Writing a Book Review

/ Marcia Meara

There is no way to overstate the importance of reviews to the sale of our books. They are vital to helping readers even find them, after all, and Joan Hall has a wonderful Story Empire post on writing reviews today. I hope you’ll all check it out, even if you aren’t a fellow writer. You are surely a reader, and these are things that can help you support your favorite author’s work. Please consider sharing this one far and wide, if you would, thanks. And thanks to Joan for saying it all so well. 🙂

Story Empire

Hey, SE Readers. Joan with you today. Book reviews are something every writer thrives upon. Reviews can make or break a book. And we all know the more reviews, the chances of the book being noticed increases.

Is there a right and a wrong way to write a book review? There are no magic formulas or specific formats to use. Some reviewers include a summary of the book, while others might quote a passage. However, I think we should adhere to a few simple guidelines.

1) It’s natural that our personal preferences influence our reviews. However, if science fiction or romance isn’t your forte, don’t buy books in those genres, then leave negative reviews based on that fact only. The book may be well written, have a captivating storyline, or fantastic world-building.  Leaving a one or two-star review simply because you’re not a fan of a specific genre isn’t fair…

View original post 308 more words

9 thoughts on “Writing a Book Review”

    • I was VERY happy to pass this along. It’s a topic near and dear to my heart, Trish. A Boy Named Rabbit has ONE review with only 2 stars, yet it says that the person loved the book and planned to read more. For some reason, I guess they thought 1 star was the highest. That single review pulled him down from a 5-star average to a 4-/12. 😦 (There’s also one 4-star review, but the 5-star average didn’t drop until that 2-star one showed up.) Poor Rabbit.

      That’s what brought home to me how important each and every review is, and I hope everyone will take Joan’s post to heart. PLEASE, folks–leave reviews. Hopefully good ones. 😉 But if you haven’t ever done so before, I hope you’ll read Joan’s post first. It will be helpful, I promise.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Looking forward to hearing what YOU think! NOTE: If in doubt about leaving comments on this blog, please read the privacy statement in the menu at the top of the page.