Reviews are not for Authors

I’ve noticed a pattern among my friends who are new authors.  They almost always start off reviewing books.  Even if they don’t write reviews for a review site, they write up what they think about the books they read and post them on Amazon or on Goodreads.  There’s a good reason why so many writers also write book reviews – it’s because, being writers, they a) read a lot and are excited by books and b) are interested in all those technical matters that go into making a book a good one.

Writers read voraciously and they pay attention to things like the strength of a book’s plot, characters and setting, because writing books has taught them the importance of such things.  They have learned to analyse how books are written, what’s a good technique and what isn’t, what works and what doesn’t, and why.  So really, with these qualities, authors must make ideal book reviewers, am I right?

( Read the rest of this entry » )

.