Someone finally reviewed my book

Imagine a chef fresh out of school, opening up a new restaurant. No customers. No reviews. No reputation. Would you be their first customer?

Probably not.

This is the experience of being a new author. No one knows who you are. No one really cares. The only fear greater than your imposter syndrome is the fear of the work you spent years on going unnoticed.

It's tough out here. You're not only competing with millions of books; you're also competing with everything that grabs a modern audience's attention: television, movies, video games, podcasts, music and the ever-present social media.

To stand out, you need to build your reputation. This social proof can come in many forms. It can be the word of mouth from someone you know or the honest review from a social media creator.

For the past few weeks, I've been reaching out to creators on TikTok and Instagram to review my debut dark fantasy novel Disciple of Sin.

The first creator to heed my call is the amazing Carina Inkdrinker, who powered through my prequel and first novel in two weeks!

So what did she think?

I copied and pasted her review from Goodreads. (Note: She's from Norway and is not a native English speaker.)

Review:

"A new series, which kicks of with a great debut by J W Weld. Which is planned to be a 9 book series.

Thrown in the middle of crime lord's, cartels and inquisitors. While trying to save the Dellends from a ancient curse, you follow the half elf Jacob. A great pov that has alot of character growth trough the book. Somewhere between the start and the middle I did wish we had another pov to, as it took some time to get used to his personality. But after getting used to him and how he thinks, I really enjoyed following him along. And after finishing the book. I can't really see who other could have been a pov beside him at that part, without pushing the story down.

The Discipline of Sin has some incredible side characters, that is both bad, good and in between. Where you can see that Weld has put alot of thought and love into them. With them having for me a great and important part in this book, I do hope we get to see some of them as a point of view in the next book.

With the magic system you have alot of magic to go around, from Elvish magic, high magic and the most normal one landbound magic. Where the magic uses will that gets stores as a pool within them, and has a limited to how much you can use from person to person. Where I think is a great way to show of the magic of this world, with great lore behind it.

Highly recommend if you love dark fantasy, with morally grey character, and great character development.

And if you want a short intro to this world, there is a prequel novella that is done in one sitting."

TLDR: She liked my characters, their character growth throughout the story, my magic systems and my worldbuilding. Not bad if I do say so myself!

I have more reviews coming out ahead of my launch. Hopefully, they are all this glowing.

If you want to add your voice to the chorus of early reviews and read Disciple of Sin weeks before its October 6th launch, sign up to join my ARC campaign:

Apply for Disciple of Sin's ARC campaign

A quick note: if you haven't used StoryOrigin before, it does require a free account. It's a great platform once you're set up, and it means I can fast-track your access to the Rebel's Road ARC next month as well. If you have any trouble, reply to this email and I'll provide an alternative solution.

Until next time,

J. W. Weld

P.S. Next week is the last call.

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