The Competition

I know I am kind of gullible but I was so pleased when the author agreed to review some chapters. I asked for her critique of my writing wanting to know what areas were weak, what needed further development, etc. I had perused her website before approaching her and found that it was well done and that she had a new book listed there that was in the same general topic...although mine has a major different twist.

Her reply letter said five or six years ago my book might have been good but it wouldn't go over now and insinuated that my writing wasn't sophisticated. She could not recommend the book to her readers (well, that was a no-brainer--she is the competition).

I hadn't asked her opinion on whether the book was marketable and certainly hadn't asked her to recommend it to her readers. I simply wanted her to critique my writing. Insinuating I wasn't sophisticated was actually a compliment as the book is a practical guide based on reality and I hope to reach everyday, down-to-earth people as opposed to those high-falutin soe-phis-te-cay-ted ones.

What I find most interesting is that when I went back to her website to see how old her book actually was (maybe it was five or six years old and she was trying to save me some heartache), I found something very interesting... Some of my very good ideas had magically appeared on her website---hmmm, the words were changed but the ideas were clearly mine straight from my chapters! Something is rotten in Denmark.

What I learned:
Never give the competition your book for review.
I'd rather be honest than sophisticated.

Meanwhile, unsophisticated Robin is going to keep on writing!