The Importance of Leaving a Review

Today I want to talk about the importance of leaving a review. This actually applies to everything, not just books. You can leave a review for the new coffee maker you just bought and love or the movie you watched and it totally sucked. You can review the shampoo that turned your hair orange after one use or the shoes that helped relieve your back pain.

See, it doesn't always have to be books that are reviewed, but...well, as an author, of course I'm focusing on books. My point here is that people do read reviews and do base their purchases on them. I looked up reviews before we bought our new television and I always look up reviews on anything electronic that we purchase.

People read these reviews to see if people like the product or if they don't. A review does not always have to be a good review. Now, that being said... if you are going to leave a bad review just remember, with books, that you can leave a bad review without totally bashing the author. The point of reviews is to let them know what you think and that can be done with tact, a lot of the bad reviews I've seen that were bashing only made the reviewer look bad, not the book.

Now! If you are an author and you get a bad review do not respond to it, unless it is to kindly thank the reviewer for reading your book.

As a reader, I try to review everything I read. I have a really hard time leaving any kind of review if it isn't a good one, but I make myself write up a little something. If I know I can't say anything positive about the book I normally just don't leave a review. But, I've been learning that I can say positive things to encourage the author even if the review isn't great.

I really think that if you don't like a book, you need to leave a review stating why. If the book could have used some editing, write that down, if the book needs to be re formatted, then write that, if the story just didn't grab your attention, then write that. Sometimes an author is not aware of any issues with their book and won't know unless someone says something. Just remember...be tactful. Authors are people, and almost every one of them has poured their heart and soul into their writing. This is the biggest difference between leaving a review for a book and a review for a coffee maker. Ya know.

On that same note, if you liked anything about it then write that! Even just a short sentence saying something like. "I wasn't sure if I was going to like this book, but I did, and I'm so glad I picked it up." Seriously, it only takes a few minutes and will really help other readers, as well as the author.

Reviews are important.

This post was brought on by me realizing that most of your average readers probably don't know how important is is to leave reviews. Also, I think when authors ask people to leave a review that readers think we are asking for good ones. Noooooo, we want any reviews, as long as they are reviews! (Except the bashing ones...and we all get those eventually)

So, bottom line is, leave reviews, be tactful and let us know what you think.

PS. The pic above is Storytime Book Reviews. It is linked to my book blog. I started it because I wanted a place to compile all of my book reviews.