This is really just one thing. Which is asking people, I converse with on Facebook, if they will read and review my book …
Really, words can not describe how much I hate doing this… which is why I don’t generally speaking, do so. This is despite many of them been great reviewers who have both integrity and an intelligent, often humorous view of the world and of novels which make their reviews interesting in of themselves and I honestly would be amazingly pleased if they read and reviewed my book even if they decided they did not like it.
That’s the weird thing, I am not in any way afraid to ask them, worried about bad reviews, or anything as prosaic as that. I just hate asking people.
I am an introvert by nature, I’m a writer for god sake, it more or less in the job description, well it is in my case. I observe the world, comment upon it, try to help and advise people where I can. Leap to the defence of anyone and happily try to aid others in pursuit of their dreams, but I don’t push myself forward. I don’t say to people I know only by pixels on a screen ‘please read my book and review it I love your reviews and I want your opinion…’ the mere thought of doing so chills me to the bone.
Not because I am afraid of rejection, or even seeming a fool.
I just don’t like asking…
So I don’t.

All of which leave me in a wilderness of my own making at times I suspect.
Reviews are important and while we are on the subject…  Respected reviewers who have an audience of their own are a godsend to a writer looking to find new readers. There are hundred of pay review sites where you can pay people to review your book. I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them because they are as fake as it’s possible to be. After all, they make their money by reviewing and why would an author go back to someone who gave them a crappy review?
Where is their incentive to be honest?
And such biased reviews do no service to readers or writers.
Give me an honest review by someone who reviews books for the joy of doing so anytime. Though people I will not ask…
Occasionally, once in a while someone I don’t know personally reviews my work. Someone I know in passing, or who i completely out of the blue, and those are the best reviews of all, because paranoid as most writers are about their work, it’s only the stranger or the passing acquaintance whom reviews that you can know with certainty are completely unbias.
I hate asking people to review.
Doubt that is going to change anytime soon.