New blog series, Interviews with the Reviewers

[Steve]

Helpful interviews, Henry! Hope the series interests other reviewers.

[Michael]

I find this to be quite an interesting topic. As an author myself, I think it is always bad form to simply think of reviewers as some authors do: their own personal compliment feeders. While we may not always agree with their assessment of our work, we do have to be respectful and that goes for both sides of the fence. To hear why some reviewers review the way they do and the joy in which they get out of reading is refreshing.

[Michael]

I agree with you on the less-than-stellar review thing. For me, when I am looking at online reviews of books and I see a book that catches my attention from its synopsis and then I read the reviews, I question only five-star reviews also. But when they do have bad reviews, I tend more so to look through the other reviews of that particular reviewer (if they have any) to see if they've read and reviewed something that I enjoy and also didn't enjoy that. It is simply a question of taste; maybe my taste and their taste aren't the same, so I will still buy the book.

[[deleted user]]

Wow! What an excellent idea. I guess reviewers and authors are two sides of the same literary coin. I've seen lots of author interviews but never ones devoted to the reviewers whose approval authors crave. I shall follow with interest.

[J. Aleksandr]

Great idea, I've just tweeted the link to this thread =)

@Mr_Wootton

[J.D.]

I agree, great idea and nice interview questions. Nice job, sir!