Monday, April 21, 2008

More Review Ranting

Yes, I know. I once again want to state for the record that everyone has the absolute right to feel or write whatever they want about a book. And I can only imagine how hard it would be to be an author to watch people put negative reviews about your books on a widely used website. And certainly as an author, your opinion of your book, is as valid as anyone else's. But to give yourself a five star review stating, "Hey, it's my book and I like it," makes it look like your just trying to boost the stars. Certainly as an author it would not be good form to start a flame war or even a discussion about the book in a product review format. (And apparently some authors have done that, so I guess this is better.) But I don't know - something still seems weird about it. Perhaps I should be thrilled. After all the person was totally up front about who they were. Certainly it wouldn't be a huge stretch to imagine someone at some point in time has a created a handle that disguised their identity so they could go give their books a good review. And yes, I do sometimes wonder why I even read these things.