As authors, the more we put ourselves and our books out there, the more we subject ourselves to criticism. In fact, we even ask for it. A major method of promoting our books is to solicit book reviews. If your book is at Amazon.com and it is doing well, Amazon helps you out by asking your readers to comment about your book. If you buy books (and other items) through Amazon, you\u2019ve probably received emails from them saying, \u201cHow many stars would you give such-and-such a book (or item)?\u201d<\/p>\n
And this is a good thing, right? Sure! Except for the fact that you don\u2019t know what sort of response you\u2019ll get from the reader or the reviewers you contact. One possibility is the \u201cbook report.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some readers don\u2019t know the difference between a review (a critique\u2014a personal opinion) and a book report (a summary of the book). You don\u2019t need reviewers to summarize your story; you\u2019ve done that in your book description at Amazon. What you\u2019re seeking is the reviewer\u2019s impressions\u2014their evaluation of the book.<\/p>\n
I had a reviewer (probably a reader) give one of my Klepto Cat Mysteries a 5-star rating recently and, in her accompanying comments, she revealed one of the main mysteries in the book. In the story, I carefully and purposefully keep readers in the dark about one of the mysteries until the 80% mark. But one reviewer felt it was her duty to expose this mystery thread to my reading public. What\u2019s up with that?<\/p>\n
Rather than a critique or impression of this book, she wrote a summary, including a fact that was carefully hidden until the last ten pages of the book.<\/p>\n
Have any of you had a similar experience? Maddening, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As authors, the more we put ourselves and our books out there, the more we subject ourselves to criticism. In fact, we even ask for it. A major method of promoting our books is to solicit book reviews. If your book is at Amazon.com and it is doing well, Amazon helps you out by asking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t