Negative reviews

I noticed another literary agent knocking your book, The First Five Pages, which has always been inspirational to me and got me multiple publishing contracts and several good book deals. I thought I would let you know because much of the blog post by this literary agent is taken out of context. Here's a link where you can read it for yourself. http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2013/12/question-will-italics-consign-me-to.html


Thank you for pointing this out, and I appreciate your support and am glad to hear the book has been so helpful to you.

While this is not a question, it is good to know for writers: once you are published, your book may find much praise and, no matter how good or helpful it is, it may also meet much criticism. It is a perpetual lesson for us writers to steel ourselves, daily, from criticism, and to stay focused on our work. In some cases, criticism will be warranted, and we can learn from it. In other cases, such as this, where the critic takes something out of context and clearly has not even bothered to read the book, it will be unwarranted criticism--which, in my view, does not even merit a response. Better to focus on replying to the people who actually take time to read a book and who have something intelligent to say (positive or negative), than those who are too lazy to do so and have nothing intelligent to add.

And best of all just to stay focused on your work, and to focus on the people who appreciate your work, and to keep writing every day, no matter what. There will always be people who try to keep you down--don't let them! As James Patterson said: "There are thousands of people who don't like what I do. Fortunately, there are millions who do."