Tip Sheet for Online Reviewers
(Version 2.2, Updated 01/12/05)
By Jay Wiseman
The World Wide Web currently offers the average reader a fascinating opportunity, one
previously only available to professional journalists: the chance to post a review of a
book that will be read by large numbers of people who are considering buying the book.
This allows the average reader a substantial opportunity to influence the purchasing
decisions of a very significant number of people.
Online reviews can be especially valuable regarding specialized activities. Unfortunately, all-too-many
online reviews about specialized activities are written by a reviewer who
either lacks adequate familiarity with the activity or has some sort of bias (unfortunately,
usually a negative bias) regarding the author. If you are an informed person regarding
the activity in question and feel that you could write a reasonably objective, good-faith
review, your input could be exceptionally valuable -- particularly to newcomers who are
just making their first tentative explorations into the activity. Your review could be a
real service to them.
Currently, there are at least two major online book vendors that offer the opportunity for
the average person to write online reviews. In both cases, the reviewer must provide the
vendor with their name and a valid email address, but this does not result in the reviewer
receiving spam.
Anyhow, the current major vendors are:
Amazon.com (www.amazon.com)
Barnes and Noble (www.bn.com)
Both sites have reviewer guidelines that are wise to read over before posting your review.
(Be advised that these guidelines change periodically.) Among other things, reviews that
grossly violate these guidelines will probably never appear. It's also a good idea to read
over the reviews posted of a number of different books before posting your own review.
Both places provide templates that are fairly easy to fill out. However, these templates
don't currently offer a spell-checker, so you might want to create the body of your review
in a word processor and then do a copy-and-paste into the main text section. Keep in mind
that a very large number of people may see what you have written, so take your time on your
review and polish it. Reviews that contain things like spelling errors lose a lot of
credibility. (One hint: If you write reviews of the same book at more than one site,
please don't do a copy-and-paste of the same text at more than one location. Such
duplications are easy to spot, and you'll lose credibility when they're spotted.)
In addition to the websites listed above, it can also be useful to post your reviews to
newsgroups, social networking sites, and mailing lists if the subject is highly relevant and such postings are
otherwise consistent with their policies. Additionally, if you belong to a club of
fellow enthusiasts regarding the subject of the book, and the club has a newsletter,
there's a pretty good chance that the editor of the newsletter would also like to see
your review. Finally, given that new forums for online reviews appear from time to
time, you might want to do the occasional search on a phrase like "online book
reviews [insert activity here]" to see what you find. Again, it's wise to change the
wording of a given review somewhat when posting it in various locations.
Please put some specifics in your review. People care about whether you liked or disliked
a book, but they care more about why. How did the book benefit you? What did it lack?
Is any information in the book inaccurate? How well does the author use language? Is
the book logically laid out? (Note: when writing about a fiction book, please don't
put "spoilers" in your review. Don't, for example, reveal the ending.)
Given that many readers are comparison shopping, it's fine to compare the book that you
are reviewing to similar ones. (Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble actually encourage this.)
Amazon also allows you to vote on reviews put up by other people. Doing this can be very
useful as well.
Personal note: as of this writing (01/05) Amazon.com has the ability to have "recommended
instead of" and a "recommended in addition to" types of recommendations made. While
I'm quite comfortable having people recommend my books "in addition to" other books, I
ask that they please not recommend my books "instead of" other books.
You can also usually choose how much of yourself to reveal. You can usually remain very
anonymous, or you can provide enough information about yourself -- including, if you
wish, an email address at which you can be contacted -- that some reviews seem more like
subtle personal ads. (Be sure to read the reviewer's guidelines carefully if privacy is
of special concern to you.) Keep in mind that all information you supply will be posted
for very large numbers of people, with very different attitudes and points of view, to
see. Thus, you might want to think twice before posting something about yourself that
you wouldn't want to appear on the front page of your local newspaper. In general, I
recommend you take the low-profile approach over the high-profile approach. Remember
that you won't be able to control who sees the information you provide about yourself,
and that it may be up there for years.
Please think twice before you write a strongly negative review of a book. It is possible
to dash off a review of a book fairly quickly, and that can be a bad thing. Remember that
each book is, so to speak, "somebody's baby." Somebody put a lot of time, thought, work,
hope, and money into that book, and it deserves thoughtful consideration. (I've noticed that people who have themselves written books tend to be noticeably slower to write a truly scathing review of somebody else's book.) On the other hand, some books
richly deserve such a scathing review, so if you have given yourself some time -- as in
at least a few days -- to think about it and you're still convinced that a book really
does deserve a good flaming, go ahead and fire. Just do your reader a favor and be
specific about why you think so. Generalizations don't help much.
It can be helpful to imagine that your review was being used as evidence in a court
case. Consider how a jury would regard your review. Would twelve average people
think that your review was a fair, balanced, considered piece of writing, or would
they conclude that it was biased, reckless, and maybe even malicious?
Also, it's usually not all that great an idea to directly express either agreement
or disagreement with points made by other reviewers. While you might want to cover
the same points, please keep in mind that this is basically a solo performance, not
a debate.
Allow some time to go by before you expect your review to appear. I've seen reviews
take more than two weeks to be posted. (Also, for some reason, some reviews get lost
entirely; this is another reason to have a back-up copy.)
I suggest that you not write too many book reviews within a relatively short time. A
sudden flurry of reviews, either positive or negative, can detract from their
credibility. At the very most, posting one review a week is a very brisk pace and
helps preserve both your enthusiasm and your trustworthiness.
One of the benefits of writing an online review is that you can reward an author in
ways other than by buying their book. For example, let's say that someone loans you
a book and that you really enjoy it. Obviously, the author will not derive any direct
economic benefit from your reading a borrowed copy of their book, but if you write a
favorable online review they will probably benefit much more long-term economic benefit
from your review than if you had simply purchased it.
Another benefit of writing online reviews, especially for Amazon.com, is that you can
create a name and a ranking for yourself and this name and ranking may open some doors
for you. For example, depending on factors such as how many reviews you write and how
many helpful votes your reviews receive, you may earn a place among Amazon's "Top
1000," "Top 500," or even "Top 100" reviewers. This credential can help you get
free books. Given that reviews are a very cost-effective form of publicity, many
publishers will be happy to send you a book without charge if you contact them and
say something along the lines of: "Hi. I'm an Amazon.com Top 1000 Reviewer and I'd
be interested in doing a review of your book for their site. Would it be possible
for you to send me a reviewer's copy?" If they send you the book, be sure that
you do indeed write the review within a reasonable time (say, thirty days) and that
you let them know when the review has appeared.
Writing good-quality online reviews can be rewarding for the bookseller, the book's
author, the book's publisher, the writer of the review, and, most importantly, the
reader of the review. Everybody benefits!
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