I checked Goodreads today and saw that I had a new review on the pen-name fantasy book.  It was a great review!  Loved it.  Made my day.  Seriously, if it weren’t creepy I’d give everyone who reviews my books a hug.  Instead I’m stuck silently squeeing about how cool it is that someone loved what I wrote.  And loved it enough to tell the world about it.

So awesome. (And thank you to anyone who has every reviewed anything I’ve written.)

But.

But.

There was a comment in the review about how it didn’t read like a debut novel.  Very flattering comment.  I like that whatever people think happens in debut novels doesn’t seem to happen in mine.  (My first romance novel gets those comments in its reviews, too.)

But I feel kind of bad.  Because even though that’s the first book under that name, it’s not the first novel I’ve written.  And not even the first one I’ve published.

Oh sure, I’m still getting my feet under me and struggling to sell more than a few hundred copies of any one title, so I’m still a prawny prawn prawn when it comes to writing.  But I’m not exactly wet behind the ears anymore.  And I’m pretty sure a trade publishing house or an agent would sniff disgustedly at me if I tried to claim I was a debut novelist.

What’s funny, though, is that if I had gone the traditional route, I still wouldn’t be published.  Those novels that I’ve published would be sitting in a drawer somewhere waiting for the day when I finally wrote something an agent could get behind and sell.

I’d probably be a good two novels away from publication at this point, if not more. Not because of writing, I don’t think, but because of story.  It’d take me that many more tries to hit on something mass market enough to be picked up.

Strange, really, how it all works.

But still happy with the review.  Thank you stranger!