Authenticity please

Here I am, telling you about my book, promoting it, asking you to buy it, to tell your friends to buy it. What’s awkward is this: if you tell me you like Shanghaied, I may not believe you because you may feel obligated to say so; if you tell me you don’t like it, I’ll likely believe you. Either way, the writing is done. It’s over. It’s committed. I can’t change it. What can I say except “thank you” if you like it and “I’m sorry” if you don’t?

At a point in the book, one character says to another, “Don’t be flattered. If he told you, it would be flattery. But he didn’t tell you, he told me.” Maybe what I can trust will be what you tell each other and THAT is what will (or won’t) sell the book.

Of course, I hope Shanghaied is a good book. Perhaps the measure of that to trust will be the sales.