This summer I took my love of reading to the next level. I decided to start reviewing books. There are 4 reasons I decided to do this. First, in the past I left reviews for very few books. Previously I only left one review for a book that I did not know the author* (more about the * in a bit). In this case it was because the grammar and spellings errors were so prolific that it was almost impossible to finish the book. I would literally have to put the book down at times because I was so frustrated. Maybe it's the teacher in me, but really people, if you're going to write professionally, get someone to proofread your book before you publish it!
Secondly, when deciding on whether or not to purchase a book (or even download a free book), I first read the book description. A lot of times, this is enough for me to decide whether or not I want to read the book. (Look, I don't have a lot of free time during the school year, so I want to make sure that the books I'm reading are worth being read.) Sometimes however, even after reading the book description, I may still be undecided. If that is the case, the next step is to look at the ratings the book has received. If there are any low ratings, I want to know why. So I then read the reader reviews that gave the lowest ratings. What was it the reviewer didn't like about the book? If the reasons, seem petty or unreasonable, I read some of the reviews that gave the book a high rating. At this point I know have enough information to make my final decision, and decide whether or not to take a chance on the book.
The third reason I decided to start posting reviews for books has to do with that asterisk (*) I mentioned earlier. Remember how I said I used to not post a review unless I knew the author? Well, my baby sister is an author. I'm so proud of her and I really think she's an amazing author. And before you say, "Well of course you think that, she's your sister" let me say I don't think the fact that she's my sister has any bearing on my opinion of her talent (OK, maybe it has a tiny bit of influence). But seriously, she's a great author. I mean it, really she is! Anyway, when she first made it onto Amazon's website, the reviews left by her readers made it possible for her to make it onto their top 100 best sellers list. Since this is where I go to find the books I read, I know how important this is to an author. So of course I was going to review my sister's books.
The fourth and final reason that I decided to do this and the reason for this page is because I recently found out that authors will send you free copies of their book in exchange for an honest review. What?!? Free books?? I'm all over that! With the amount of books that I read, free is very important to me. And honestly, I've read some really awesome free books. I've found a few websites that have helped me in my search for free books. Maybe I'll create another post about these websites since this post has already gotten too long. Happy Reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment