I’ve been…. remiss about my duties to Shiny Book Review lately, and not for any good reason (no, exhaustion doesn’t count… I’m constantly exhausted) other than the fact that I hadn’t read anything worth reviewing lately.

Well, that was before I was sent three various books (Pyr Books… thanks, Lou. You guys have the best stuff) and suddenly had my schedule open up a bit more (with the sales of The Cold and In the Shadow of Paradise, time is no longer an issue). So within the next few days I’ll have two book reviews up, and I know Barb has been trying to get one up as well. SBR isn’t going anywhere, though our reviews have slowed down a bit.

Meanwhile, our other reviewers have been, well, slacking is the best term I can come up with. One of them has six books (that I know of), one has two (and they’re really cool books… I wish I’d known it was going to be rough, because I would have reviewed them) and two others owe me a review each. I’ve had a few guest reviewers do exceptionally well with their first reviews (Walt Boyes and Melanie Boyd), and I’ve been leaning towards getting some more “guest” reviewers instead of relying on a select few.

I’m not certain.

Sharing a bit of information/opinion today from Sarah Hoyt (you’d think this was her second blog, the way I’m always telling you to go check her stuff out) about how the industry feasts on the writer. It has some good stuff in it. You should check it out and, probably easier, follow her blog.

One thing I like how she mentioned was when one agent whispered into the right ear that a certain author was difficult to work with, how it wasn’t true but yet it destroyed the author’s career because rumors happen. I know this happened to me once but, thankfully, the ear whispered into actually became curious about why one person would dislike me enough to try to ruin my career and bought my book. That person has pretty much, since then, helped push my writing to levels I never though I could achieve and, in the process, teach me more about writing and story structure than any English teacher I ever had.

I had a fellow author do this to me back in September 2010. I didn’t understand why at the time that this author was doing this (I found out why later and yeah, you could say I was pissed) nor the implications (there are reasons there will probably never be a sequel to Corruptor while my first publisher exists). Suffice to say, one publisher took an interest in my plight and gave me a shot. I’d like to think that I haven’t disappointed them yet, as they’re publishing books with stories I’ve written still.

Again, it’s why I try not to talk bad about fellow authors. You never know who you may inadvertently hurt.

Last thing I need is the knowledge that someone blames me for their failings.