So. Reviews have become critical to authors and many readers - and perhaps they always were except that they never had the reach they have now by various means of social media. Among Amazon, goodreads, multiple blogs specifically designed for reviewing novels, authors literally beg their readers to post reviews of their work wherever they can, wherever they have a presence on social media. Why? Because without those reviews propping up our work, no one gets the recognition they need to sell books - electronic or otherwise.
Attention is very difficult to garner among literally millions of authors competing for the reading dollars. That's no exaggeration. If you're a numbers/percentages junkie, check the link. This makes the marketing factor each author succumbs to, in all of its varieties and forms, important to making potential readers aware of what they've written in their given genres.
Many years ago now I remember writing a post about not wanting or choosing to review novels. Well, that proved to be short-sighted at best. If you would've told me then that I'd most likely be posting at least one review per week, I would've laughed and scoffed or huffed or . . . you get the picture. That attitude adjustment is always humbling.
I do reviews now here on this old blog for two reasons, and they are in their significant order of importance: to share my opinions of particular novels and, frankly, to fill a post. Believe it or not, I have chosen not to review some of the books I've read because I didn't like the story, the writing, the genre, and/or the overuse of clichés. It does nothing to help an author to rip a book to shreds when hundreds or thousands of other readers might possibly love it. We've been over how subjective reviews can be and how disgusting I find the scathing one-star reviewers who can't simply admit they didn't care for the book because it wasn't their style, preference, favorite genre, or whatever.
If I read a novel and like it, I will review it here. If I see it has few reviews on Amazon after I've read it, I will also post it there. Otherwise, if I see it has good representation on Amazon, I'll just leave it here.
I still rarely read reviews of novels I invest in until after I've read the book. It's only if I'm really hesitant about starting a novel by an unknown-to-me author that I might peek at the dispersal of the stars in the ratings at Amazon and decide if I want to read what the lower star posters had to say about it.
I concede the value of reviews for many readers plays a huge part in the selection of the stories they choose. Which is why the reviewing process has become so critical for those of us who write novels.
Father, you own the stories I write. Apart from you, I can do nothing. All good and perfect gifts come from you. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.