Reviews can often make a book, and their lack can often
break a book.
In truth it’s always been the way, but authors feel it more
keenly now. Mainstream publishers do
check the number of reviews on distribution sites when deciding whether to
renew a contract, and for indie authors many internet promotion portals
determine entry by the number of reviews it can verify online. Being an author
leads to being a reviewer.
Most members of Hornsea Writers would prefer to review
without any kind of star system, even though most sites make it obligatory.
Both Amazon and Goodreads offer a guide in making a decision, though why anyone
would doggedly persevere with a book to give it an “I hate it” one star is
beyond us. Hitting one’s thumb with a hammer would doubtless give as much grief
in far less time, allowing a better suited book to be enjoyed sooner.
Some of us do persevere with books that will eventually be
labelled with two stars, but the reason is well argued within the review. What
we feel is a waste is a regurgitation of the book’s blurb. If it was a good
read we say why; if we thought it so-so we explain what kept us reading and
mention what grated. All readers are individual in their tastes, even those reading within
the same sub-genre, because reading is not a passive occupation, it’s an
engagement.
Long or short, every review is welcome as each sheds a
distinct and individual light on to an author’s work. If you read, do you
review?
Some time ago I was asked to contribute to Ella M Kaye's site It's All oKaye
with particular reference to 'lights in the dark' as applied to a
fictional character's emotional arc. The post is now live, so do hop across to
discover how I envisaged, and subsequently handled, Nick Blaketon's mental trauma in The Bull At The Gate, and the changes in him over the three books.
