Negative reviews are the risk of publishing a book. No matter how a book gets to a reader, they have the right to express an opinion of the book — these days that opinion frequently ends up on online cataloging sites, online retailers, and yes, book blogs. Most authors, 99.9% I would venture to guess, know that there is a negative review waiting for them. Even New York Times bestsellers have negative reviews about them because there has never been a book published that did not have its critics. Can’t be done. Will never be done. Wouldn’t want it to be done, because guess what? I probably wouldn’t like the book.
If you’re a book blogger, you know how we get the books. If you’re a reader, it might not be as clear. So here is where the books come from that I review at Booklorn.com:
- Libraries
- Publishers
- Publicists
- Authors
- Gifts/Giveaways
- My personal book stash
No matter how I get a book, the review is the same. It’s my honest opinion. If I love it, I say so and tell you why. If I hate it, I say so and tell you why. If it’s “meh,” I say so and tell you why (starting to see a pattern?). I don’t care how the book came into my hands, and that’s a risk that publishers have always had to take.
Not caring about how a book comes into my hands is far different from not caring which book comes into my hands. I never review a book that I would not lay down my hard-earned cash for (which is why I don’t review self-published books, the quality is simply too unpredictable). No matter how I get a book, I still have to invest the same time into reading the book and that’s a chunk of my life that I can never get back and isn’t free.
So why am I going on about this now? Well, I’ve been meaning to do a post on this for a while. It may or may not surprise you to know that authors do read book blogs (like the rest of us, they can’t help Googling themselves and it is in fact an occupational hazard for authors). A few have commented on my reviews, and they’ve generally been a pleasant, intelligent, and respectful bunch even when I haven’t been 100% positive in my reviews.
There has been a conversation the last few days among book bloggers and some authors about negative reviews and the expectations surrounding book blogs. If you want to see what’s being said, you can check out this post and this post that will lead you to the rest of the conversation.
The other topic that has been coming up lately is the ‘ol independent booksellers versus evil amazon. I’ll post on that in the next few weeks too.
4 Comments
Yah! Read about that! It is so shameful…not to be able to say your honest review! I mean thats what we all want from u
Veens´s last blog post..Books on Thursday… and I BUY!
I don’t need the books I have gotten from publishers or authors to review on my blog. I have enough unread ones to keep it going for a long time…yes, quite awhile…lol
But actually, part of what I enjoy about my blog, is that I have requested and read and reviewed books that in all likelihood I would NOT have bought before. Things a bit out of my normal comfort zone of book choices. And some of them have been books that I ended up loving…and some in my normal genre have been books that I did not like.
I enjoy expanding my view, and maybe my reader’s view, a bit!
cait´s last blog post..better than Miss Piggy I guess….
Nicely written. I was glad to read this because I was starting to think that people like me who felt this way were in the minority.
Michele´s last blog post..Out With the Old….
there is nothing wrong with me in the minority…the world would be so dull if we were all alike.
cait´s last blog post..better than Miss Piggy I guess….