If You Read it, Review it

An honest review is as good as gold.

The world of independent publishing is populated with get-rich-quick schemers.  Formulae are being developed and some claim they have found perfection in theirs.  Write a book, e-publish it, market it through social networking, purchase online reviews, write another within six months, rinse and repeat.  By book number 3 (or five depending on who you believe), you will be able to quit your day job.

Did you catch that little piece about purchasing online reviews?  They are available for purchase, and not just for books.  And do you really think someone is going to pay for a review that is not a positive review?

I will say it now:  If you purchase a review for your book, you are NOT an author.

This practice does not bode well for the serious writer.  As a reader, if I surf around on an online retailer and find a 99 cent book that has a plethora of 5 star reviews and that book sucks, I will be wary of the next 99 cent book with a five star rating.  Eventually, if I get bitten enough, I will view all 99 cent books as useless crap.  Which, by the way, I do.

I like to support my fellow independent authors, so I have purchased quite a few titles written by them.  I have come across quite a few gems, but I have also found books that should have been left on a hard drive that was about to crash.  Almost every one of the hack jobs that I have read had nothing but positive reviews.

If every review for your title is an honest review, you will NOT have an overall five star rating.  Somewhere in that list of reviews, someone will give it less than five stars.  It is a fact of life.  People's taste in fiction is different.  What one person loves about your book, another will absolutely hate about it.  In the world of the internet, people are not afraid to tell you how they feel.

Don't believe me?  Check out the reviews for some of the classics on Amazon.  Take a gander at George R. R. Martin's reviews for his latest book, and everything this man touches lately is gold.

Bottom line:  The industry needs honest reviews.  Whether you liked the book or not, your review can be helpful to the author.  Maybe you disliked an element that the author thought they pulled off well, and you pointing it out brings to light a way for them to improve.  Maybe the book is just crap and readers need to be warned off of it.  Write the review.  Be honest.  Be tactful.  If you are hateful, or attack the author, the review will likely be ignored.  Have I said it yet?  BE HONEST!  I mean this whole-heartedly.  If you don't like my book I want to know why, and I believe most true author's should be like this.

If you read it, review it.

And I mean it.

Anybody want a peanut?