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Should Authors review books?
This story concerns the amateur reviewing of books, e.g. on Amazon or Goodreads, as opposed to professional reviewing for magazines, publishing trade papers or for publishers themselves.
I’ve been an avid reviewer my whole life, and in fact did use to review for several magazines in the UK. I haven’t done that for a couple of decades, but still publish reviews online. I enjoy it. I’m a firm believer that reviews are a critical tool in assessing whether to read a book or not.
I also believe that reviews should be honest. We all know that a certain number of glowing reviews are written by the author’s friends. That’s always going to happen. On a typical book, these should be dwarfed over time by legitimate reviews. There are also those odd 1-star reviews that are brutal attacks upon the author themselves. These are the extremes. A good review should:
- Be constructive and fair
- Concentrate on the book and not the reviewer’s opinion of the author
- Be balanced — don’t concentrate on only the great or the worst
- Make comparisons only if applicable, either to the author’s other books, or a completely different author
- Not include spoilers without ample warning
- Think very carefully about the rating. Even a rating of 3/5 is…