I have a new addiction. And I’m sure I’m not the only author out there who suffers from it. Luckily, this addiction won’t kill me. It might rock my sanity a bit but I’m learning to deal with it. What is the addiction? Checking reviews, ratings and rankings for Beckoning Blood.

I’ve written before on being a sadomasochist, that I’m a writer who likes to hurt my readers and my characters (and by extension, myself). And that’s healthy. That’s acceptable. When it comes to reviews etc, there is no sado- about it. It’s pure masochism.

Google Alerts are not my friends. They’re the pushers who pop into my inbox and say, “Hey, give this a try. You might like it.” I’m glad to say, though, that at this stage, the good reviews have far outweighed the bad ones. But that doesn’t mean going to read them isn’t a bit like watching horror movies from behind your hands. You want to look but you’re a bit frightened of what you might find.

GoodReads is particularly bad for this. While on Amazon you can’t leave a star rating without a review, GoodReads allows ratings and/or reviews. And when you see there’s a new one of either, you can’t help but see what it is. 4 stars good. 2 stars bad.

And then there’s the one that’s a bit baffling but also a bit scary considering it’s tied to sales, and that’s Amazon Rankings.

Every book Amazon sells is ranked. There are over a million books on Amazon and the number is climbing. Through Amazon’s Author Central function, I can see Beckoning Blood’s jagged journey as it soars and dips through the ranks. My fragile (well, not that fragile really, I exaggerate) psyche going with it.

But I’m learning to handle this addiction and restrict myself to checking only once per day. And the more days that pass, the easy it gets. Especially as I pick up speed on writing the sequel. The test will be to see if I become similarly unhinged when that one comes out too.

P.S. Just because they intimidate me, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t leave a review on whichever site you bought Beckoning Blood from. In fact, reviews help people find (and buy) my book so please, go right ahead.