Every time someone tells me they like Blue Tide Rising, I do a little dance of joy. If it’s people I already know, I always add a caveat – they might just be being nice. But when it’s a stranger with no vested interest in being nice to me, it carries extra weight.

At Newark book festival I met a woman who manages a WH Smith store in a nearby town. She liked my one line pitch, the cover and the blurb and bought the book. She said “If I like it we’ll invite you in for a book signing.”

Well, it appears she did like it. In fact she raved about it. “It should be up there on the bestseller list – it’s a brilliant read!” she said. So now I have a meet the author event set up for later this month complete with window display.

This sort of thing may seem par for the course for a published author, but believe me, it’s not, especially if you’re published by a small indie press. Small publishers have an uphill struggle for shelf-space, particularly in mainstream bookstores.

After launching Blue Tide Rising in my local branch of Waterstones, I naively assumed they’d stock a few copies on their shelves. At first, it looked like this was going to happen, as the events guy I’d worked with put in a request for copies. But evidently his buyer overruled him and when I asked why, I got a pretty much blanket response ‘we don’t stock books published by independent publishers.’

The reason they gave was they didn’t think it would sell. This is despite the fact that people I know were going into Waterstones and asking for it. To which I said ‘it won’t sell if you won’t stock it.’ It’s a catch 22. I’ve since learnt Waterstones would have charged 60% commission, anyway, pricing small publishers out of the market.

I had better luck with our local independent bookshop. Five Leaves were happy to stock a few copies, and when those sold, asked for more. So now I’ve given up on Waterstones and simply direct people to Five Leaves instead. I’ve also touted the book round other indie bookshops in the area who are all stocking it. So here’s to the indies!

It’s good to hear that W H Smith supports local authors and that store managers have the autonomy to arrange book signing events regardless of who the publisher is. What’s more important is the quality of the product itself. And that is how it should be. Otherwise there will remain an impenetrable glass ceiling between the world of the small press and that of the Big Five publishers.

Someone said to me recently, whatever happens to your book, the thing that matters is that you enjoy the journey. I’ve done lots of events over the summer, including three book festivals and a meet the author event in my local art shop. I’ve done a talk at a book group who chose my novel as their book of the month, and I’m now planning more workshops and book signings over the summer. I’m certainly enjoying the journey.

Meanwhile I’m starting to get reviews across the globe. This week US book blogger Stephanie Jane featured Blue Tide Rising in her Literary Flits blog, and I was astonished to get a review in The Hindu (India’s second-largest English Language paper). Rasmi Binoy, the reviewer, did an interesting thing. She compared Amy Blue’s life to that of a young woman in India facing similar challenges. While she didn’t like the ending (too happy), she seemed to like the rest of it.

I’ve heard it said that reviews are the lifeblood of authors, and I’ve also been told that, on average, you get one review per 100 books sold.

So why are reviews important?

• They give readers an idea of what they’re getting into and whether they’ll like the book. So it’s more of a known quantity and less of a risk.
• They create a connection with potential readers before they’ve even started to read the book.
• They build a sense of community and common experience among readers.
• They make authors more visible and increase their reach
• They provide valuable feedback for writers.
• They give an idea of who the readership is.
• As one of my fellow authors said, you can take something from even a bad review – it shows they’ve invested enough in it to read to the end.

So if you’ve read Blue Tide Rising and have an opinion on it – good or bad – please consider leaving a review. You can do so on Goodreads or Amazon or send direct to me through the contact page.

You can read what other people have said about Blue Tide Rising here.