What Do You Look For in a Review?

It seems that the subject of reviews comes up at least every couple of months. How much is too much, too little, spoilers, ratings, whether or not an author should comment on a review, how to handle bad reviews, and whether or not authors should review other authors.

First, I'd like to thank all the Bloggers out there, your support to authors is better than any paid advertising out there. Without you, I'd never know what book to read next, LOL. And you do it for FREE! I repeat, bloggers DO NOT get paid for reviewing books. They do it out of the goodness of their heart and for the love of the written word. They are taking their time to read and write their opinion, and most times helping authors, like me, succeed. So I love my fellow bloggers and shout out a huge THANK YOU to all of you.

Now on to the topic of Reviews

Reviews, IMHO, should not be too long and not give every detail of a book away. I will stop reading a review if it starts out giving me a synopsis. That’s what the description on Goodreads, Amazon, or whichever site I see the book on, is for. I don’t read reviews to find out what the book is about; I read them to see if the reviewer liked it or not and what they did or didn’t like about it, sometimes. Sometimes I don't even want to know that and I don’t want to read a book report. Sorry, I like to make my own judgments. I look at ratings, and sales rankings.

I review other authors if I like their book. If you see a review on my blog, it is because I liked the book. If I didn’t like the book, I won’t review it unless the author really wants me to after I’ve talked to them about it. I will tell an author privately, if they’ve asked me to review it, what I didn’t like and why. I believe constructive criticism is helpful and I would want the same treatment. I do not post a review on my blog of every single book I read. I do post them on Goodreads and recently have started to post on Amazon—now that I know how important it is to the ratings.

Should I comment on a review of my own book? I will comment with a thank you if I know the blogger, and say what a wonderful review, if it was in deed a good one. If not, a simple thank you is enough. Respect is very important. No one is obligated or guaranteed to love your book. I also believe that reviewers should respect the author and if they were given a free copy of the book to review, they should thank the author for it.

As for my own blog, I love comments so if an author wants to leave a comment on a review I've done for them, then I'm all for it—a respectful one. ♥

I think it is in very bad form for any reviewer to blatantly attack an author. It is very difficult to write a book. I'm sure most good reviewers realize that but I’m not sure about all of them. I think most of the ones I’ve come into contact with, do. A reviewer can give constructive criticism and still be kind and respectful. Respect is the magic word. I don't understand the need to slammed a book, and please, don't ever say how glad your were that you hadn't spent any money to purchase it. Very bad.

Those are my two cents. Have a great week everyone!

Be sure to visit the rest of the terrific bloggers on this tour and see what they have to say.

Thanks for reading.

Susan♥

        aka Regan Walsh