To Review or Not To Review?

The topic of reviews has come across my feeds a lot over the past few weeks, and I find myself feeling like a broken record, giving the same advice over and over.

First, there was a discussion on Facebook where a writer taking part in a book review cooperative felt bound by the rules of the cooperative: if you can’t leave a 3-star review or higher, then you’re out of the cooperative. Let’s ignore that this is unethical and deliberately misleading. If you feel a book is only worth 1 star, then you should feel comfortable giving that book 1 star. (Not that I would, but I will come to that later.)

Then, I encountered a fellow editor who was suffering a review dilemma, where she felt that a book in question possessed glaring editorial flaws, yet she knew others who adored the book. To complicate matters, she knew the author personally. She was asking a group of editors how she should handle the book review, worried about the negative impact on her editorial business if she promoted a book that was poorly edited.

This was closely followed by discussions about Amazon’s glitch in their reviews system that was impacting ALL products on their sites: non-verified reviews were being restricted.

I’ve heard others recount their own experiences regarding reviews, and discuss tactics for Advance Reader Copies (ARCs). Meanwhile, the same advice keeps pouring out of my fingers and onto the feeds.

NEVER review a book on Amazon, Goodreads or similar sites. Instead, recommend.

Let me explain why.

Reviews are vital for authors, but they are also extremely dangerous.

Reviews are often wrought with mixed emotions for authors. It’s great when you get those genuine 5-star reviews, highlighting the things that readers loved in particular about your book. However, when you see 1 or 2 stars, you want to cringe and hide.

Someone didn’t like my baby.

But this is what reviews are all about: others highlighting what they did and didn’t like, opinions that could sway the minds of others. Let’s face it, would you honestly buy the latest smartphone on the market if the reviews were all negative?

This particular mindset happens within the publishing industry too. Reviews have power. But when people start to abuse that power, that’s when things go horribly wrong.

If you were to write a review that an author didn’t like, you actually open yourself up to being attacked. Some people really are that malicious. And believe it or not, I speak from experience.

My review experience was the stuff from nightmares.

Years ago, I was asked to give a review on a book, posting it on both Amazon and Goodreads. I was new at this game and wanted to start building those connections, so I gladly said “yes.” BIG MISTAKE! The book was filled with fundamental story flaws that I was able to drive a bulldozer through. At so many points, I wanted to throw the book across the room—but that would have left gaping holes in the walls as my Kindle went sailing through the plasterboard. I felt really horrible, but this was my reputation on the line. I said I would leave a review, and I keep my promises. I did the only thing that I thought was possible. I carefully worded my review to highlight the good and the bad, and gave the book one star.

I had reviewed other books, always highlighting the good and the bad, hoping to provide my honest feedback. Some stories I loved, earning those 5 stars. In others, I saw a few copy-editing errors, lowing the score to 4 stars. There were some meh books too. I had gotten into the habit of reviewing everything that I read, self-published and traditionally published.

Then came THE BOOK. I will not tell you the name of the book or its author, but I will say that it was a non-fiction in a topic of interest to me, and I had reviewed similar books to it before. I had given it the same treatment as every other book that I had reviewed: I carefully worded my review to highlight the good and the bad. However, I honestly felt that the said book was overly wordy for the type of book it was, and that the messages were getting lost. I also believed that advice was not a one-size-fits-all as the book professed, and that the book was not a balanced view of the topic (a tenet that the book kept repeating over and over). I gave the book one star.

That’s when the attacks came.

The fans of that nameless book came after me in force. They decided to rip to shreds EVERY single review I had ever done, including the five-star reviews, and insisted that I had no clue what a review was for.

Bad me! Here I was thinking that a review was about leaving an honest opinion. Not everyone is going to like a book, so not everyone is going to give it five stars. There will be those who think the book warrants one or two stars, so that’s what they’ll give the book.

Boy, oh boy, was I wrong.

I wanted to defend myself—the urge was incredibly strong—but I refused to feed those trolls that came after me in force. Thankfully, I didn’t have any book publications of my own at the time, just peer-reviewed scientific papers. I’m sure that they would have gone after those too.

After a respectable amount of time passed, hoping that the situation was quiet enough for me to do things without people noticing, I stealthily deleted ALL my reviews, everything that I had ever done: the five-stars right through to those two damning one-stars. I even deleted all the books that I had on my bookshelf on Goodreads. You will only find hints on what books I’ve read on my social media feeds or on my list of recommended books for writers.

More to the Tale of Hell (Added July 7, 2019):

There is actually more to this little tale, events that happened AFTER my book Hidden Traps was released, which actually included the advice found in this post and a recounting of the tale mentioned above.

Shortly after Hidden Traps was published back in 2017, the author of the ill-fated book told a room full of writers that “if you don’t like a review, tell a few selected members of your fans and let them deal with it.” The author about bounced up and down with glee as they regaled their account of what had happened all those years ago. Little did they know, I was sitting in the room—and boy, oh boy, was I fuming.

My writing buddies were sitting next to me telling me to breathe. I saw red. Thankfully, I didn’t need to say anything about the author’s underhanded tactics. Someone else, who knew nothing about my part in the affair, called them out about their advice actually going against Amazon’s terms and conditions.

Let’s just say that today, I take pride and joy in every single negative review that the slimy author gets. I won’t tell just anyone who the author is or what the book was that I reviewed, but today, I tell this story to others, including the added part of what happened at the conference I was at, because I want other writers to understand the dangers associated with leaving reviews. Some people really are MEAN!

Today, I won’t leave any reviews of anything on Amazon or Goodreads, or similar sites, and I won’t add any new books to my list of read books on Goodreads. I don’t vote for books in those readers’ choice competitions either. If I’m asked to leave a review, I always manage to find some excuse to respectfully decline, often citing my editor’s hat, saying it could be seen as a conflict of interest.

It was a horrible lesson to learn, especially in such a fashion, but trust me, this is one mistake that you don’t want to make yourself.

The attacks can come from anywhere.

Okay, I can hear a few people saying that they never leave a review if they feel that they can’t give it at least 3 stars. Well, there is another side to this equation that you might want to consider.

Consider a book that many writers love to hate: 50 Shades of Gray. I’ve lost count of the number of writers who call it the worst writing ever (not that I would know either way, because I’ve never actually read the thing), but what if you’re the lone writer that actually liked 50 Shades. Because of all the bad mouthing that goes on in certain circles, you don’t want to be that one writer who enjoyed the book, because you’ll be lynch for saying so. I’ve seen it happen, and the writer had such a mission in defending her position. Thankfully, it was a friendly group, and no on-going attacks will be forthcoming.

Instead of leaving reviews, the best way to show your support for a book is to tell others about it. Share links on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. Recommend the book to others in your discussion groups. Tell your readers about the book, either directly on your blog or through your email list. Utilizing your contacts to help another writer promote their book is probably the best way to show them how much you enjoyed their book.

Just DON’T leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or the like. It’s about protecting yourself and your reputation. Don’t give the trolls a reason to attack.

Reviews and Amazon is a whole different game.

As much as we hate to admit it, Amazon has a big market share on book sales, particularly eBooks. They have spent years refining their systems to throw different recommendations at you based on your recent purchases. Reviews play a big role in those algorithms. However, every time we turn around, Amazon is changing their reviews policy, making it harder and harder for writers to get good, honest reviews.

Some of their changes to their review policies have actually reinforced my viewpoint about providing reviews.

I have heard of cases where honest authors have had their books taken down because some BLEEP decided to do the unethical thing and review bomb a book, running one of those review farms. From Amazon’s perspective, it looked as though the author in question was trying to play the system and artificially rank their book higher. Someone reported the issue, and Amazon reacted. However, it was really a malicious attack: the person who reported the issue was also the one who ran the review farm.

I’ve also heard of Amazon suspending accounts because of review swapping.

Remember the writer at the beginning of this post who was in the dilemma over the book review cooperative? Guess what my advice was to her. Guess what five others also advised.

People, I really can’t stress this enough. I know you want to support your fellow writers, but think about the impacts that one review could have on your own writing career. Is it really worth the risk?

Reviews on my own book I think tell an interesting story.

At the time of writing this post, my book Hidden Traps had a grand sum total of two reviews on Amazon, both of which date back to the week the book was first released. On Goodreads, I have one lonely review. However, I can guarantee that I have had an increase in sales. I will grant you that it’s been slow, but I’ve had messages and emails from fans saying how much they’ve loved the book and that they will definitely be spreading the word.

Hidden Traps has had reviews that are off Amazon too, and I feel good about them.

Within Hidden Traps, I talk about my own experiences with reviewing and the negative impact that leaving reviews can have on your reputation. I actually advocate against reviews. No doubt this advice has been to the detriment of my book, but I’m actually okay with that. I wrote Hidden Traps so other writers could learn how to protect themselves and their reputation. I’m happy to say that so many have already benefited from my knowledge. To me, that means the book was a success.

If you are interested in learning more about this and other hidden traps associated with building an online platform, do check out my book.

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© Copyright, Judy L Mohr 2018