MarkTheHerald.com ✦ The Herald Dispatch ✦ I want to talk about something that most authors know and very few say plainly, because it feels a little awkward to say it plainly. Amazon reviews are the single most important factor in whether a book reaches readers who don't already know the author. Not the writing quality. Not the cover design. Not the marketing budget or the social media presence or the press coverage or even the word-of-mouth recommendation — though all of

MarkTheHerald.com ✦ The Herald Dispatch ✦ A couple years ago, I handed something I'd spent years making to the first readers who weren't my family. I remember the specific feeling of that. The slight nausea. The particular vulnerability of having worked on something long enough and carefully enough that it had become genuinely personal — and then releasing it into the world where other people would have opinions about it. Looking back, I want to share what I've learned in