I have been thinking recently. I read a lot. Most of my books tend to come from friend recommendations and Twitter and I will read most things.
Recently I have come to know first hand how difficult it is to get someone who has read your book to leave a review, and we all know that reviews are one of the things which help to sell a book. I myself have hunted down and contacted some reviewers and my work is on their waiting list. So far I have received an excellent review from one of them (Robert Krueger) on Amazon.com and I will be completely honest, the wait was a nerve wracking experience. After all, they could have hated it, yet instead I was relived to find a glowing review. I must say, I was perhaps bouncing off the walls a little, okay a lot.
This got me thinking. I am always on the look out for things to read, and I am quite easy, I will read pretty much anything if it grabs my attention. I don’t care if the book is huge or small, (although my preferred genres are fantasy, horror, sci-fi, and paranormal). In addition to this about 90% of the books I buy are from indie authors, so I wondered how many out there would consider a review for review as an option (gifting the book from Amazon to each other) or in some cases, simply a review from me if my work doesn’t appeal to their reading preferences. Now I am not talking about a guaranteed 5 star rating here, I am talking about a review like the ones I normally write here, on Amazon, and on Goodreads. One which gives a little insight into the plot, what aspects of the author’s work I enjoyed most etc. I also thought about including a small author interview at the end of the blog review so people could get a feel for the author and learn about any other, or upcoming work.
I thought about this review exchange a little and took a look at the Amazon review T&Cs and for a moment it seemed viable. Then I dug deeper, following several obscure links and places you wouldn’t think to click normally and finally found this hidden away. So it seems it isn’t an option after all. That said, since I read so much I wonder whether to still offer my services free as a reviewer, but not on a review for review basis. Since finding reviewers is so difficult I wonder if there are many other people who do this? What do you all think of the idea?
On that note, I really should get back to editing my second book. It is coming along nicely and I can’t wait to start the next edit (I tend to edit my work several times. to make sure I am happy with each part.)
I hope you all have a wonderful day.
Take care.
K.J's Athenaeum 