Amazon pen name could expose authors to retaliation

Jamesaritchie said:

And writers would, I think, be better off using available time to write more books, not judging books others have written.

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Really? You think authors SHOULDN'T be reading lots, and thinking about what they read?

As usual, you have your world, and pretty much everyone else has a different one. I'm sincerely glad you're happy with the way things are going for you, but that doesn't mean your methods are going to work for anyone else.

(And if we're going to talk about "things people should stop doing so they have more available time for writing"... you've got 24K posts on a writers' board! Shouldn't you have been spending that time writing, instead?)

Jamesaritchie said:

But, for that matter, I think reviews are the biggest bunch of nonsense out there, regardless of who writes them. Who cares what any reviewer has to say. It matters not one bit.

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Have you let Amazon know about all the money and bandwidth they are wasting on something that doesn't matter a bit and has no impact on anyone?

The only reviews I've ever cared about are those my reading friends give me in the form of, "You HAVE to read this book."

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That's great for you. There are other people who are not you who read books also.

Let's keep comments focused on the content of posts, and not on the person posting, please.

Jamesaritchie said:

But, for that matter, I think reviews are the biggest bunch of nonsense out there, regardless of who writes them. Who cares what any reviewer has to say. It matters not one bit.

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I agree and disagree with this. On one hand, I don't read a lot of reviews because they rarely change my mind about whether or not I want to read a book. If I think I'll like a book, I'll read it no matter what the reviews say and form my own opinion. Same with movies. I know my personal preferences far better than any of those reviewers do anyway.

On the other hand, on those rare occasions that I do read reviews, I read them because I'm unsure if I'll like a book, or I might be concerned about something content-related, and I need more information than has been given by the book jacket before I end up wasting my hard-earned cash on something I don't like. Therefore, I think book reviews have value for that purpose, if nothing else.

On the even rarer occasion that I've written a book review, I did it mostly because I wanted to show support for an author or book that I really liked. I do, however, try to write those views objectively and make equal mention of the pros and cons of the book itself without making any personal comments about the author.

I've rarely posted reviews for anything that are less than 3 stars. Not a member of any culture of squee here, but I don't tend to get very far into books that don't grab me, and I don't tend to feel good about writing reviews for books I didn't read very much of. So the rare bad review I write would be for a book that kept me going until I was pretty far in, then really dropped something on me that felt like a betrayal.

If I just lose interest and stop reading become something more interesting came along, then I probably don't feel strongly enough about it to write a review at all.

I like to believe I notice the difference between something simply not being my taste and being really badly done, though.

I don't really review books much. I have a movie and TV review blog that I write reviews for occasionally in my spare time, and my policy when it comes to that is that if I either really, really loved a movie or really, really hated it, I generally won't review it. I figure if I have that strong of a reaction, I may be too biased to write a fair review.

And honestly, since I write reviews as a hobby, I have no real interest in watching and reviewing movies that look terrible. Occasionally I enjoy watching movies that are "so bad they're good," but that's not the focus of my review blog.

In the world of professional reviewing (magazines, newspapers, to the extent they still exist, and the like), it's quite common for authors to review other authors, in or outside their genre. I know a guy who is both the main book reviewer for a popular magazine and a best-selling novelist. Yes, conflicts of interest happen, and writers get pissed at other writers because of reviews. But no one is suggesting, as that blog post does, that writers and reviewers have distinct "brands" that don't mix.

While I see what she's getting at, I derive part of my livelihood from writing book and movie reviews. I've seen firsthand that it's hard for my employer to find someone who's willing to write book reviews and can do it quickly, clearly and efficiently. I would consider avoiding books in my genre once my own book is out, but I've never considered stopping.

Granted, while my reviews aren't always positive, they're more diplomatic and less blunt than Amazon or Goodreads reviews would be.

As for whether we should care enough to have reviews at all -- well, many publications have stopped printing them, yes, to the dismay of many authors. Reviews are how I find out about new lit fic I want to read. As a reader, I value them.

I think there are different mindful, principled ways that authors may (or may not) function as reviewers. Like many things, there is not just one correct approach.