Review Group discussion

It has been suggested that we put a time limit on the rule about reciprocal reviews, i.e. if you reviewed someone a specific time ago say 6 months or a year, they should be able to review you in another group.
The rational being that there are now plenty of members on the group who have been members a long time, and the 'forever' non-reciprocal review rule is occasionally making it problematic for these long term members to fit into groups.

If it was decided that altering the rule to a specific time period would be a good move, what do you think would be appropriate?

If the review is going to have a sentence stating the review was not reciprocal, then 'forever' is appropriate. However, if the authors agree to the match up, then they should be able to go ahead with the review, but without that sentence. In fact, the sentence in the original review should be removed, since the review would then become reciprocal. The time limit would no longer be relevant at that point.

It would have to be a group wide system Chance, I couldn't include individual preferences in a review round.

I would just add the extra instruction 'please mention if you have reviewed or been reviewed by anyone else in the round in the past year/six months when you sign up.

If it was decided that this is a direction the group wants to take.

For me, non-reciprocal reviews are valuable, but not essential. I have both types. Exchanging honest reviews can be difficult if the novels are not evenly matched in quality. Emotionally, an author that received a poor review may have a difficult time being objective while reading a novel from that reviewer. It may also show that their tastes are not compatible, so a resulting low rating, while accurate, may be judged by the author as being vengeful.

In summary, the entire picture becomes muddy and potentially complicated.

If the review process becomes a logistical problem and the rule is ignored, then all reviews between the authors become reciprocal and any statement on their reviews indicating otherwise, should be removed.

I'm with Chance on this one. I see the problem, but I think reciprocal reviews are dangerous territory, for the reasons Chance gives but also because it gives rise to a risk of collusion between authors.

You don't think a year between the reviews would give a suitable distance?

With a whole year of separation, I don't see a big problem. I'm neutral on this one.

A year of separation would make collusion between writers a lot less likely and might be OK. But there's still the danger of vengeful authors.

I do see the rationale, Emma - especially in the context of this group - but I do feel reciprocal reviews are best avoided.

I have never seen a "sentence" or anything in a review in the review group that says anything about the review not being reciprocal. What sentence would that be Chance?

Furthermore, I cannot imagine what "author collusion" might mean that would be more scary than things that go bump in the night.

Anyway, I vote for a six month moratorium between reviews that might be considered reciprocal.

Author collusion would simply be two writers saying to each other "four stars each, all right?" or allowing each other to edit the reviews before they were uploaded.

Readers do seem to be getting a bit cynical about this sort of thing, and I know I'm beginning to wonder if some reviews I see are suspect. This is bad for independent publishing. I'd rather not go down that road.

Hock wrote: "I have never seen a "sentence" or anything in a review in the review group that says anything about the review not being reciprocal. What sentence would that be Chance?

Furthermore, I cannot imagi..."

If authors trade reviews, sentences such as: "I received a copy of this book for my nonreciprocal review" would need to be removed on all reviews between the 2 authors.

Nonreciprocal reviews have more credibility. Also, I find it hard to give a 2-star, or even 3-star review to someone who gave me 5-stars. On the flip side, if an author gave me 1 or 2 stars, I'm unlikely to be objective about their novels, either out of a probable lack of compatibility, or hurt feelings. I agree with Mike: why go there?

There is a limit as to how many repeating authors can be in one group before the nonreciprocal relationships might become impossible. In that case, why not simply start another round?

We weren't taking about reviews in a single round.
We were taking about there being six months or a year between reviews. I.e. if someone reviewed you now, should you be able to review them in a years time? At the moment, the group rules say not.
Of course the default option would always be to prefer non-reciprocal reviews, but its getting trickier to fit prolific group members into review rounds. Should we be penalising our hardest working members?

I know Emma, I didn't imagine you were talking about reciprocal reviews within a round.

I do see the problem you are trying to solve - I just think it's better to stay right away from this.

I think the length of time elapsed since being reviewed by someone makes no difference. I would definitely feel differently about someone who had given me a very good or very bad review, and would not be sure of being unbiased.

Some people have a memory like an elephant when it comes to slights - I would not want my book being reviewed by someone who I'd given a low rating to in the past. I think that would particularly be the case if a reviewer felt that the person had unfairly given their book a low rating due to allowing their judgement to be clouded by taste or personal feelings towards a book's content.

I'm with Odelia and Chance on this one. Time doesn't change anything. Depending on how harsh and hurtful a bad review is, some people will remember it even in the next ten years. We don't usually forget easily the things that hurt us.

I agree with Aderonke, Odelia and Chance. Some people never forget good or bad, and I think it would dilute the group's mission. Say I got a bad review from someone, I read their book six months later (which is only the space of a couple of non-overlapping review rounds) and honestly thought it was less than optimal, and they said I was giving them a bad review out of spite, etc. it would get pretty messy. At least, with the current rules, all that nonsense is cut out.

Looks like that is fairly unanimous as far as the opinions expressed.
People will just have to accept they can't join particular groups. As always, we will continue with the first come first served way of filling up groups.

A group of authors doing reviews – we’ll be doing well to not have it get ‘messy’… As a fellow author, I find it impossible to be completely objective. The flaw for me is that as I’m not perfect in my own work, I’m unqualified to level criticism (at all). I can’t criticize plot structure unless all of my books have perfect/awesome plot structure. That would be hypercritical. No – as I’m a working writer, I’m unable to give (public) criticism and am limited to giving only praise – either a little or a lot, depending on how good the read was for me. This is the way I see things and operate in review territory. I can’t publish a review if I can’t, in good conscience, give 3 stars. All reviews I’ve done are based around 3-4-5 star OK-good-awesome. The text is about what I found that was positive, and it ranges from encouraging to glowing. Maybe I should be disqualified from the group? I refuse to give negative feedback to a fellow author in public.

G.S. wrote: "A group of authors doing reviews – we’ll be doing well to not have it get ‘messy’… As a fellow author, I find it impossible to be completely objective. The flaw for me is that as I’m not perfect in..."

That is noble attitude, G. S.! It's great that you feel you can be honest about objectivity - I reckon that any one who says they are totally objective in reviewing a book is kidding themselves.

I too prefer to focus on positives when writing a review, although I would be prepared to give a low rating if doing a review round in a group if I had to. I do think, though, that a one or two star should only be given if the book had serious issues with both plot/characters and was also badly written.

I do wonder about this group's rules about posting low star reviews to Amazon. It says that the reviews are to help readers, and that therefore bad reviews should be posted. One issue, though, is that I think there are quite a few readers out there who do not post a review unless it is good, as they feel mean posting a low one. By taking part in review groups like this, it is possible that authors could end up with lower ratings than they might have gained through costumer reviews (although they will certainly have more reviews).

I personally would prefer it if reviewers could chose not to post a low star review to Amazon if the author wished this. I'd hate to post a low star review, but I also would not want to give a good a good rating when I thought a book had serious issues. After all, a bad review could kill a book's sales.

dấu hiệu bệnh trĩ irrelevant, but everyone can help themselves rather

In regard to only giving positives in reviews, well, it is important to give a complete picture.

As authors, we are not unqualified to give advice on the technical aspects. In fact, I'd say we're more qualified than the average guy or gal who writes a review because, even if we haven't mastered the art, we've delved a whole lot further into the process than them.

I think it's more important to give constructive reviews that give a complete feel for the book, both positive and negative attributes. You can give a review for a book you don't like that is both honest and well received. Just concentrate on pulling out enflaming, attacking words and focus on the story and what worked or didn't work.

After that, if you want to offer your private feedback to the author, all the notes and details, that's fine. Offer it. But if they don't want it, don't send it.

If a book is so horrible that I can't give it at least three stars i write the author and tell them I politely decline to review it and tell them why. Maybe this is not the way to go about it but i simply have found myself unable to give anyone two stars. I am always able to find something good about the books I find problematic for one reason or another and that gives the review balance, in my opinion. So if I can't give you a three or above then there is *really* something going on with your book.

Reciprocal reviews need to go away permanently.

Hi Tara,
if you join a review round, rules are that you have to post you're review, whatever the star rating.
Reciprocal reviews are not allowed on the group.

Of course. I should have clarified - my 'policy' applies to books I choose to review.