Book Reviews: How Does a Body Go About Writing and Leaving One, Anyway?

I’ve mentioned how much I appreciate and admire reviewers. It’s so easy for me to read a book or use a product, enjoy it but say nothing of my experience to others. Reviewers are in the trenches, sharing their thoughts with the world.

Now, I’m not a professional reviewer. I rarely write reviews for Amazon, as I’ve been led to believe authors aren’t supposed to review books on that site, but I’ve put together a guide here for those who are interested in leaving reviews but aren’t entirely certain as to how they could get started.

(Please note that the below post appeared in my July author newsletter.)

LEAVING A RATING AND/OR REVIEW ON GOODREADS

To leave a review and/or rating on Goodreads, you first need to sign up for a free account. They ask for your name and email address, and you must make up a password of at least six characters. If you agree to their terms of service and privacy policy, you can move forward with creating your account!

Once you’ve signed up, you might get a confirmation email that requires you to verify that you in fact joined Goodreads on purpose. Go ahead and click on the link provided to confirm. (It’s been a while since I signed up for Goodreads, so they might not even have this step, but it is fairly standard for most websites.)

You can now begin exploring for books! Enter the name of the book or author you have in mind into the search bar, located toward the top of any Goodreads page you’re on (you usually start at your homepage.) Once you’ve clicked on the book you want, you can add it to a virtual shelf: “read”, “want to read”, or “currently reading” when you click on the green button’s dropdown menu (a small white arrow pointing downward.)

If you’ve read the book you selected, click “read”. You then will be prompted to leave a rating and/or review. This is optional, but reviews and ratings really help readers find books, so I hope you’ll at least consider leaving a rating for the book you selected.

The Goodreads rating system looks like this:

1 star: I didn’t like it
2 stars: It was OK
3 stars: I liked it
4 stars: I really liked it
5 stars: It was amazing

Note that a three-star rating is considered positive on Goodreads. On Amazon, it’s considered negative. Once you leave a rating, it can later be removed or changed, should you decide to do so.

Your review/rating will show up for others to see, but don’t feel timid! Reading is a personal experience, a subjective experience, yes. But there is someone out there waiting for your opinion. You could be the reason someone picks up a book…or is warned away (this is a good thing. If a book would be a poor match for a certain reader, it’s best to save them their time and money.)

WRITING A REVIEW

A lot of people panic at this point, thoughts of writing high school and college papers flooding their minds. My first bit of advice: relax. This doesn’t have to be anything like that.

To review a book is to simply give your opinion. You don’t need to summarize the plot (if you do, be sure to use spoiler tags or warn people a spoiler is coming), just tell people what you liked or didn’t like about the book. It can be something as simple as “I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to readers who enjoy books by ______.” Or “I disliked this book. For me, the story moved too slowly.”

Or you could go more in-depth, if you feel like it. Read other reviews of other books to see how people word things, if you want. But this isn’t a contest. Your review is not going to be judged. In fact, authors are often told not to read reviews, especially the negative ones, and we’re not supposed to respond to them. Or, if we do respond to them, it’s supposed to remain a positive interaction. Reviews are for readers, not authors.

LEAVING YOUR REVIEW ON OTHER SITES

If you feel like it, you can leave the same review you wrote on Goodreads on other sites such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and whatever online vendor you purchased the book from. The author will be very thankful, trust me. One note, though: please don’t leave reviews or ratings on books you haven’t read. It’s not fair to your fellow readers or to the author. A DNF (did not finish) is another case. If you made it half-way through the book but didn’t like it and stopped, you could still leave a review, but it’s always appreciated if you note that you didn’t finish reading.

Amazon is stricter about what reviews are acceptable. If you received the book for free from the author or publisher, you are encouraged to say so in your review, stating that your opinion wasn’t influenced by the book being a “gift.” Your wording could look like: “This book was given to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.” Also, if you know the author in person, Amazon’s terms of service prohibits you from reviewing or rating their book. Paid-for reviews at least used to be prohibited.

__

What is your favorite site to leave reviews on? Or, if you don’t leave reviews, where do you tend to get books from?