Saturday, November 30, 2013

Books: Stim ~ Kevin Berry ~ promo

Title: Stim 
Author: Kevin Berry
Publication date: October 16th 2013
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult


About Stim

Robert is different. He has Asperger’s Syndrome. He experiences the world differently to 99% of the population. 

Follow his entertaining and highly empathetic story as he struggles to realise and accept who he really is, try to understand other people—which he cannot—and find a girlfriend. Especially find a girlfriend—he’s decided it’s his special project for the year. 

Accompanied on this transformative journey by his quirky flatmates, Chloe (who also has Asperger’s, amongst other things), Stef (who hasn’t, but doesn’t mind) and their oddly-named kitten, Robert endures a myriad of awkward moments in his quest to meet a nice, normal girl…and not even a major earthquake will stop him.

This absorbing and humorous story is starkly told from Robert’s point of view, through the kaleidoscope of autistic experience.


About Kevin Berry

Kevin Berry is an indie author. His particular niche is writing Aspie New Adult contemporary novels set in an earthquake zone. The first of these is STIM, published in October 2013.

His first novels, co-written with Diane Berry, are Dragons Away!, Growing Disenchantments and Fountain of Forever (humorous fantasy). These are available as paperbacks and ebooks at Amazon and elsewhere.

Guest post by Kevin Berry

Why negative reviews aren't bad

Let's face it.  Every author gets mixed reviews, even (and perhaps especially) the top bestsellers.  Just like we're not all attracted to the same kind of people, we don't all like the same kind of books.

Most readers know this.  And a negative review, if constructively written, can help them decide to buy your book, because whatever the reviewer didn't like might be exactly what the next reader does like in a book.  The only negative reviews that don't help are one like 'This book sucks' that tell you nothing about it. 

Of course, every author likes to get lots of good reviews and 4 or 5-star ratings, but even those can be misleading.  It's said that reviewers on Goodreads are harsher than those on Amazon, for instance.  Individually, some people might give very few books a 5-star rating, but others might give every book they like a 5-star rating.  It's hard to compare.


Even the overall rating can be misleading as to how good a book is going to be for you individually.  Here's why.  Imagine two books:  the first is a well-written, but run-of-the-mill, novel that nearly everyone likes, with mostly 4-star ratings and a few 3-star and 5-star ratings to give a 4.0 rating overall.  The other book is different, and half of the readers don't 'get' it and don't like it (and give it a 2-star rating), and the other half really love it and give it a 5-star rating.  The overall rating for the second book would be 3.5, well below the first book, even though half of the people who read it gave it 5 stars, and half of new readers would like it at least as much as the first book.  In this case, it comes down to a choice between a book you'll probably like and a book you'll either love or hate.


What is probably more important in choosing a book is the ratio of 5-star ratings to the total, or whether people who appear to like the same kind of books as you liked it or not.

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