// Book Review? /possible spoilers?//

I just finished reading Knit One, Kill Two by Maggie Sefton, and I’m sorry to report, it’s quite terrible. I HAVE SO MANY COMPLAINTS.

I’m an avid reader of fiction (not mystery, though) so I thought this would be a nice change of pace + interesting read. Not to mention that as a knitter who keeps going on Kate Jacobs binges, I was more than excited to start a new series centered on knitting, knitting circles, knitters, etc. Yay.

No yaying ensued. The book is chock-full of grammatical/spelling errors and sure.. we all make mistakes, but really? That editor should be fired. The mystery part was ok (for a genre newbie), I wasn’t sure who had done it, until.. THEY REVEAL EVERYTHING AT ONCE. All of it. Before you even have time to guess anything. And then it just takes a little prodding and the killer comes clean! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

Now.. as a knitter.. boy.. I was a bit insulted. The heroine moves up from not even knowing how to hold the needles to a sweater in about two weeks. TWO WEEKS. Really? Maybe if she did nothing but knit 12 hrs/day for those 14 days. But she had a job (a “full-time” job which she manages to keep while working from home “for the next 3 months or so”) and a mystery to solve. And then the store owner proclaims that eyelash yarn is one of the store’s best-sellers. OH COME ON. I guess only 12-year-olds shop there?

The author also describes the yarn store ad nauseam. In such saccharine terms that I gagged in anticipation of the descriptions everytime she entered the store. I get it, the store is colourful and the yarns come in different textures.. most of which are soft. I also get that she likes coffee. I don’t need her to describe her “addiction” so thoroughly every time coffee is mentioned.

And then the characters.. are flat flat flat, like tortillas. I could not keep Lisa and Megan straight, they just sort of merged into one person in my mind. They are completely interchangeable. Eveyone is so damn one-dimensional. AND THE WAY THEY TALK. Jesus. One of my pet peeves is phrases as adjectives. There’s a lot of: “She gave him an I’m-so-mad-at-you-right-now-but-there’s-someone-in-the-room-so-I’ll-pretend-to-like-you look” Isn’t that annoying? 

It honestly felt like a 14-year-old wrote the book :/ (and yet, the dialogue felt like an older woman was trying to sound young. Unsuccessfully, mind you.) And the characters were so overly dramatic. There’s a scene where a 70-year-old lady does something “questionable” (it wasn’t even that questionable, really) and EVERYONE was acting like she was a child to be protected and reared in. HELLO? She’s 70! She’s an adult of sound mind and she can do whatever the hell she wants, you are not responsible for her or her actions. I wanted to scream at this point.

I was so disappointed. There’s more, really but this is long as it is. I almost wish anyone around me had read it so we can commiserate.

I only finished the book so I could come and post this knowing that I had given it a full-on chance.

// Etsy Tags and Relevancy//

Can anyone enlighten me as to how Etsy tags can be used successfully?

I see now the error of my previous ways. I was operating under the assumption that if someone is looking for a “knitted cowl”, I should tag my item with knitted AND cowl, so the Etsy machine would put them together when looking. However, as I understand it, it will do that but only after finding a million other results which actually say knitted cowl and finding them more relevant than my cowl.

So now I’m re-tagging everything with phrases rather than words, that I think my potential customers will be looking for. But then.. isn’t that awfully specific? Take for example my “crochetted cowl”. I understand someone knowing they want a cowl for winter, and maybe even realizing that they want a crochetted cowl. But do they really look for a crochetted cowl WITH a scalloped edge? I really doubt it. That is more of a detail that would make you choose one cowl over another, rather than something you actually actively search for.

And so.. how do I use tags properly?

And furthermore, how do I up my relevancy? Listing 100+ items seems kind of insane, especially considering I do custom, on-commission knitwear. I can’t knit 100 cowls that won’t sell because they’re “not the right colour” for the customer.

Help?