Topic: Not renewing

Hi there!

I’m not going to renew my membership. Not that it matters, but I thought I’d share my observations and reasons for not renewing.

This site has changed, it seems, in terms of its members (since 20 years ago). Some of the best stuff I’ve ever read have come from this site, and, depending on your tastes, still comes from this site.

I find the variety of genres has shifted more towards sci-technical, modern tactical battles, military, plenty of horror, with a smattering of very good self-improvement ideas. There’s still memoirs, that’s good. Best one I ever read was on this site (I miss you, Gina).

Less are the whimsical fantasy books. I’ve found a few and was pleased to read them all the way through and left my comments. It didn’t matter to me that the authors hadn’t been active in years and never responded, I didn’t expect them to, I simply enjoyed the reads.

In addition, many books here are in progress. It’s difficult for me to wait a long time between chapters of several books at once to remember details and to better judge the pace of the story. I feel it’s a disservice to reviewing — in my case, at least.

That said, I’ve done a fair amount of reviewing since I returned — thoughtful ones. Not as many reciprocations as I hoped, but that can be due to the simple fact that I’m not a preferred genre (either memoir or fantasy). Not all the genres mentioned above are my preferred taste in reading, so I get that.

I learned something this time around. A reviewer who starts reading your book on Chapter 45 can have viable advice, grammatically speaking, and supportive comments about your style (or not), but the meat of the book, the story and flow itself, is left untouched.

Bottom line: Not getting much feedback here with my stuff. Not to say that I won’t be back with the next book I write, but for now at least, I’ll bow out from the current selection of reading material when my subscription runs out on the 19th.

Y’all keep writing(comma) and edit, edit, edit, edit.

whatta

P.S.: If Sol ups the prize money for contests it might attract new subscribers. A thousand bucks would be nice. Five hundred for second.

Quote Post 1

Re: Not renewing

I feel your pain... we used to have a lot of magical realism ppl here who would have been great fits for your story.

whatta wrote:

If Sol ups the prize money for contests it might attract new subscribers

At the risk of derailing your post, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the current structure.

I'd like to a flag that a busy person (who's really not busy these days, right?) may not post for the first 5-10 days of joining. If he posts late, he may get the "You have a new review" message and log back in to see "You can't see your review unless you pay". Not saying this has happened to me (okay, well it has, but I'm not a new member so it didn't faze me), but I wonder if it is happening out there as a deterrent.

I've been doing mental gymnastics to figure out how this might be addressed without essentially giving away the cow for free but not coming up with anything.

Quote Post 2

Re: Not renewing

For anyone following, the site logged me out while I was composing the above message

Quote Post 3

Re: Not renewing

whatta wrote:

Hi there!

I’m not going to renew my membership. Not that it matters, but I thought I’d share my observations and reasons for not renewing.

This site has changed, it seems, in terms of its members (since 20 years ago). Some of the best stuff I’ve ever read have come from this site, and, depending on your tastes, still comes from this site.

I find the variety of genres has shifted more towards sci-technical, modern tactical battles, military, plenty of horror, with a smattering of very good self-improvement ideas. There’s still memoirs, that’s good. Best one I ever read was on this site (I miss you, Gina).

Less are the whimsical fantasy books. I’ve found a few and was pleased to read them all the way through and left my comments. It didn’t matter to me that the authors hadn’t been active in years and never responded, I didn’t expect them to, I simply enjoyed the reads.

In addition, many books here are in progress. It’s difficult for me to wait a long time between chapters of several books at once to remember details and to better judge the pace of the story. I feel it’s a disservice to reviewing — in my case, at least.

That said, I’ve done a fair amount of reviewing since I returned — thoughtful ones. Not as many reciprocations as I hoped, but that can be due to the simple fact that I’m not a preferred genre (either memoir or fantasy). Not all the genres mentioned above are my preferred taste in reading, so I get that.

I learned something this time around. A reviewer who starts reading your book on Chapter 45 can have viable advice, grammatically speaking, and supportive comments about your style (or not), but the meat of the book, the story and flow itself, is left untouched.

Bottom line: Not getting much feedback here with my stuff. Not to say that I won’t be back with the next book I write, but for now at least, I’ll bow out from the current selection of reading material when my subscription runs out on the 19th.

Y’all keep writing(comma) and edit, edit, edit, edit.

whatta

P.S.: If Sol ups the prize money for contests it might attract new subscribers. A thousand bucks would be nice. Five hundred for second.

Quote Post 4

Re: Not renewing

Dear whatta,

I really like Lily and was very impressed by your writing—funny and wry, and yet catching the more serious undertones for what she was going through as a child being moved about and the plane wreck. Your descriptions soared they’re so evocative. I’ll miss having you here and hope everything works out for you.  loop

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Re: Not renewing

thanks loop. Keep writing -- it's great therapy. I'm totally focused on illustrating and then marketing my book right now, but I may be back. There's some good writing on this site -- creative and innovative. Take care, amigo.

Quote Post 6

Re: Not renewing

I'll miss you, goofus! Who else laughs at John like you do? And Bernice (BTW, I put all those chapters back up for you!) Sorry I've been missing in action for the last few weeks... been doing some ghostwriting gigs and time has gotten away from me. Don't you dare leave without emailing me the chapters I haven't read yet from Lyndsey... you have my email. Please keep in touch!!

Happy trails,
MJ

Quote Post 7

Re: Not renewing

I’m sorry, Whatta, that you’ve decided TNBW is no longer a proper venue to post your craft. You have not reviewed me, and I haven’t reviewed you—-most likely for genre reasons that you pointed out—-so I have no axe to grind. But I must take issue with your complaint of authors posting as they go in their WIPs, rather than posting - quickly - chapters from books they’ve finished. I think most of us do the former. We want to know what is working and what is not, so we can change our approach to the story if critiques suggest it’s necessary. When I finish a book, I’m satisfied, thanks to feedback from TNBW readers, that I haven’t completely lost the boat.

Anyway, I wish you well in your writing and will welcome you back if you so decide to return.

Quote Post 8

Re: Not renewing

Sorry if I mislead. My issue isn't with the authors, it's with me. I have trouble with the flow of a story if I have to wait a long time between chapters while I'm also reviewing several books at a time. It's hard for me to keep things straight -- so I feel like I'm not doing my best review. Probably an age/ADD thing or whatever. At this point I'm having trouble keeping the details straight in my own writing and the Lindsay book has TONS of details to keep track of.
Thanks for the well wishes. Ditto on you.
Mitch

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Re: Not renewing

Marilyn Johnson wrote:

I'll miss you, goofus! Who else laughs at John like you do? And Bernice (BTW, I put all those chapters back up for you!) Sorry I've been missing in action for the last few weeks... been doing some ghostwriting gigs and time has gotten away from me. Don't you dare leave without emailing me the chapters I haven't read yet from Lyndsey... you have my email. Please keep in touch!!

Happy trails,
MJ

Hey chica. I'll send you a link to the full pdf with illustrations (450 of them!) that's on my Dropbox. The whole file is a GB now -- the mid res pdf is 38 MB. Been working my butt off since Sept on this. I'e always thought the Lindsay book should be illustrated and lo... then came Ai. It's fun, challenging, frustrating as hell(comma) and satisfying.
I'll definitely check in on Barlow and Bernice before leaving. Thanks for putting them back up for me.
Hi to John. Take care.
Mitch

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Re: Not renewing

jack the knife wrote:

I’m sorry, Whatta, that you’ve decided TNBW is no longer a proper venue to post your craft. You have not reviewed me, and I haven’t reviewed you—-most likely for genre reasons that you pointed out—-so I have no axe to grind. But I must take issue with your complaint of authors posting as they go in their WIPs, rather than posting - quickly - chapters from books they’ve finished. I think most of us do the former. We want to know what is working and what is not, so we can change our approach to the story if critiques suggest it’s necessary. When I finish a book, I’m satisfied, thanks to feedback from TNBW readers, that I haven’t completely lost the boat.

Anyway, I wish you well in your writing and will welcome you back if you so decide to return.

I agree with you, Jack. Randy

Quote Post 11