Should Authors Review Books On Amazon?

                Today I’m going to tackle a controversial, hot topic within the Indie Author world:  Should authors review books on Amazon?

                The answer to this question is deceptively easy.  Why not? Well, there are legions of indignant authors and readers ready to answer the question why not.  Their response to that question is a resounding absolutely not. 

                I was befuddled by this at first.  I mean, freedom of speech and all that.  Why should being an author take away your right to an opinion?  Then when I really got to thinking, I realized the naysayers had a point.  Mainly that once you become an author, your ability to offer an honest, critical review is vastly compromised.  You’ve peeked behind the curtain.  You can’t go back to being someone not in the know.

                I’ve spent some time considering how my own reviewing habits have changed.  I once regarded Amazon reviews as a giant book club, where we could swap opinions.  I would engage in dialogues in the comment sections about how I felt about a certain book, particularly if the book was bad.  House of Darkness, House of Light, a self-published novel that gives an eyewitness account of the events related in the hit horror movie The Conjuring, is one such book.  It was so laughably bad I spent countless hours reading reviews, commenting on other people’s reviews, and writing my own.  I wish I had all that wasted time back.

                My rating method back then was much harsher.  I’d drop a one-star review like it was nothing.  Like most frustrated writers who never produced a shred, I skewered authors for plot holes and unrealistic story lines and unlikable characters.  I could be particularly harsh and judgmental when it came to memoirs.  Granted, these were all traditionally published books, with thousands of reviews by the time I gave my two cents.  It was unlikely my one-star review buried among two hundred others were even read by readers, let alone the author. At least, that's what I thought.   But then…

                I had a woman personally write begging me to change my review.  I’d given the book a low rating because it had funny typos and formatting issues, but I’d said the book was engaging and interesting otherwise.  "This book was written by my late husband who meant everything to me," she wrote.  "I'm the one who formatted the E-book so the problems with it are my fault, please don’t punish his work for it.  You said you liked the book otherwise.”

                My heart leaped into my throat.  Never in a million years did I consider someone might  read my review and be upset by it.  I changed the rating to five stars and removed my complaints about the formatting, since she said she fixed it. 

                Next, I was shocked to discover a blog post addressing one of my reviews from an author I followed.  She’d written several memoirs.  The first one was pretty good, but the second was whiny, disjointed, and bad.  I gave my honest judgmental opinion, and she retaliated with a blog post detailing exactly how my words made her feel.  Meanwhile, this was a traditionally published author who had thousands of reviews and had been reviewed in magazines like Marie Claire.  It shocked me that my humble two-star review on Amazon was able to get to this woman.  That she’d read it and been disturbed enough to publicly address it. It was disconcerting.  My words weren’t supposed to have that kind of power. 

                Fast forward several years later, when I started getting my own bad reviews.  Like they say, karma’s a bitch, almost like those long-ago authors were lying in wait for the opportunity to do their own skewering.  The worst was when I’d just published Woman Scorned, and within a day or so (before I’d even sold a single copy or had a page read in my borrows section) a one-star review appeared calling my work “typo ridden, self-published garbage that reads like a first draft.”  Upset doesn’t even begin to cover how I felt.  It was like I’d been punched in the gut.  The fact that this person couldn’t possibly have read my book and was only saying that to deter people from buying it, only made it worse.  I couldn’t understand how people could be so mean and nasty to someone who’d spent hours laboring over something purely to bring others pleasure.  And with that, my perspective completely changed.  (Just as an aside, Amazon did eventually remove that awful review eight months later during one of its periodic fake review purges).

                I don’t give authors one or two star reviews anymore. 

                The reason for this is twofold.  First, as I stated previously, it’s hurtful to the author and I know firsthand how that feels, and I don’t see the point.  My goal is to bring positive energy into people’s lives.  Second, I simply don’t have the time anymore to read a bad book.  Besides being an author, I work a full-time day job and have a two and a half hour commute.  I snatch time to read during lunch breaks and the few minutes before falling asleep before bed.  If I’m not feeling a book within the first fifty or so pages, I discard it.  I pick up E-Books cheap on BookBub and various reading lists, so I no longer feel obligated to read a book through because I paid for it.  And I won’t write reviews on books I haven’t read all the way through, so there you have it.

                I’ve also softened my rating system.  Back in the day, I’d one or two star a book because I thought the ending sucked.  Now, if it kept my attention long enough to read to the end, it’s an automatic three stars, which is average.  Since becoming an author, I’ve been amused by those readers who give books one stars raving about how terrible it was.  One of my reviewers said, “I kept reading hoping it would get better, but it never did. “ Okay, my books are like, four hundred pages long.  You needed to read four hundred pages to decide a book was bad?  You have time to read an absolutely terrible four hundred page book when there are so many other books out there for free, or close to it?  Clearly, it wasn’t that bad.

                I’m also amused by the readers who continuously one and two star an author and then keep on reading their works.  I have to admit to being guilty of this.  I’ve customarily given Jody Piccoult bad reviews in the past, but that doesn’t stop me from picking up her latest.  Seriously, if she was such a bad writer, I wouldn’t keep buying her stuff.  Even if it really annoyed me that the guy in My Sister’s Keeper was driving a car when he has regular epileptic seizures, and no DMV would allow that individual to have a license.

                So yes, I now review books from a kinder, gentler perspective.

                Does that mean I’m no longer honest?

                People against authors reviewing authors feel that once you cross that publishing line, you cannot publish a review without weighing whether it’s in your own best interests.  I suppose that is true.  Although my Amazon username is a pseudonym, I have no doubt that someone really dedicated could trace that handle to me.  I am always cognizant of that when writing a review or rating a book.  Therefore, it’s become rare that I write reviews, and even rarer that I will write a bad review.  Like adults always told us when we were small, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it.

                However, as a reader, wasn’t my best interests subconsciously a part of my system of reviewing?  Look back, I admit, some of those one-star reviews were driven by jealousy.  I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but often my one-star reviews were written with I could write a book that is so much better than this dancing in the back of my head.  Except, I wasn’t writing a book that was better than that, and I knew if I did write a book, I had no way of knowing if it was better, and even if it was better, I had no assurance it would get published.  Thus, I was hard on other authors because I was frustrated.  They were doing something I really wanted to but wasn't.

                Also, back in those days I had no idea the amount of work that goes into writing a book.  Now, it’s become routine, so when I rattle off all the things writing a book entails only to have my audience staring at me wide-eyed, I’m like, what?  I forget that in the beginning, when I first started writing, it seemed like I’d undertaken a Herculean task.  Now it’s second nature.

                Amazon’s Terms of Service prohibits review swaps, which means an author giving another a review in order to get one in return.  However, they do not prevent authors from reviewing.  How do you feel?  Should authors be able to review another’s work?