Do You Write Book Reviews?

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book reviews

For writers, especially during lock-down when bookshop signings and talks at the local library are impossible, getting on-line reviews are one of the few ways to promote a new novel. And if they are lucky enough to acquire 50 positive reviews, Amazon will feature them in periodic promotional posts, for free.

Yet how many of us write them? I must confess to producing a mere handful myself, though I am striving to do better.

People assume they will be required to produce an erudite outline of the plot, a thoughtful character analysis and include quotes of good (or bad) prose. All the while avoiding those dreaded spoilers. No wonder it seems daunting.

Yet Amazon and Goodreads make the process relatively easy. You simply decide whether the novel you have just read is any good, then give it a star rating out of five. You could stop there, if you wanted. You could also choose to withhold your full name, if feeling shy, by calling yourself something like Bedfordshire Bookworm.

A sentence or two about whether you enjoyed a book would help others decide whether or not to invest in a copy and would at the same time delight the author. Something like the following would be perfect:

**** “A page-turner. Thoroughly recommended.”

*** “Really enjoyed travelling to a different time and place. Perfect for lovers of historical fiction.”

**** “Had me on the edge of my seat at times.”

***** “Loved it!”

Obviously, if you really loathed it, the author would prefer you to refrain from comment. But most authors welcome constructive criticism. That is the way to learn to write better.

If you love nothing better than escaping into a book, why not spend a few minutes supporting those who feed your addiction? It costs nothing but a few minutes of your time, and will have an author somewhere purring with pleasure…

[The above are actual quotes from reviews]

Why You Should Write Reviews

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book reviews, Goodreads, readers

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Reviews are hard to write. You need to convey the sense of a book without spoiling the author’s hard-crafted surprises. To whet appetites, without sating them. And you don’t want to sound too much like a pretentious prat.

Some of ninevoices are gifted at this – writing reviews, not sounding like pretentious prats – and hopefully will compose many more in the days to come. As authors, we are conscious of their importance to writers and how they help boost book recognition and those all-important Amazon-ratings. However, and perhaps more importantly, they remind us that we write to connect with our readers.

You will, I hope, forgive me for sharing my delight at one which appeared on GoodReads yesterday. It still has me purring twenty-four hours later.

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And I’ve promised myself to write a few more, myself.

Reviewing the Situation

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book reviews, British Census from 1801, dog training, Jane Austen, Roger Huchinson, Shelley DeWess, The Beatles, the Brontes

I am a review junkie. Before an anticipated purchase I will be found scouring other people’s opinion. Often the project is then abandoned and money is saved. However, I glean an insight into new characters who produce their praise or venom often sans punctuation, sans capitalisation. I visualise those who say, ‘I loved it so much I bought it in every colour. I haven’t worn it yet,’ with their wardrobes, colour-coordinated, of course, awash with identical outfits.

Then there are book reviews. Reading some, I feel I know the story and so why bother? But recently, for the first time in a long life, I immediately ordered two books, both non-fiction. The Butcher, The Baker, the Candlestick Maker by Roger Hutchinson is an account of the British decennial census since its conception in 1801 by John Rickman. Fascinating for anybody who has dabbled in family history or is interested by the changing demography of society, it is a book of facts and figures amongst which are snippets of interest and amusement.

In the 1841 census in Liverpool, four families gave Ireland as their place of birth: their surnames, McCartney, Lennon, Harrison and Starkey.

There are accounts of well-known families, among them Marks, Macmillan, Flora Thompson, and the unknown: the bigamist and those who truthfully gave their occupations as prostitute, brothel keeper, beggar. Later the suffragists would enter “domestic slave” or simply “slave” as a protest at being disenfranchised.

In 1881 when women were recruited as enumerators they were satirised by imaging a conversation between the  female enumerator and the lady of the house. Neither could keep to the point, but discussed the carpet, their clothes and pudding recipes. “I must be getting on. I haven’t done but three families all the forenoon.”

The second book is Not Just Jane by Shelley DeWess who, eagerly, awaiting a dramatisation of Pride and Prejudice, was devastated to find where she had “seen erudition, subtle wit, and quiet country vistas the director had seen flirtation and farce”. This set her on the quest to discover the now, but not in their own time, lesser-known contemporary female writers of Jane, Charlotte and Emily. (Anne, “the forgotten Brontë sister, who refused to wear rose-tinted glasses”, she places in another category.) Invariably the seven authors whose lives and works she describes turned to writing for economic reasons, usually caused by feckless husbands. Denied the cosy corner of a paternal vicarage, they laboured to feed children and to liberate husbands from a debtors’ prison. No longer household names they were once highly-regarded by William Wordsworth, Robert Southey, Dr Samuel Johnson. Now “They are not remembered, they are not canonized….What I came to understand was that, first and foremost, the game of lasting fame is an inherently unfair one.”

Skipper, of the canine literati, unprompted, reviewed a dog-training manual. His opinion was entirely subjective.

A More Level Playing Field for Writers

Tags

Amazon, book reviews, cheats

We probably all know someone who gets their partner to write a mouth-watering review of their book on Amazon (handy that he’s got a different surname!) to boost their sales. Maybe we’d be tempted to do the same – but hopefully not on an industrial scale.

Amazon, the world’s largest online marketplace, has apparently filed papers in the U.S. against more than 1,000 people it claims offered to write glowing reviews on behalf of unscrupulous authors. This includes a network of freelance forgers operating as so-called ‘optimisers’ who produce batches of favourable write-ups to order for a fee.

Legal experts say that although the Amazon case will rely on U.S. law, this could signal similar moves in Britain to track down perpetrators.

It’s hard enough to get promotion for your work without cheats muddying the water.