [00:08:04]:

I have a summit this weekend, so good luck to me on that. Again, I have The Lie Maker by Lynnwood Barkley coming soon, and Rogue Justice by Stacey Abrams, coming May 23. I also have a bunch of indie books I'm trying to get to. There's one, Lula White, just released a book and I love her work and so I'm trying to get to that. I'm so behind on Stephanie, Nicole Norris and Cheryl Green. And I think Delaney Diamond has one coming soon. She's got a new Cordoba book coming out and the I don't know, main character, A, is a female. It's early and I have had two sips of coffee.

DL White [00:08:47]:

I have so much that I want to read, so that's what I read and what I have coming up this week. Of course, lots of little things drop in here and there. I know I have some books on hold with Libby, my library, and so I read those as they pop up or I put them off if I can. That is what is going on. What else did I want to talk about this week? My work in progress. I did make some progress on Elysium. Not too much, but I'm writing. It was a busy week.

DL White [00:09:16]:

I did back up the first chapter to a point where I thought it should start. I am nervous about how this book has to start, but I feel like I need to set the scene. These two people only know each other online and they have had mostly an online phone call, FaceTime, Zoom chat relationship, including the intimate parts of their lives. And so I feel like I needed to set the scene earlier than I had originally set it. So I'm real nervous about how this book has to start, but I also feel it is the right choice. So I went back. Perfecting. That still really pulling Vance together.

DL White [00:10:03]:

But I'm close. I'm real close. And then I have to get to my bridge scene of them getting ready to meet. And then I've got to write my scenes on Black Diamond, which I am very excited about and really still putting together Elysium, which is like upscale five star spot at this premiere hotel on Black Diamond. So I'm working on it. What I want to do is get in a really good spot and then join the word makers. Twenty K and five days in June to sort of get in the final punches and really round it out, get deep in it and get towards the end. So that way I could be done sometime in June and then spend July, like editing and working hard with my betas and editors and really get it in good shape so that it could be out like maybe sometime, maybe sometime in August.

DL White [00:11:12]:

I don't know. Deadlines freak me out. The minute I tell myself it has to be done by a certain point, my brain shuts off. So hopefully I have not just jinxed myself, but that's the current plan. That's what I want to do. Don't know if my brain will cooperate, but that's where I want to go. So last weekend I had a really great book club meeting with my sister's, Secret, which is a local book club here in Atlanta. There are about twelve members.

DL White [00:11:42]:

All but one of them came to the meeting. It was such a good meeting. I'm really impressed with how the book club is organized. They have been a book club for 13 years. Some members have been around since 2010. The last new members joined in 2015. So this is like a core group of women who are like sisters. Just we laughed.

DL White [00:12:09]:

They were picking on each other. I showed up and they were still setting up. We had a brunch themed book club. So we had chicken and waffles, we had shrimp and grits. All was so delicious. I can't remember all that I ate, but it was so good. Then we have mimosas and drinks, chitchatting over dinner. And then we got into the book club meeting.

DL White [00:12:34]:

They have like a statement of purpose that they recite at the beginning of their meeting. Made me all teary eyed because I believe in the purpose of bringing women together to relate to each other around books. And then we got into it. And at the beginning of the meeting they asked if I wanted to say something and I said yes. So, so many people, I think, are afraid to tell me how they really feel about these characters and how they really feel about this book because they don't want to hurt my feelings. This book is eight years old and I am at the point in my writing career where I'm like, read it or don't like it or don't let me know how you feel because I think I have lost the point where I'm precious about the characters. Now, if you didn't like India and you didn't like Malik, let's talk about it. Tell me why.

DL White [00:13:31]:

What's different? What would have made the difference for you? Did you read it? Did you have a reaction to the book? Let's talk about it. So a lot of people I know people don't like Maxine. I love that people don't like Maxine. I wrote her to not be liked. But I also hope that you read about her past and understand her motivation for how she is. And I don't think that I necessarily need people to love her at the end, but I want people to understand her at the end and to also understand the relationship between Deborah, Renee and Maxine. Why they are still friends well into their 30s. They met when they were eight years old.

DL White [00:14:15]:

They were friends because they lived down the street from each other. Deborah is soft hearted and took Maxine into the fold because Maxine was poor when she was growing up and Deborah and Renee were like the nice girls that invited her into the fold. It's totally fine if you don't like Maxine. I want to talk about you not liking Maxine. So I opened the meeting by saying, I really am encouraged by the conversations that we had over dinner. I know you all are going to have some feelings. I want to encourage you to be real. Speak from your chest.

DL White [00:14:54]:

Say it out. Deborah was pathetic. Renee was a doormat. Maxine was a bitch. Let's get it. Let's talk about it. And so they were like, Bet, let's go. When I tell you we had over, it was over an hour conversation.

DL White [00:15:11]:

There was yelling, there was laughing, there was role play, there was funny discussion. There was deep discussion about everybody in the book. Maxine deborah renee willard. Malcolm like Joseph even. They've talked a little bit about Jesse, who was Bernard's nurse. We didn't talk too much about Bernard. Really great conversation. I want to encourage you if you are part of a book club and you have read Brunch at Rubies or you want to read Brunch at Rubies, I know Classy Green, I met with her book club years ago and we talked about Brunch at Rubies.

DL White [00:15:55]:

We just had a good old time. This is a great book club book. So I want to encourage you. If you want to read Rubies, reach out to me. I am happy to attend your book club meeting. If you want to read any of my books. I am happy to attend your book club meeting. I had a really good book club meeting about Neverlist with my cousin.

DL White [00:16:15]:

She had her book club read it. We had a ball. And I really think that it's because I'm not all that precious about my characters. I write them as flawed people. They are real to me. Like some people are great on the surface and trash underneath. Let's talk about it. Let's bring it out because you might bring out something that I never intended or thought of, and I love that kind of insight.

DL White [00:16:39]:

So I had the best time. The ladies gave me a beautiful gift. It's a big notebook with a quote about optimism on the front. A beautiful box that they call it a God box. You write your cares on a piece of paper and put it in the box and pray over it. And at the end of the year, you go through those pieces of paper and see, look at all the changes you made and all the miracles that happened and all the things that were taken care of. So I have a little box and I got a wooden tray, and I forget what they call it, but when you do your meats and cheeses so you can label all your meats and cheeses and then a set of wooden coasters, I just had the best time. My heart is full.

DL White [00:17:26]:

Loved it. Loved it. They bought books. They sold me out of books. I had to come home and order more books to keep in stock here at the house. So I had an excellent time. I just want to say a big, huge thank you to my sister's secret book club. I actually met them through as.

DL White [00:17:46]:

I forget her last name, but she runs Peach Reading podcast. So I met LaToya through as, and I think this coming week I'm going to pop up for a throwback. Thursday, I'm going to pop up my episode with Peach Reading. They read brunch at Rubies, and we had brunch at this restaurant. I can't remember the name of it. It's not canoe, but close. Raised on the river is where we had brunch. Really good meeting.

DL White [00:18:12]:

But that's where I met LaToya. She's like, hey, you want to go to my book club kind of like next spring? And I was like, sure. Kind of didn't think I would ever hear from her, but she did hit me up and like, hey, we're ready to read your book. Really had a fantastic time. It was great. I'm ready to do it again. Zoom. Google.

DL White [00:18:29]:

Meet in person. If you're Atlanta based somewhere in the Atlanta area or surrounding, hit me up. I'm into it. I'm into it. All right. So I've been seeing this discourse go around Twitter. There's a lot on TikTok, a little bit on Instagram about three star reviews and what they mean to authors and what they mean to readers. And let me just say they mean different things.

DL White [00:18:57]:

You all just don't have to understand they mean different things. As a reader and as an author, I think my views on them have kind of dovetailed because I read and I write. But here's where it started. An author said, Please don't tag me in your reviews of my book. You are welcome to have your feelings about it, but don't tag me in the reviews, especially if the reviews are bad. Now, when authors say bad, I'm using air quotes. I think they mean unfavorable. A bad review is a review that attacks the author and calls them out.

DL White [00:19:31]:

They name and calls their mama names and says, like, I hope you die. That's a bad review. An unfavorable review could be very thoughtful and well worded, but they just didn't like the book. That's not a bad review. It's unfavorable, but that's not a bad review. If they talked about the book and why they didn't like it and gave all their reasonings, that's not a bad review in my perspective. So this author says, yes, even your three star reviews, that's a bad review. Don't tag me in it.

DL White [00:20:06]:

I personally feel like I shouldn't be tagged in reviews. I understand authors are not authors, but reviewers want me to see their reviews. I get it. Thank you so much for reading. I love you dearly. I do not read reviews. If you tag me in a review, I'm going to skim it. I'm going to look at your rating.

DL White [00:20:23]:

I'm going to skim it. But I don't read them. If I want to read reviews, I know where to find them. You don't have to tag me. I stay off of Amazon. I stay out of goodreads. If you read my book and you're on Instagram and you tag me, I'm going to go to your post. I'm going to thank you so much for reading and reviewing the book.

DL White [00:20:44]:

I'm going to scan your review and I'm going to bounce. I'm going to repost it so others can read it in case people are wondering, hey, is that book good? But I'm a bounce. I'm not going to dwell on it. I have forgotten it an hour later. And I don't mean that to be flippant. I'm just saying I can't dwell there because then it starts to affect how I write, and then I start writing to impress people and not writing to get this story out of my head. You know what I'm saying? Amazon treats a three star review as critical. When authors say a three star review is a quote, unquote bad review, it's because a three star review on Amazon is critical.

DL White [00:21:24]:

Not bad, but critical. A three star review to a reader I say might be. It was a book. It was words on paper. I read it through. I finished it. I was entertained. I didn't hate it.

DL White [00:21:41]:

It did what it was supposed to do. I wouldn't say a three star review gave what was supposed to gate that's a four or a five. A three star review. It was a book, an average rating. It was a book that I read. That's fine to me. That's absolutely fine to me. Here's what my brain, my little impostor syndrome brain says.

DL White [00:22:04]:

A three star review is a person that was too nice to give it a two too nice to give it two stars, or it was a book that they liked and they moved on with their lives. Either is fine, but my point of view is not always an author's point of view. And so if you're going to read and review books and be honest about them, cool. Do that. Say it with your chest. Authors got to stay out of review spaces, like, goodreads, like, stay off Amazon, stop looking at your reviews, especially if you're going to have a teary fit about them, or if you're going to be all up in reviewers DMs condemning them for the words that they wrote about your book. It's a review. Reviews are opinions, and I am not a person that really gives a rip about somebody's opinion.

DL White [00:23:00]:

The book is the book, and I'm not going to rewrite it because Sue Beth Johnson didn't like it. I'm not rewriting that book because you didn't like it. So you said what you said, and that's good. A three star review is not a bad review, but from an author perspective, a three star review isn't all that glowing. It is very blah average milk toast. And I think that authors write to impress readers. A lot of authors write to impress readers. So if you read my book and you're like three stars, you weren't impressed.

DL White [00:23:33]:

Okay. I mean, I can write a better book next time, right? Or not. If you rate my book three stars or above, we are in good standing. A lot of authors don't feel that way, particularly trad pub authors, because sales and reviews drive future books. If I write a book and the average rating is three stars, that publisher might not be interested in renewing my contract. They might not be interested in buying more books from me. If reviews and sales for books in a series fall off, that publisher decides that they aren't interested in publishing more books in that series, and you have to move on to something else or get a new publisher, or you always have the option of self publishing. So kind of weighing in on the three star review controversy.

DL White [00:24:30]:

I see a lot of reviewers and authors kind of weighing in on the subject. Authors shouldn't really consider a three review a bad review, like how you go, tell me how I should consider something, first of all. Second of all, if you want authors to stay out of review spaces, stop tagging authors in your reviews. If you don't want authors to have a big, hairy fit about your three star, two star, one star review. Stop tagging authors in them. I could see if you wrote it and you ain't tagged nobody in it and the author found it and went off. That's bad author behavior. We don't condone that.

DL White [00:25:08]:

I'm going to be honest. I know where to find reviews. I know how to search myself. I know how to go to Goodreads. I know how to go to Amazon. I know how reviews make me feel. Even the good reviews give me anxiety. There are few occasions where I go look for them, like if I'm pulling quotes or if I need to look at see how many reviews a book has because I am running a promo.

DL White [00:25:30]:

They always ask, how many Amazon reviews you have? What's your average star rating? That's the only time I'm going to be looking for them. And even when I look for them, I go to goodreads. I filter four and five star reviews, and those are the ones I read. And let me tell you all, some of you all even be saucy in your four and five star reviews. Like, you'll rate it four, but you got some things to say. And so I just stopped reading them. They don't help me write better. I think there was a time when reviews were super helpful to authors, but I think we have reached the day and age where everything is emotion.

DL White [00:26:08]:

And those reviews aren't really critical. They are opinions. And I appreciate everybody's opinion. I appreciate people reading and offering their thoughts on books, but those are for other readers. You are talking to other readers, not the author. When you review books. And if you want authors to stay out of your review spaces, no matter where they are, don't tag us in it. If you see a review and the author is not tagged, you ain't got a snitch.

DL White [00:26:44]:

Let it go. Those are my thoughts. So this weekend, I am participating in a summit. It is the Subscription for Authors group they're talking about. Guess what? Subscriptions for authors. This is your patreon groups, your discord groups, your groups that authors have where people have to pay to play, pay to participate. And I always feel really weird about that. Like, I had a patreon, but I didn't feel like I could charge people for access to my navel gazing.

DL White [00:27:20]:

I don't have energy or bandwidth for exclusive content. I had an author group for maybe a couple of months, and I felt like it didn't take off. I am not the kind of author to have an exclusive space where I feel like people get VIP access to me. I'm kind of an open book, and it just doesn't work that way for me. And I didn't feel like paying for a spot where it was like me and the seven people I already talked to all day on social media to sit and yammer about my book. I don't know, it just felt like I didn't and that one was free. That was actually free. So for me to charge people for the kind of navel gazing that I feel like a reader group would devolve into, I just felt like I didn't offer anything worth charging for.

DL White [00:28:17]:

So the summit this weekend is supposed to give me some ideas, maybe for the future, about creating a subscription program and we'll see, we'll see if I get anything good out of it. This particular group has created a new platform called Ream because Patreon be doing a lot and there are a lot of people that write spicy material and Patreon is starting to crack down on certain kind of material and authors want to be free to post what they want to post to people that want to read it. And so Ream is brand new. I think it launches officially May 12. I have a membership over there. I just feel like it's way more than I need right now and I don't like that I can't have a free tier. So I don't know what I'm going to do. Buy me a coffee is working fine.

DL White [00:29:15]:

Where I don't have to mandate that people give me money for nothing because nothing is the level of extra stuff that I have the energy and bandwidth to provide. But we'll see. I'm on book twelve now and so maybe we can go back and have private chats about the books that I have already published and the books that are coming up. We'll see. I want to see if this summit gives me any ideas for things that I could do to bring my VIP readers in closer. Speaking of VIP readers, I did release a newsletter finally. I don't know when's the last time I wrote a newsletter, but if you were on my list, you got it. If not, there's a link.

DL White [00:30:01]:

If you go to my bio of any social media website you will find a link to the latest edition of the newsletter where I basically told them, hey, I am not going to be updating this all that often, but I am going to keep my newsletter for new releases. Big sales, big news. So stay on it or sign up if you just want updates. But the bookcast, this podcast is where I'm going to be posting my week to week updates on works in progress. Here's how things are going, here's what I'm reading, here's what I'm writing, here's what I read, here's what's going on. I'm trying to lean into this podcast being my update and then I always post a transcript with that. If you would rather just read it and you don't have time. I also upload to YouTube, so if you have a heavy YouTube habit like I do, I am uploading the audio version to YouTube.

DL White [00:31:02]:

So I have a couple of people that just prefer to listen to that while they work or whatever. Thank you so much to people who are reading and commenting on YouTube. It is Youtube.com authordlwhite. So, yeah, we'll see if these subscriptions for Authors Summit gives me any good ideas on how to bring my closest, most ardent, dedicated readers in a little bit closer, a little bit closer without feeling like I am reaching into your pockets, you know what I'm saying? That brings us to the end of today's episode. Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of the bookcast. I will be back next week with the reading update and a writing update. I do hope to dig in this week. I have a little bit of a busy week, of course, again, what am I getting paid for if I am not busy, you know what I'm saying? But after Tuesday, it's a little bit smooth sailing.

DL White [00:32:00]:

Please enjoy this weekend, have a superlative week and we will chat again next weekend. Bye bye.