Have you read an indie or self-published book from the Kindle store recently? You should review it! Other Kindle readers will thank you, you’ll be famous (at least to that author), and you’ll be doing the entire Kindle community a huge public service.
In my daily trawling through Amazon’s Kindle store, I’m constantly coming across indie and self-published titles. Sometimes they look abysmal and I wish their authors well and click over to another page. But sometimes they catch my eye, either because of a well-designed cover (which is rare, sadly), or a compelling title, or a tightly written product description.
Now usually this is the point where I jump to the reviews and start skimming to get an idea of the book’s tone, sophistication, entertainment value, and so on.
Not so with indie and self-pubbed titles; more often than not I hit a blank review section, or a couple of reviews that are so effusive and exlamatory that they seem written by relatives and writing group friends.
Big publishers and the people who love them frequently argue that the indie/self-publishing world doesn’t work because there are no gatekeepers. Any old dreck can be pushed out to the Kindle store and sold for 99 cents. And they’re right, sadly, which you can see for yourself by drilling down to any random category on the Kindle store and sorting by price, low to high.
But that description is unfair because it paints with too broad a stroke. There are some terrific works out there waiting to be discovered by readers. They’d be easier to find if readers left good reviews–and not so good ones, if that’s called for–on the pages for these smaller titles.
If you’ve been following the daily deals I post in the sidebar, you might have noticed that I tend to focus a lot on indie and self-published works. That’s because they’re more likely to be bargain-priced, but also because I want to help readers discover new writers who aren’t going through the old fashioned big-business channels.
So please write reviews. Your honest opinions will help all of us make smarter decisions about what to read next.
(Photo: longhorndave)
Why your book reviews are important
Have you read an indie or self-published book from the Kindle store recently? You should review it! Other Kindle readers will thank you, you’ll be famous (at least to that author), and you’ll be doing the entire Kindle community a huge public service.
In my daily trawling through Amazon’s Kindle store, I’m constantly coming across indie and self-published titles. Sometimes they look abysmal and I wish their authors well and click over to another page. But sometimes they catch my eye, either because of a well-designed cover (which is rare, sadly), or a compelling title, or a tightly written product description.
Now usually this is the point where I jump to the reviews and start skimming to get an idea of the book’s tone, sophistication, entertainment value, and so on.
Not so with indie and self-pubbed titles; more often than not I hit a blank review section, or a couple of reviews that are so effusive and exlamatory that they seem written by relatives and writing group friends.
Big publishers and the people who love them frequently argue that the indie/self-publishing world doesn’t work because there are no gatekeepers. Any old dreck can be pushed out to the Kindle store and sold for 99 cents. And they’re right, sadly, which you can see for yourself by drilling down to any random category on the Kindle store and sorting by price, low to high.
But that description is unfair because it paints with too broad a stroke. There are some terrific works out there waiting to be discovered by readers. They’d be easier to find if readers left good reviews–and not so good ones, if that’s called for–on the pages for these smaller titles.
If you’ve been following the daily deals I post in the sidebar, you might have noticed that I tend to focus a lot on indie and self-published works. That’s because they’re more likely to be bargain-priced, but also because I want to help readers discover new writers who aren’t going through the old fashioned big-business channels.
So please write reviews. Your honest opinions will help all of us make smarter decisions about what to read next.
(Photo: longhorndave)