So I was reading this blog post over at Dear Author… a self pubbed author who basically uses the comments in reviews to fix her published works.  Revising them.  Based off reader comments, if I understand it right.

Now… I will say that if there’s one of my self pubbed titles and it’s typos, yes, I’m likely to go in and fix it, when I can.  It’s a time consuming process, and can take hours to get it all taken of on my end, because I tend to screw things up and have to redo over and over, but I try.

But the post seems to be about revising the work based on reviews, and using reviews to find beta readers.

The beta readers thing…eh, I don’t think that’s the place for it.  Some may not care, but it’s obvious by the tone of the post that others do.  Reviews are for readers.  Yes, authors can use them… I certainly have learned stuff from reading my negative reviews but it’s my choice to decide whether or not I’ll do that.  But the reviews, in the end, really are a buying tool for readers.

The thing I want to focus on is using the reviews as revision tools.

Ah… who has time for that? Seriously.  The way to get better as a writer is just to keep writing…more books.  The ones you’ve written need to stand on their own.  Write more.  Get better.  Write more.  Get better…so on, and so on.  I’d bet just about all of us could crack open our previous books and think...damn it, I should have done this.  Or that. OR THIS AND THAT!

But all that time we spending fixing that book…the one that’s already out there?  It’s time we’re not spending on the next book.  And the next one.  At some point, you need to just let the published books be that… published.  And focus on the works in progress.

That’s my thoughts on it anyway…