You sort of expect the author of a book to talk about it on their website. I’m quite aware of the short rope in doing that. But when someone else steps up to review and/or discuss the book – especially as a video in the “how to” realm – that’s a different thing entirely.
Especially when the author – that would be me, in this case – is happy with what the reviewer has said.
A few weeks ago I was checking out Youtube book reviews, and I happened upon a channel by a fellow named Jeremy Bursey (who goes by the name Zippywings on his channel). At the time he’d done sixteen or so episodes of reviewing and discussing books on the art and craft of writing novels, covering most of the top shelf names in that niche: Stephen King, James Scott Bell, Randy Ingermanson, Jessica Brody, Lisa Cron and others you may have heard of or even read.
The videos are fifteen minutes or so in length.
What got my attention was his point of view. He’s a working author, a writer hungry to learn the craft and, in that context, a big consumer of writing books. His analysis, across the board, is fair and measured, citing pluses and minuses, and most importantly, points out how the working/learning author can find and apply value, regardless of where one resides on the learning curve.
I was pleased to discover that he’d already reviewed ALL THREE of my previous writing books (Story Engineering, Story Physics and Story Fix) in previous episodes (the 3rd, 4th and 5th books he chose to showcase, after launching with Stephen King’s On Writing).
And you’re right: if he didn’t end up being appreciative of the books, I probably wouldn’t be sharing this right now. But this guy got it.
So I wrote him, introduced myself, thanked him for his kind words about my work and for putting this series out there for writers to discover. I offered to send him my latest book – “Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves,” published 14 months ago, with no strings. I hoped he’d find value there.
As it turned out, he did. You can see the video below. It’s not a terribly slick production (the intro lasts 41 seconds, FYI), nor is it intended to be, but it is one working novelist with ambitions not unlike most of us, sharing what he’s discovered as germane and useful in the niche of writing craft books.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/mcEwTXpuyDw?start=903
So now there are four of his videos on my writing books you can check out.
For his review/discussion Story Engineering, click HERE.
For his review/discussion on Story Physics, click HERE.
For this review/discussion on Story Fix, click HERE.
To check out his Youtube channel page and find all the other episodes in his series (as well as other writing-focused videos he’s produced), click HERE.
By the way…
… speaking of “Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves,” the book just won its third national award, this one for the American BookFest Best Book awards (Writing/Publishing caterory). It had previously won that same category in the American Book Fest International Book awards, and in the Writing Category at the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.
