Guest Post & Review with Britney Bronte for her book: Don't Lick the Phones

Guest Post with Britney Bronte: 

You will know when you are a professional writer, not by holding a copy of your book in your hot little hands,  nor even when you get your first royalty cheque, no; you will know you are a professional writer when someone t akes the trouble to hate your work. There are two types of critic, the ones who know what they are talking about and the ones who don’t.  You will attract both, and it’s important to learn the difference between them. There’s a tendency to think that a publisher or agent rejecting your work thinks that what you have written is rubbish. It’s not always the case. They may think it has merit, but that it isn’t commercially viable.  When you get constructive criticism, leave it alone til you get over it, then come back later and have a look;  it may be that there’s something there for you to use. There’s not much to say to someone who just doesn’t think your subject matter is going to get anywhere.  They don’t think people will read it, you do.  But if a respected professional tells you your style nee ds work, consider what they say.  Don’t go into meltdown but do look at how you write. Check your punctuation, look at your basics.  Get someone to read your material back to you aloud, see if it makes sense to your ears.   Look at the work of an author whose work has inspired you, see how your sentence structure compares to theirs.  No need to copy them – just be conscious of how they work and how you work. Thinking of showing your work to a non-professional?  Don’t get too overjoyed if your mum says it’s great, or downcast if your friends don’t like it.  I recall showing Do Not Lick The Phones to a friend of mine, who promptly showed it to her husband,  and came back to tell me that he didn’t like it. I asked her what he liked and she told me; ‘Andy McBain, action stuff! SAS operations, that kind of thing!’ ‘But you knew it was chicklit!’ I told her, ‘If you knew it wasn’t his style, why show it to him?’ There’s a lesson in this; share your work with those who like and know the genre.  That includes specialist agents, publishers and friends. There is no point showing it to people who, with the best will in the world,  don’t know what they are talking about. On a good day they’ll give you a false impression of how wonderful it is . On a bad day, they may well drive you to chucking your work in the bin! There’s another kind of critic of course, and that’s the type who feels challenged or threatened by your work.  Regarding Do Not Lick The Phones I had one who hated the book, claiming it would not reflect well on media psychics.   Too right, I thought, exactly my point! And exactly the reason for her criticism. I was talking about her line of work.  She was never going to approve of me laughing at it. Sometimes there are agendas. Don’t imagine them everywhere, but they do exist.  Harden your heart, accept that people have opinions, and don’t let yourself be crushed.  Critics have something to offer you, even if it’s just a lesson in toughening up.  Learn from the ones you respect, discard the rest, and just keep going. Review For Don't Lick the Phones:

Britney being the proud Londoner she is is donating all proceeds of this book to the recent London Riots Cleanup efforts

to purchase this book visit Here!

ReadingNook Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Britney Bronte wrote a fun, at time hilarious book about a character named Britney Bronte (yes, same as the author) and set her into this whirlwind world of Daystar, a tv production company that specializes in phone sex solicitors, but Britney is going for a job for a new branch they are trying to start in the field of tarot card reading and fortune-telling.

Britney deals with some quite unusual workplace antics, and is questioning a future of her own with potential love interests in her office. The characters are all unique and different, as well as the plot is refreshing in the fact that i've never read anything quite like this before, in the chick-lit genre or any other genre as well.

Unfortantally, the first 50 or so pages were boring in my opinion and it took me a while to get invested in the storyline and the characters. Although, for me it took a while to get into I started to enjoy it more around page 75 and so on, but for a shorter novel, it was a little late in my opinion to be grabbing my attention.

Britney definitely has a unique voice in her novel though, and although it didn't quite pull through for me, I think it was an overall decent read, and think that if you like chick-lit and british humour you should give this book a try, and with Britney donating the proceeds to a great cause, what do you really have to lose?