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anamardoll · 07-06-2011, 05:18 PM

I have a long-standing policy that I review everything I read for better or worse. This has served me well for the past three years or so -- I enjoy reviewing as I feel it benefits both me (I can look back, read a review, and go "oh, yeah, I remember the book now"), the customers (in making time/money decisions), and potentially (but not necessarily) authors.

I review everything I read, whether I feel it's a 1-star book or a 5-star one. However...

All the new indie books I have now are testing my established system. Almost all of them I received for free, and I feel bad slapping down a 1/2 star review on something that is free unless the book just egregiously offended me somehow. I've been just tossing my 1/2 star indie books out of Calibre and into the recycle bin and going on with life -- seems like life is too short to irritate random strangers on the internet to "save" customers from a free book.

So. It's easy to award 4/5 stars to indie books (yay!) and I've stopped bothering to review 1/2 star ones. But I'm on the fence about 3-star ones.

I read an indie book today that I thought got a lot of the technical aspects of writing down pat, but nevertheless the book never really grabbed me. I *think* I can write a review that clearly describes what was good about the book and why I didn't get into it, and I *think* that review would be helpful to other people who might decide, "Huh, that's exactly the sort of thing *I* would want. I'm getting that!" BUT, the review would still have 3 stars on it, because that's what the book was to me. And a 3-star review, at least by Amazon's reckoning, is technically a "negative" one.

I'm wondering what other reviewers and writers think on this subject?

07-06-2011, 05:18 PM	#1
anamardoll Chasing Butterflies Posts: 3,132 Karma: 5074169 Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: American Southwest Device: Uses batteries.	Reviews and Indie Books I have a long-standing policy that I review everything I read for better or worse. This has served me well for the past three years or so -- I enjoy reviewing as I feel it benefits both me (I can look back, read a review, and go "oh, yeah, I remember the book now"), the customers (in making time/money decisions), and potentially (but not necessarily) authors. I review everything I read, whether I feel it's a 1-star book or a 5-star one. However... All the new indie books I have now are testing my established system. Almost all of them I received for free, and I feel bad slapping down a 1/2 star review on something that is free unless the book just egregiously offended me somehow. I've been just tossing my 1/2 star indie books out of Calibre and into the recycle bin and going on with life -- seems like life is too short to irritate random strangers on the internet to "save" customers from a free book. So. It's easy to award 4/5 stars to indie books (yay!) and I've stopped bothering to review 1/2 star ones. But I'm on the fence about 3-star ones. I read an indie book today that I thought got a lot of the technical aspects of writing down pat, but nevertheless the book never really grabbed me. I think I can write a review that clearly describes what was good about the book and why I didn't get into it, and I think that review would be helpful to other people who might decide, "Huh, that's exactly the sort of thing I would want. I'm getting that!" BUT, the review would still have 3 stars on it, because that's what the book was to me. And a 3-star review, at least by Amazon's reckoning, is technically a "negative" one. I'm wondering what other reviewers and writers think on this subject?