Book Blog Networking discussion

How do you guys feel about that? If you do get sent an arc or a book from the publisher to review, do you guys feel compelled to make the review as fair as possible? I have seen posts where authors attack bloggers for stating unfavorable opinions and I have seen bloggers say that they will only post good reviews. Personally, I refuse to compromise my integrity for the sake of arcs etc. I'd much rather not review the book than write nice stuff about it. But then again, I want to have the right to review whatever books I want to and honestly, there's so more to say about a book I don't like than one I do. Hee. That's just me though. Opinions?

www.thebookwurrm.wordpress.com.

I agree with you whole heartedly. When you start being dishonest only to please the author your ruining your credibility with your readers.

Monica wrote: "As an author, I don't mind when people write negative reviews as long as they don't attack me personally. Both positive and negative reviews are much better when they are detailed with "whys." Why ..."

Oh I agree. I think there's a certain code of conduct that both parties should follow and it is when they don't that problems occur.

I understand that reviews are primarily for other readers but are they not also for the writers to some extent? If the author knows what's working and what's not, they can learn and shape themselves to better meet the readers' desires. This is still assuming the author wants to sell books, of course. I know of plenty of authors who stay true to themselves and it's about the art in writing and not pleasing the masses but if they do want to sell lots, would it not make much more sense to give people what they want?

Monica wrote: "Nafiza, I won't speak for other authors but I can share my personal preferences.

First, I do read almost all of my reviews, though I'm sure I miss a ton. Some authors don't read their reviews at a..."

Oh thank you. It makes a lot more sense now. And you are right about the varied opinions that accompany many reviews and I do realize that to a large extent that it would be impossible to incorporate feedback into the next stories. I do think that some writers sometimes do give in and listen to the readers when the outcry is enormous and about the same thing (Laurell K Hamilton and sex in her novels would come to mind). Good luck with your next book. (And personally, I prefer 3rd person omniscient.)

To put it another way: when I was raising my daughters, I had several friends with different opinions. One would tell me that I was hard on my oldest. The other would say that I was mean to the youngest and so on.

You will do what you will do with your child or novel. Everyone has an opinion on everything.

Take the opinion gracefully and move on. Attention negative or positive could be good. Ask Lady Gaga!

I'm an author too and I truly hunger for honest reviews. Though it is possible all the 'whys' can't be changed, maybe some of them can. I'm still learning, and I'm certainly willing to continue learning. Honest reviews are one source of such an understanding.

I try to write reviews which show my true feelings for a book. I'd hate to mislead another reading into thinking a book is something that it isn't.

Everybody's different - and like someone already said, you will always find conflicting opinions on a book - someone who hated one thing which was another person's most favorite part - I think if you stick to being honest, you can't fail.

I see another way some people handle this is to not even bother writing reviews for the books they don't like, so if you see a review on their site you know it was at least worthy of a read one time around (at least according to that blogger) :)

I have yet to experience that or have authors ask me to read an arc copy of their book and review it.

I feel that you should be fair. I do agree that you shouldn't write nice things just to appease the author or publicist. I had a situation where I was given a book to review that I did not particularly care for. I had volunteered to review it for the site I write for. There wasn't any problem with how the book was written. I just didn't care for the content, but that was me personally. I felt it only fair that my personal bias couldn't slant this author's first book in a bad way. So I wrote a review that was fair gave a synopsis of the book but did not include much of my opinion. I have been more careful of my book selections since.

Jencey wrote: "I feel that you should be fair. I do agree that you shouldn't write nice things just to appease the author or publicist. I had a situation where I was given a book to review that I did not partic..."

Thanks Jencey, That's really good advice - I've been wondering how to approach something like this becaise I'm afraid that i might be in a similar situation because i don't always look too closely at the books i agree to review but I really like the way you handled it..I will remember that when it comes time to review:)

I do post bad reviews sometimes. For me, I don't have a lot of even lightly negative things to put in reviews mostly because I only pick books that I think I'll like and I also tend pick books that similar reviewers to myself recommend. My rule is just that if I post a bad review it's just usually not particularly mean so much as I try to explain what I didn't like- the elements or the characters or writing style that I wasn't a fan of because I realize that what made me dislike the book might make another person love it.