Quote:
Originally Posted by Fbone
I've found book review blogs to be very unreliable. Too many factors are against the reader seeking a comprehensive unbiased recommendation.
Some only accept ARC or author freebies.
Some only accept limited genres or small subset of one.
Some are used solely as marketing for authors and publishers. "Featured"
Some only post "good" reviews.
Some reject to review outright books they know they'll dislike.
Some have reviews that are too basic and uninformative.
Some are paid outright.
Many are affiliates. These may only post "positive" reviews or deceptively so in order to get those fees. Fewer would buy a poorly reviewed title.
Some are inconsistent in their review system.
Some are more lenient in their reviews from struggling indie authors explaining away copyright errors.
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Can't argue with this. All true on all counts. But it's true whether it's indie or trad in some of those cases.
One of the best review sites I've found for fantasy is
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/
VERY well-run, posts bad reviews, good reviews and anything inbetween. The only problem (for me) is that they very rarely cover indie work. They don't need to. There are plenty of books without them having to bother. But they do a great job with reviews. If you follow the reviewers on GR, you also get some comments there.
My hope with the GR group is that people will feel free to comment about books they are reading--without necessarily doing a review. For example I rarely review a DNF book on my blog, simply because it's DNF. But I'll talk about it if I'm reading it on GR as part of a discussion.