October has been a month of spectacular events. This month I attended
a wonderful weekend conference hosted by the BRAB Online Book club. BRAB-
Building Relationships Around Books organized the Southern Readers Retreat-A
Literary Affair in Roswell, GA just outside Atlanta.
There were lots of
exciting sessions put in place over the weekend. One of my favorites was the
Author Panel on Saturday morning. I love taking part in Q&A sessions and
this one ranked right up there with the best. Panel authors fielded loads of
questions from a fun and highly engaged audience. Readers queried the authors
on everything from what they read when they aren't writing to how they select
names for their unforgettable characters.
One of the more
interesting questions for me focused in on book reviews. Attendees wanted to
know what authors think of them. I decided to pass the mic on that particular
question. Over the years, I've been rather vocal about my indifference to
reviews-as an author. As a reader however, my opinion is quite different and
therein lays the purpose of this blog.
As a reader, I find
reviews to be a great help. I don't really rely on them to help me make the
decision to purchase a certain book though. Instead, I refer to them when I'm
already in the process of reading a story and wondering what's wrong with me
because I'm not in agreement that it's a 5-star piece of work. Reading reviews
with lower ratings, let's me know I'm not alone in my opinion and therefore not
off my rocker- not completely anyway :-)
The most exciting part
of the answers given for this question however, involved the power of the
reviews. I learned that the 'power' of a review wasn't so much in the number of
stars associated with it, but in the number of reviews a book has overall. More
reviews increases a book's discoverability- this term gets tossed around a lot
in my line of work. Basically, it means just what is says. A review increases a
books potential to be found by a reader. As a librarian I gotta appreciate
that! As a writer, I love it all the more. Do you have any idea how many great
books there are that no one knows about simply because it hasn't generated a enough reviews? So sad! :-(
I can honestly say
that I took in as much information as I gave during this year's BRAB Conference. It makes me eager to attend next year's event- Vegas, Baby!
Looks like those
reviews (good or bad) that I'm so indifferent to, are really a huge help.
This author still
prefers the good ones, though :-)
I prefer the good ones, as well! Sounds like a great conference. I hadn't heard of this event before. Gotta be sure to look this one up.
ReplyDeleteI recently spoke on this in my author newsletter. Reviews are just a tool that some readers use to make buying decisions. As an authkr I appreciate the reviews, good or bad, but I don't dwell on them.
ReplyDelete