ASMSG Scifi Fantasy Paranormal Emagazine August 2014 | Page 20

SFP Indie Issue 3

Why All
Writers
Should
Do Book
Reviews
David Bruns
Originally Posted Here: Why All
Writers Should Do Book Reviews

I never gave much thought to book
reviews until I became a writer.
Recently, a chance encounter on
Goodreads made me reflect on the
topic more deeply.
I clicked through to the blog
“Supposedly Fun – for the love of a
good book” and ran across a post
entitled “On Ethics and Book
Reviewing (No Sock Puppets!)” The
author focused on what I’ll call “soft
sock puppetry,” where he suggests
that bloggers who have a
relationship with a publishing
company will be more likely to write
positive reviews.
He’d surveyed the Amazon
discussions boards and came to the
conclusion that bloggers would
“rather not post a review than post a
bad one.” I am one of those people.
That realization made me think
about book reviews and why I do
them at all.

IT’S KARMA, BABY
Reviews on Amazon are the currency of
social proof for potential book buyers.
It tells your customers that others have

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taken the plunge with this piece of work
and the water’s fine.
As a writer, I ask for reviews all the
time.

In the back of all my books, I ask my
readers to visit Amazon and leave a
review. If someone emails me with
something nice to say about one of my
stories, I ask them to leave a review.