Seriously though - how do you know? Let's face it, when you're writing a book (or at least when I'm writing a book) you start off with heaps of enthusiasm (without which the book would never get written), and if you're lucky, you manage to fight off the mid-book blues, the writer's block and the 'I've just had another great idea for a book' inspiration that strikes at just the wrong moment, and get to that important final THE END.
But unless you are supremely self-confident (and simply know that your book is brilliant, regardless of what the critics might say), the reality is that without feedback you just don't know. So what do we do? We get our friends and relatives to read our work, and wait to hear their feedback. But it's a brave member of that group that will tell you the unvarnished truth, at least if it's bad!
So there you are - you've written your tome, you've taken into account whatever feedback you can get your hands on, and doubtless you've applied all relevant filters to that (don't believe that...he's only saying that because it's me...she would say that because she doesn't like sci-fi...etc) and you're left at that uncomfortable point in a book's life - do you publish or not? Well you do, of course.
That's the real crunch point - that's when you find out what (if anything) your proto-readers think of your creation. I say if anything, because first of all you've got to persuade someone to take the plunge - to buy or download your book, to open the cover and read, and to keep reading until they too reach THE END. Not only that, but they've also then got to comit that unselfish act of submitting feedback.
I'll leave you to look back through that list (including the bits I've missed out or glossed over) and count the number of points at which the whole process can fall flat, but let's just agree that it's fraught with potential for failure. For many, the thought of writing a book is daunting - thousands upon thousands of words, hundreds of pages - it's not for everyone. It doesn't end there either - you ask just about any writer, or anyone who writes about how to write and they'll almost certainly tell you that you have to redraft. Not just once, or twice, or three times...but lots and lots of times - you have to hone the plot, fine-tune the characters, cut the surplus, sometimes even scrap whole sections and rewrite them. Eventually, if you're sufficiently determined, you get to the point where you press the 'Publish' button. (That's always assuming that like me, you're going to publish an ebook, and to publish it yourself. If you're going to approach literary agents or publishers then there are another couple of chapters to this painful process.)
The point is though that people assume that the writing part is the difficult bit. It's not that writing isn't difficult, or hard work, it's just that it doesn't end there - so we're back to the point where we're trying to get feedback.
Without feedback, many potential readers won't buy a book.
If potential readers won't buy a book then they can't give feedback on it.
I'm sure you can see my point.
So let's assume that your precious creation is sitting there, waiting for someone to read it. But they don't. What does this tell you about your pride and joy? What can you conclude? Can you assume that it's no good - that all those friends and family members who read your work only told you what they thought you wanted to hear? Is it really just that there was no way of knowing that you just don't (yet) have what it takes - until now...?
Well, all of those are possible of course. But until someone with an unbiassed viewpoint takes the plunge, reads your book, and then tells everyone what they thought, only then can you really know.
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