I always like it when someone not only wants to read my novel, but upon finishing it actually decides to talk to me about it. I can clearly see when this happens that someone really cared about it.
When The Third Face came out, I have to confess that I was actually surprised by how few people actually bought it, based on statistics. But that really doesn't tell the whole story at all. When I started actually talking to people, I discovered that most of the copies were actually being passed around among friends and family. That was because those buyers were the kinds of people I mentioned above: they actually care a lot about my book! That means a lot more to me than sales figures.
One person who received a copy was my favorite English teacher from high school. She shared it with her students, and recently I received an e-mail from her with comments from 5 of them. I'm so pleased with these that I'd like to share them with you now.
"It was a very thorough piece. [...] Although I typically am not a fan of
fantasy-esque work, this kept me engaged."
"It was clever. I am a big fan of element bending."
"This was a fresh approach. It was interesting, even though the plot lost me in a couple of spots early on."
"Wow! This was a lot of work for a high school student!"
"It felt like it was written by someone older. It was pretty serious!"
While I can never thank the individuals who said these things directly (since they were all anonymous), I want to express my gratitude in general to anyone who's given their thoughts on it to anyone. When you do that, you're doing me a personal favor. That's something I thoroughly appreciate.
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