I'm blogging again which is actually a surprise to me as I haven't used this in such a long time and yet twice in a week I'm using it to talk about serious topics. But hey, at least I'm blogging.
So I was recently incensed about this issue after I saw someone talking about how someone felt entitled to an author's work without pay and how they were trying to pirate and how "authors make enough money!" etc. and well all of that is horrible and not true.
But it did get me thinking about something I hate.
I'm going to turn my attention on reviewers - now hold the flaming torches and delay the lynch mob for just a second. This blog isn't directed at ALL reviewers because I have many, many friends who are reviewers and without them, we authors wouldn't gain as much traction as we do.
But there is a group of reviewers who get me all flustered (no, not the ones who give me bad reviews - I love you guys! You make me better :D) and those reviewers are the ones who I'm going to be talking about.
I'm sure most/all authors are familiar with the practice of giving a reviewer a novel, for free, in exchange for an honest review.
It's fairly common, after all, because buying a novel is like...taking a small gamble akin to playing the lottery. You could spend 0.99 to $5.99 on a book and can either hate it or really really love it to the point where the author becomes one of your new favorite authors. I.E. you waste money or hit the jackpot. So an author giving a reviewer a free novel in exchange for an honest review helps circumvent that a bit because they're not taking a chance / wasting anything on their part, they just gain a free novel they may love and it's the author who stands to gain/lose on that exchange.
Except, there are some people/reviewers who take the novel and agree to do an honest review yet...never do. And those are the ones who upset me.
I can understand if life happens/things come up, but I mean...you could always ping the author and say "yeah, I couldn't review this because so and so happened, etc."
But to simply agree to do something and then not do it (after getting something for free, mind you) just really grinds my gears.
As I said earlier - reviews are SUPER IMPORTANT to an author's success. Without reviews, a novel will probably not sell well because there's no word of mouth to help it reach people.
And there's a vast difference between "here, take this book and if you like it, review it!" vs. "here take this book in exchange for an honest review" the former, there's no obligation but the later, I feel like there is and I feel like not following through is kind of a crappy thing to do.
To all the reviewers that do your thing and review hundreds of books a month, keep your promises, and help authors everywhere soar because of your brilliant opinions - keep doing you and you guys are awesome. <3
I apologize in advance if this offends anyone but it's my honest opinion.
And with that, I bid you farewell!
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