Book Reviews and Indie Authors

Reviews, in general, I take rather lightly due to the potential for simple manipulation. When a waitress gives a restaurant a glowing review, and it happens to be where she works, one has to question the authenticity! Likewise when a number of product reviews link back to the manufacturer’s web site, one has to wonder just how impartial those reviews are.

From my perspective, so many reviews are just modern technology taking the proverbial “used car salesman” to another level. Did we ever really believe the “one elderly lady owner who only used it to go to church on Sundays”? Did we really accept that as the logical explanation for only 200 miles showing when the car was 10 years old?

Book reviews can of course also be manipulated to some degree however, for the review to appear authentic, the review writer would have to either read the book first… or at least know all the details from some other means. Seeing a book review of “A wonderful book”, with no further details, provides very little on which to base a “Should I buy or not?” decision!

It is probably because of a similar rationale (legitimate and informative reviews can only come from reading the book), that my publisher advised me of the importance of encouraging reviews. Historically, they apparently work!

With this context in mind, you can probably imagine my delight when the following review showed up on amazon.com regarding “Who Said I was up for Adoption?” (click cover pic over in right column for more information):

What a wonderful story about a man and a dog ‘finding’ each other and, yes, rescuing each other in different ways. Being a dog lover myself, I immediately melted into this book of a man who was once afraid of dogs, yet agreed to rescue a dog who’d been neglected and probably mistreated before taken to an adoption center. This story of how a man and dog learn to read each other’s signals, to understand each other, and then love each other, is heart-warming and sincere.

My heartfelt thanks go out to this reader, and to the other readers who took a few moments out of their lives to publicly express their thoughts about this book.  🙂

32 thoughts on “Book Reviews and Indie Authors”

  1. Thanks! Reviews are certainly hard to come by. Though I have to admit, I never wrote reviews before I wrote my book because I didn’t realize their importance either. Now that I know how important they are, I always write a review.

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    • That’s probably the second greatest challenge of an indie author – getting the message out that reviews are invaluable. The greatest challenge would seem to be having a book set up for world-wide distribution… and trying to tell the whole world that it actually exists!

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        • Basic logic dictates that nobody will ever try and order a book that they do not know exists. It becomes the author’s decision whether to promote it themselves, or pay a publicist to do it… but somebody has to promote it on a regular basis if sales are desired. From my experience, promoting is much harder and far more frustrating than actually writing the book! 🙂

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  2. Beautiful review! I love it when readers leave a detailed review. It’s not only encouraging, but it’s exciting to see what they enjoyed from the book and their perspective of it. I haven’t gotten a lot of reviews on my first book, but most of the readers were very thoughtful in their words. As a first time author, if you have any advice or tips, I would love to hear them!

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    • Hi C.C. – I really don’t have too much experience to draw from, except to promote ones book(s) on a regular basis, and keep making the case for reviews. A reader who has never written a book has, understandably, no concept of how important reviews are.

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  3. I’m looking to expand on my own blog – small though it is – by introducing a few other mediums to it. Book reviews would be one; seeing this, it sort of reminds me, as a wee little blogger, why I enjoy blogging unprofessionally so much. It’s something far more informal and personal than any other kind of writing, allowing the space for the YOU to come into it

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    • The blogging community is very supportive of any venture and, given that they must be writers to be able to blog at all, can often relate to the work involved in being an Indie Author. The only “turn off” for me is where a Blog is clearly a money making venture, because the integrity of the writings often come into question. In your context of book reviews, and while I would expect to pay a well known book reviewer (and expect professionalism), an “unknown” writer who is charging for a review has the potential to only write favorable reviews because of the desire for repeat business! A very short sighted perspective as readers will start to distrust the reviews… but worse things are being done in the name of greed/profit!

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  7. Congratulations! For someone to take the time to write such a detailed review … clearly your book is a must-read for all animal lovers 🙂

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  9. I never allow myself to look at individual reviews of a book before reading it, as I expect it might colour my enthusiasm or set up expectations that would interfere with my enjoyment (or lack of) of a book. That said, once I have either read a book, or given it up as a lost cause, I DO look at the reviews. More and more these days, I am disgusted by people using their reviewer’s voice on Amazon to complain about pricing or some other issue totally unrelated to the quality of writing. I write reviews quite often, but only once I have read the book and either loved or hated it. So-so books, I do not review.

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  11. Unfortunately it’s all about the reviews. On the plus side I now know about your book so I’ll be taking a look.Authors really do need all the support they can get and I always leave honest reviews.II’m really looking forward to reading your story.

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  12. Aww! This is a great review! I can imagine your delight! I love how they say ” melted into this book” Congrats again to you and Ray. I think Ray deserves a treat, and you could give yourself one too. 🙂

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