I have a love affair with the written word. Ever since I can remember I have loved reading. No wonder I became a librarian and almost all my career choices since then have had to do with books and words. One of my greatest joys is to write book reviews.

I write reviews, not only to give my honest feedback as a reader, but also as a way to help fellow readers and authors.

How Reviews Benefit Authors

• Book reviews increase the visibility of an author’s book.  This is great for marketing purposes. Of course, if a ‘bad book’ gets glowing reviews, this can have a negative impact on you as a reviewer. If you want to be taken seriously as a book reviewer, you need to be honest and objective when writing your reviews.

• Increased sales: Contrary to what some people believe, most writers do not make a lot of money from their books. So, helping to get the word out about a book will help to generate sales. The best thing you can do for writers whose work you enjoy is to write reviews of their books.

• It helps them know what is good about their writing styles and what may need refining. For example, some authors are great at painting scenes with words but they change POV (point of views) too often, causing confusion to the reader.

Other Uses for Book Reviews

• Of course, a book review is also a service to readers. For some reviewers this is the main reason for writing a book review. The review serves to let readers know what the book is about and what works or doesn’t work.

• As a former librarian, book reviews helped me greatly in making buying decisions. This was true whether I was buying nonfiction or academic books or fiction novels. As an academic librarian, one thing I was vigilant about when reading book reviews was whether an index was mentioned.

• Book reviews can also be an indication of what genre of books are selling well. Granted, some book reviewers focus on just one category such as romance novels or business books.

I buy lots of books, so I also need to find ways to maintain my budget. One way is through Book Depository. This company ships worldwide and has great discounts on their books. This is one of the reasons why when I was looking for affiliate programs, I decided to go with them.

Note: This post was proofread by Grammarly.