Perhaps the ultimate compliment a writer can have is when someone calls their book a page turner. “I stayed up all night reading that book, it was so interesting!”
I would not call Doctor Luke’s Assistant a page turner. At times I struggled to put a little action in it. After two or three chapters of Luke and Augustus interviewing people, I knew I had to mix things up or the book would get boring real fast. But having done that, I wouldn’t call it a page turner.
As part of the five-day free promotion at the Kindle Store, I posted notices about the promo to all the Facebook pages I’m a member of. One of those is for former and present Suite101.com writers. One woman in that group, a woman I’ve interacted with some, had downloaded the book. Today she posted this about it.
I cannot put this book down. How you have managed to turn what is basically a fictionalized account of historiography into something that is keeping me up so late, I do not know, but I think you should put up the first few chapters (not the… whole book) on Kindle free — I’ll bet your conversion to sales rate would be HUGE. I am going to pass this book on to my former spouse, who is a historian who teaches historiography, because I think it really captures the nature of research and reportage so well in so many different subtle ways. And also to my best friend, who is an Episcopal priest. I’m sure a prime market for this is religious folks — so you might find it interesting that I’m not especially religious. I just think this is really well done — and fascinating. I can’t believe you’ve taken a plot that is basically “first we interviewed this guy, and here’s what he said, and then we wrote up a list of other people to ask, and no one knew anything, and then we ran into a dead end, and then we sat around talking about how to proceed” and turned it into something that is a real page turner.Bravo!
That’s the highest praise a novelist can receive. Hopefully she’s correct that sales will follow this promotional period.
David,
I too saw those comments and, like you, know the writer. You are too modest. You have downplayed how big a compliment she paid you; as a highly experienced writer and editor she does not make such positive comments lightly.
As a result I am very much looking forward to g=havint time to read Doctor Luke’s Assistant while on holiday.
Martin:
Thanks for dropping by my blog and commenting. I hope I didn’t sound ungrateful or dismissive of Karen’s comment. I’m more stunned than anything. And happy about it, maybe even giddy. Knowing Karen’s background made the compliment all the more special.
All of us writers make a self-assessment of our work. Some people are not realistic in doing this, believing their novels to be the next coming of a Harry Potter series. Others of us probably look at our writing and say, “It’s the best I know how to do, but is it any good?” I’m closer to that camp than the former. Knowing the plot of Doctor Luke’s Assistant was what could be a boring subject, and knowing how I had to work quite hard to find creative ways to hold reader attention, I wasn’t sure where DLA fell. A couple of people who beta-read it did not describe it as a page turner, though I’ve done significant edits since then. One agent to whom I submitted it said “Your writing is strong, but I don’t know if I can sell it.” That tells me he wasn’t sure there was a commercial market for it. So when I made the decision to self-publish it I wasn’t sure what to expect.
It’s gratifying to know DLA is being well received, even praised. It’s an incredible boost to this six, now seven, day ride I’m on.
Dave