Here’s a perennially difficult topic for authors to navigate: how do you handle reviewing books online?
If you’re asked to review something in the New York Times or some other prominent place, that’s one thing. But what about more casual reviews like on Amazon and Goodreads?
Literary agent Janet Reid says she wouldn’t take on an author who left a bad review for one of her clients. Other people will just let fly.
So what do you do? Do you leave unvarnished reviews? Only leave good ones? Steer clear entirely? What are the ethics here?
Rightly or wrongly, I only leave five star reviews on Goodreads to indicate the books I’d especially recommend and I’ll occasionally rate books by dead authors. Otherwise you’re not getting my real opinions about books unless it’s a night out over whiskey.
I just know how hard it is for authors out there and I can’t bring myself to leave bad reviews.
What about you?
*Thanks to Kia Abdullah for the post idea!
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Art: Talents and Admirers by Sergei Gribkov
This is difficult for everyone (or I would at least hope it is) but I prefer honest reviews. I would much rather have an honest four-star that states the true experience someone had with a book than an all-exclamation pointed flatter-a-thon five-star that says the same crap my family tries to convince me of when they’re being biased. When editing, I’m very honest. When reviewing, I’m very honest. Flattery doesn’t help people improve skills. True compliments do a great deal more for an author than saying what they’ve done is priceless but secretly thinking you’d rather drink vinegar than be subjected to their pointless ramblings a second time. Be nice but be honest 🙂
“Be nice but be honest.” Exactly. If everyone followed those two simple guide points the whole internet would become a civil place to visit. Thanks, Shep.
I only leave reviews on books that I can give 4 or 5 stars. I figure that other people may love a book I didn’t connect with, and if I truly hated it, I probably stopped reading before I finished. And it’s not fair to write a review on something without knowing the whole thing. Life is too short to spend time writing up what I don’t like. I would rather be silent about those things and speak up about/boost the things I like.
I wrote a couple bad reviews in the past and have since deleted them. It felt too crappy. And I softened my stance anyway. I’m thinking of totally deleting Goodreads because there are too many possible issues, especially if one wants to be published someday. I like your model of only 5 star reviews. I’m not against reviews, but golly, I am anxious. And I don’t want to upset people. And writing is hard. And being published is wonderful.
It’s such a hard balance to strike. The more seriously I’m working toward my own dream of becoming a published novelist, the harder it is for me when I rate a book lower than three stars. I honestly have no problem with giving something three stars, actually. To me, out of a five-star scale, three stars is average. So I’m not saying the book was horrible, just that it didn’t excite me.
I do have checkpoints for sticking with a book and don’t review it if it hits my DNF list. But, yes, I agree with Nathan that it’s hard for authors and in trying to join that group, I get why bad reviews hit so hard.
Definitely a topic worth some thought.
Years back, Amazon decided to delete every review by authors for other authors because of some perceived bias. Sometimes, one review by another author meant every last review was deleted. The reviews of the reviewer’s books became suspect and could disappear overnight. The sheer a**holeness of Amazon never surprises me. I don’t know if this still stands or not so beware.
I very rarely review on Amazon because I refuse to buy books from them, but I do short reviews for a bunch of reader groups I belong to. I am not known for my kindness, but I am honest. If any author saw those reviews on the closed lists, they’ve never said. If they want to go after my books, let them. I’m well past the age of caring. I will, however, post a good review on B&N for the best books I read from unknown authors because that’s worth the time and trouble to do so.
Love this & agree 100%. It’s actually the old adage: if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.
I only leave five-star reviews. There are so many great things to read, that if a book doesn’t warrant a good review, I most likely won’t keep reading it.
And I agree, authors work too hard to have other authors review them negatively.
I don’t know if Karma is real, but since I hope to have a book out there someday, I’m not going to chance it.
Tomi, I’ve had two ebooks on Smashwords for several years now and have yet to get even one review. Often I’ve told myself that I would love a review even if it was a total pan. But when I think about how sensitive I am to criticism I’m sure I’d go into a major funk if that actually happened. With that in mind, that’s why, like you, I only leave five-star reviews…when I leave them.
I am very happy to see that someone else will not leave a bad review. I will give an in-depth review, but if a book is really bad, I choose not to review it. As a result, I have been accused, in a nasty way, of writing only good reviews. To that end, I am accepting no ARC’s, with the acception of one individual that I have worked with for years.
I am highly skeptical of 5-star reviews, and I usually don’t believe them, especially when the text of the review consists of gush and generalities. I have much more faith in 2, 3, and 4 stars. And frankly, the number of stars really isn’t important. It’s the text of the review that mentions what the book is about, what the reading experience is, what the strengths are, and the weaknesses.
It’s unusual for me to give a review lower than a 3 star but I think my opinion counts, and it should. If writers do not have a voice or an influence in their genres, then who does? Are we going to leave it to the publishers and agents? To the kid who was forced to buy the book and read it for class and is angry? We were readers before we were writers and we likely read more than other readers in that genre. Here is where we have a problem: “review” is a misnomer. They should be billed as opinions, because that’s what they are, especially when they are written by casual readers who may be angry that they for whatever circumstance are not reading in their preferred genre. Secondly, I wish that we would get rid of the star system because it is misleading. A book review is not the same as a product review. Consumers have the right to point to fallacies in design or to bad service. But reviews on the content of a book are arbitrary and if we allow them to drive the market we are also saying that we must strive to streamline taste, which is just destructive to writing altogether. Reviews are arbitrary and personal, which means they are opinions, not reviews. Having said that, I write reviews because big publishers often push only certain types of writers for political and economic reasons, making it really hard for other writers to get noticed and breakthrough, so if a publisher has spent big bucks behind a book and that book shows obvious fallacies in the writing and content (which as a writer I am uniquely qualified to notice and point out) then I want it to be out there that spending lots of money on an author does not necessarily mean that book is better than the book by someone nobody knows. Secondly, I think a lukewarm review is better than no review. I am more likely to buy a book with lots of 3 starts but lots of review than one that has no reviews at all. For that reason, I seldom ever go below the 3 star, which Amazon bills as “Liked” (as opposed to “liked a lot” or Liked a whole lot” or something) and I take a lot of care in writing reviews that point out both the good and the bad, as well as often offer warnings that these are my opinions based on my personal reading taste and that they should not influence how someone reads the book. I do think that we should try to be collegiate to one another, but I don’t think that we should silence ourselves or lessen the validity of the good reviews that we give by showing that we only give good reviews. I’m not sure that strategy benefits anyone.
Some good points here; I agree. And I think a good review (well thought-out personal response to the book) is not the same thing as a good review (“I loved it.”)
Great thought-provoking post. And a lot of great responses. I had to think about this before replying.
It brings to mind your previous post about social media. I think we need to bring back civility and compassion in all we do, especially where we’re leaving a footprint. However, we should also have room to be ourselves.
I come at this from a different perspective. I’ve worked at a newspaper with a book page editor, have self-published a novel and received reviews, worked in advertising with customers’ reputation management, and currently respond to reviews on glassdoor for a large health care organization.
First, the term negative review is very subjective. Personally, I don’t mind a lower star rating if it’s written in a nice but fair way. Even a one-star review can point out a positive as well as a negative. I put more stock in the wording of a review than just the stars. There is a clear difference between someone just being nasty and someone not enjoying the book. No one is going to like everything they read even if it’s received rave reviews. This should be somewhat expected and can be constructive. Second, personally, I mainly only leave positive reviews. I like most of what I read, I’m not a tough critic, but I’m not necessarily opposed to leaving a thoughtful negative review on Goodreads. Third, I think this amounts to censorship on the part of anyone who would say they’d not work with someone for giving a negative review. I get it, if it’s a troll type of review, something that’s either not fair or mean to the author, but I don’t think a fair but not stellar review should be held against someone. Especially, if it didn’t hurt the book sales and the author was okay with it. I gave a bad review of 50 Shades of Grey, and I’m sure it didn’t matter one Iota.
But for someone in the book coaching business, I can understand why you’d steer clear of this. And it’s definitely something we should all think about before hitting the submit button.
I agree with the other commenters who have said that 5-star reviews simply aren’t very helpful, and sometimes aren’t trustworthy. I am always scrambling for honest, even brutally honest, feedback. It’s hard to find. I think reviews are a potential wealth of that and by withholding one’s true opinion, one creates an atmosphere of false commendation. I just want to know what you thought! Was my mc super annoying? Did you have trouble following the plot? No one can improve without answers to questions like that. On the flip side, if negative reviews are bashing your book because the reviewer didn’t get enough coffee that morning or whatever, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to skip it entirely.
(Bear in mind I’m not published yet, but hoping to be.)
Yes to all these thoughts. Do ya’all know about Bookbub? They have a star rating system for books . . . but rather than “reviews,” they call them “recommendations.” I also seldom give 3 or less star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. I admire (most) writers who can complete writing a book and publishing it. This is such a timely post. I’m in a dilemma right now about posting a review (it’s a long story why I feel the need to do this). I will come up with something I can post word-wise, but not sure I can give it 4 stars and 3 stars . . well, it’s a long story.
By the way, Bookbub is now free for authors to join. You have to go through an approval process which takes about a week.
> Otherwise you’re not getting my real opinions about books unless it’s a night out over whiskey.
Ha ha, I’ll have to take you out for a whiskey if you make it to London!
This is a really interesting discussion. After reading the comments, I went to Goodreads and deleted my star ratings for anything lower than five stars! I wish there was a ‘five star plus’ so that I could differentiate between the books I really love (a five star plus) and books that are good/okay (so I could give them five stars which seems acceptable rather than four, which doesn’t).
In the mean time, I’ll err on the side of caution. Thanks for an interesting discussion, Nathan.