In any case, my work will have seen at least two rounds of revisions and usually two
rounds of reader feedback before I send it to my editor.
Between the mysterious disappearing act that happens quite often with reviews posted to Amazon, the widespread news of authors buying favorable reviews from pay - per - star services, and the scandalous situation with author and reviewer bullying, reading consumers have had a hard time trusting any
sort of reader feedback on a book.
Some authors crave the
reinforcement of reader feedback as they build a manuscript (alpha readers), while others prefer not to have that outside influence until their manuscript is solid and complete (beta readers).
An author with patience and the speed of two books per year can, over time, build up enough inventory to have
enough of the reader feedback loops to make enough money indie - publishing.
Unfortunately, there is little for us to go on in terms of the
kind of reader feedback that often helps us connect with interesting or distinctive or simply very good work among books in their Amazon store incarnation.