Reviews, yay or nay?

Well, it's been about 6 months since I finally published EaFoM; I'm one of the masses who can say they are published, I think I'm one of the minority who will say that it hasn't gone as well as I hoped.

After 6 months, my 'sales' on Amazon have been... 2.
After 6 months on Smashwords my sales have been ...3.
(with 115 sample or full downloads).

I've also sold 4 privately.

so.. yayyyyy, me.

this is what i feel like...

There's a ton of info on the Net for independent authors, from branding yourself as independent instead of self-published to taking advantage of all that social media has to offer, including swapping reviews with other independent authors because 'reviews sell books!!!'

But here's where I feel naughty. I did a review swap with someone who reached out and suggested it as we both were dealing with similar (so he probably thought) subject matter; marijuana.

Disclaimer; we weren't - his main characters smoked dope but were also involved in a zombie-like situation while EaFoM is about marijuana paranoia and Canadian idealism.

Anyways, his story was good but rough. That's my review in a nutshell but I didn't feel i could say that publicly - after all, we are 'swapping' reviews. Tit for tat, so to speak. His story wasn't something that directly appealed to me and it would feel odd if I rated said story the same rating I'd give something like a bad Kurt Vonnegut story (which would be 4 out of 5).

So I felt dirty. I added some fluff to it, took his excellent review of my book and felt shame i didn't say anything better but... at least it's honest.

I don't think I would like to swap reviews again. I want my reviews to come honestly. If you like it, great, if you didn't, tell me why. It helps me learn.

Also, a sure-fire sign that the review is most likely a friendly fluff job by a friend or fellow indie author - the review is a short story in itself. Keep it simple, keep it sweet and above all, keep it real. If you want to get more in-depth, probably best to email the author directly if you can.

That's all for now. No other updates.

shhh...indie author thinking...