Appendix A: Become a Helpful Book Reviewer

Appendix A:

Become a Helpful Book Reviewer

 Be wiser than other people if you can, but do not tell them so.

— Lord Chesterfield

Realizing that many people who read this book first learned about me through my Amazon.com book reviews, I wanted to provide some advice for those who would like to become helpful book reviewers. This description continues the eight-step process evaluation of book reviewing that I began in Chapter 6.

Imagine Ideal Reviews

Step Five: Identify the Ideal Best Practice

— Donald Mitchell, Carol Coles, and Robert Metz in The 2,000 Percent Solution

People differ about what they prefer to see in a book review. Yet it’s not practical to write lots of different reviews for the same book. How can you address as many peoples’ needs as possible in one review?

If you have great trust in a reviewer whose taste you like, “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” might be enough information to choose a book. But few of us know a reviewer whose tastes clone ours. Even if we did, it would be good sometimes to know why a book is appealing, especially when public opinion doesn’t agree with the reviewer’s conclusion. Is the book funny? Does it teach you something you need to know? Are the characters interesting?

I’ve often thought that one approach to ideal reviews would be to create an elaborate alphanumerical rating system that describes a book along a number of dimensions denoted by various numbers and letters. Those who were interested in a reviewer’s opinions would become familiar with the rating scheme. Then the review itself could be quite condensed and might look something like this: “5S, 14Q, 99Y, 10C, 12B, 47X, 6M, 59PDQ.” The rating scheme would be more valuable for readers if they could learn more about a book’s qualities through a quantified scale. Such a rating scheme might be even more useful if added to a regular review for those who want to know the nuances. Perhaps someday I’ll provide such a rating system for my reviews. There’s a disincentive to do that now for prior reviews because Amazon.com would wipe all the votes on the prior version of the review, and as a result many of my reviews would be buried forever from readers’ eyes. If I do adopt this rating approach, I’ll probably just apply it to new reviews.

Brevity is normally a virtue in writing but can be a drawback when people are curious. An ideal review might have few words, but allow you to click on highlighted elements of the review to get a few more paragraphs or sentences of detail on that particular point. Changes in Amazon.com’s software are required before reviewers will be able to provide that pleasant combination of brevity and detail.

If readers don’t know a reviewer, they can look up something about the reviewer. Amazon.com allows you to do that by clicking on the reviewer’s name to see a brief self-profile. However, those profiles may not contain all the reviewer’s relevant experiences. How can you encapsulate a life into a thousand words? There is more a reader should want to know. If someone who has been a fire marshal tells you that a book is the best in its field for fire prevention, readers will appreciate the views more if they know that reviewer’s background and pay more attention to that opinion than if, say, a sportswriter crafts a similar review. A good reviewer should include such qualifications in the review itself.

Inexpert experience with the book’s subject can also be relevant. For instance, if I’ve prepared every recipe in a cookbook and comment on my cooking experiences in the review, that’s more helpful to readers than if a reviewer just reads the recipes and comments on them. However, if the person who doesn’t prepare the recipes is someone who writes excellent cookbooks, we might feel that they could make sound observations based on life experience even without book-specific experience. For these reasons, reviewers need to describe their backgrounds and experience with the book in question to be the most helpful.

Of course, the main job of a reviewer is to state the essence of the book. For a nonfiction book, I think of this description as being like providing a helicopter tour. During a helicopter tour you can see the outlines of everything, but you cannot grasp the detail unless you fly close to the ground. The reviewer should help the reader appreciate the experience and benefits of reading the nonfiction book without revealing all of the finely tuned details, but leaving no major surprises about the subjects covered and the approach.

For giving the flavor of a novel in a review, the movie trailer is the right analogy for the reviewer’s task. A good movie trailer parachutes you into the story’s premise, grips you with the circumstances, and leaves you with a desire to find out what happens next. However, the movie trailer approach to reviewing is more difficult to accomplish than the nonfiction helicopter tour. One problem is that there’s already the equivalent of a movie trailer out there: the book’s dust jacket or cover copy. A reviewer doesn’t want to repeat what’s in that. However, the publisher’s promotional copy is often misleading and may actually contain errors. I’m always surprised when I find significant errors, but it happens more often than you would expect. It’s fair game to reveal at least as much as the promotional copy does. Interestingly, publishers and authors often include spoilers. The reviewer can warn readers to avoid those spoilers and do a good deed.

In addition to capturing the essence of the story, it’s valuable to give a feeling for the emotions that a reader will experience. Many readers want to climb inside the story and take on the role of one of the characters. What will that be like? Getting that sense of identification across is often more helpful to a prospective reader than a full outline of the plot would be for a student who wants to write an essay on a book he or she hasn’t read. As a result, it’s a good idea for reviewers to capture the drama, humor, sadness, or excitement that they felt when reading the book.

Samples are a good idea, too. A good writer can be quoted to show style. Bad writers can be cited to show why their work is irritating. Many nonfiction authors offer lists of proposals or advice you should follow. Getting a sense of what’s on those lists before you see the book can be helpful to your reading decision. If you discover that you already know those lessons, how much will you gain by reading the book?

Comparisons can be powerful, especially when based on common references. Most Americans have read parts of a few books such as the Bible or novels like Little Women and Tom Sawyer. If a new book is compared to one of those well-read books, a lot of added information is communicated.

If a new book is the ninth in a series, it’s good to know how the book compares to the other eight. Here’s an important related point: Reviewers should write about each book in a series unless it’s a dreadful series. Otherwise, readers lack guidance on how to proceed. Should they always start at the first book and follow in chronological order of publication? That often works, but some authors have shifted their series around so that other reading orders make more sense. Can you skip a bad book in a series? Sometimes you can if fiction is involved, and no major developing in the ongoing story line of characters occurs. That information can save a slow reader dozens of hours of laboring through a wretched book.

Generally, three kinds of books provide the biggest reviewing challenges: books that are so bad that virtually no one should read them; books that are average; and books so outstanding that everyone should read them. How do you get those points across so that people behave accordingly? It’s quite a challenge. I’ve seen books that were just awful and mostly got one and two star views (one star is the lowest grade available on Amazon.com and five stars is the highest). If the awful book was written by a famous author, strong sales will keep the book near the top of the best-seller list unless this is the sixth bad book in a row by that author. Seemingly no one can believe that all of these reviewers have gotten it right when a well-known author stumbles. I find that the Amazon.com reviewer opinions about a current book are more likely to be accurate than the public’s perceptions of the writer’s ability based on prior books.  

Likewise, for remarkably good books many readers are skeptical of extreme praise. Is the author the reviewer’s cousin? There are no rules of disclosure on these issues, but readers would benefit if there were. There appears to be a lot of review padding going on for books on Amazon.com. My impression is that the bulk of the customer reviews are written by the author’s family and friends when the book has weak sales.

Ordinary books present a different reviewing problem. While average books are what fill readers’ hands, many readers associate a book being rated average with being bad. Some average books can be great fun to read and provide much satisfaction. After all, if average books provided bad reading experiences, why would so many people read average books? So within the average range, there’s quite a variety of how delightful your experience will be. You should want to know which average books are the most rewarding.

I could go on, but hopefully I’ve conveyed enough to help you appreciate some of the things a good book reviewer should be keeping in mind for writing an ideal review. Invariably, new dimensions of reviewing challenges are presented with each new book that is read.

Trying to Write Ideal Reviews: Act Like a Trusted Friend

Step Six: Pursue the Ideal Best Practice

— Donald Mitchell, Carol Coles, and Robert Metz in    The 2,000 Percent Solution

Many people tell me that writing reviews terrifies them. What if someone doesn’t like what you write? I have comforting information for you: Amazon.com has two buttons you should learn about, “edit” and “delete.” Those buttons are just like Dumbo’s magic feather: They can give you confidence. If everyone dumps on your review, you can edit or delete it on Amazon.com with just a click. What’s more, Amazon.com will also delete all of the helpful and not helpful votes you’ve received on the review if you decide to edit it: You get a fresh start for your revised review whenever you want.

That being said, let’s get ready to start. Put yourself into a calm state of mind before beginning. If you’re having a bad day or just got the biggest promotion of your life, wait awhile before writing the review. Otherwise, your mood will be reflected in the review more than the book’s realities.

Be sure you know what you think before starting. Sometimes it takes a few days for my views to settle down about a book. If my thoughts are shifting, I wait to write a review. After all, we aren’t subject to a newspaper’s daily deadline. More considered reviews are almost always better reviews.

Start by expressing your overall feeling about the book in a brief sentence or two. That information may be enough for some people to know the book is or isn’t right for them. Such a conclusion is especially likely if readers have seen a lot of your reviews and found your opinions often coincide with their views. In your opening, mention who the ideal reader is and who will dislike the book the most. Include any unique perspective you bring to the book such as your education, subject-specific experience, or application of the book’s messages.

Now write a beginning paragraph for the review as though the brief sentence or two opening didn’t exist. Warn people early on in the review about anything extreme in the book, especially sexual content, violence, foul language, pro- and antireligious elements, and controversial views. For many readers, these extreme elements help them decide whether to read or not. Fail to alert your readers along these lines and you may have led some into a bad experience.

After the beginning paragraph, outline the book’s contents (for a nonfiction book) or describe the setup (for a fiction book). For nonfiction books, try to write enough so that the reader will understand the main message and how it is structured. For novels, give the reader a feeling for the tension and movement in the story without revealing what’s going to happen (except for possibly including what the author and publisher have already revealed). If some of the characters will be more interesting to readers than others, describe those characters and capture their appeal in your review.

Give a sense of how valid and useful the book is if it’s nonfiction and how true and strongly it rings if fiction. Cite examples and relate your reasoning when you do. Publishers don’t check on books very much any more (if they ever did). A lot of writing gets into print today that should have been deleted by a knowledgeable editor. Generally, the more successful an author is, the less editing will be done. That’s a shame. I’ve seen many authors go from great to bad as a result of virtually nonexistent editing.

Highly specialized nonfiction books present a special problem: There’s probably no editor working for a publisher who knows enough to check the content. University presses deal with this challenge by having peer reviews by scholars in the field who make suggestions for improvements. Commercial publishers mostly ignore the problem. About twice a year a commercial publisher will contact me to check out a book proposal or manuscript before editing. I’m always happy to see such responsible actions, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

If the nonfiction subject is highly specialized and I don’t know the area, I’ll avoid reviewing the book. My comments would just mislead someone. Authors have a hard time understanding that point. They are often disappointed when I decline to review their book for that reason. But it’s better to disappoint an author than to write a misleading review.

How can you tell if a book rings true or not? Think about whether you experienced the story as though you were living in it from the beginning … or whether something about the writing kept jarring you back into the room to remind you that you were just reading a book. The worst fiction, of course, never allows you to leave your current life and room to enter the story at all.

This criterion brings up a problem for fiction reviewers. If you don’t like a genre, I argue that you shouldn’t review books in that genre. Your experience with the book will not be typical of those who enjoy the genre. For instance, vampire books have no place in my reviewing because I have no interest in them, but such books are popular with many fiction readers. How in the world could I hope to focus on the right things about the book to help someone else know if they would like it? It’s like a Tibetan trying to read and review a book written in Spanish about bull fighting.

Provide as many points of comparison as you can without belaboring any specific point. For a nonfiction book, you might compare a book to the best of others in the field (if you know them), prior books by the same author, and what someone probably needs to know who wants to address the issues considered by the author. If there are remedies to any weaknesses (such as by reading a related book), by all means mention your ideas.

For a work of fiction, you have the option to characterize a book by referencing other books that deal with similar subjects having parallel styles. For instance, a novel about a fishing adventure might be described as being Moby-Dick without the factual chapters and written in the style of The Old Man and the Sea.

Sum up your perspective at the end of the review in another brief sentence or two that expresses your sentiments consistently, but differently, from the beginning. Why? Many people read reviews backwards and will begin with your ending. Others may have been confused by the various points along the way and will benefit from being reminded of your overall view.

Check your writing to see if you’ve kept it as brief and simple as you can. My first draft can usually be chopped down by 100 to 150 words in just a few minutes. Most of my Amazon.com readers seem to like reviews that are 400 to 700 words long and employ about a 9th to 11th grade reading level. Your audience may be different, and you should adjust accordingly. Be flexible in your length and content. Sometimes a challenging book can barely be commented on in 1,000 words, while a poorly constructed effort may only need a few words to aptly convey its shortcomings. A simply written book deserves an even more simply written review. A complex writing style deserves more detailed writing to help alert the readers to what’s coming if they choose the book.

In editing my review, I like to be sure that I’ve said something interesting in the review that stimulates thinking beyond the book’s covers. A stimulating inclusion might be writing a sentence that provides a new metaphor that people can use to think about all books in the category (“Dr. Goldsmith reveals what he usually finds in such detail that you'll see your shadow spread out across the pavement in front of you.”). Another point of interest could be noticing a new way to use the book that could enhance your quality of life (“If you have two teenaged children who frequently don't show up for meals, this cookbook would also work well for you. When the kids are home you use the recipes for four . . . and switch the more interesting recipes for two when the kids have left the nest.”). An important substantive point might be included to help readers orient themselves to the subject (“My own view is that successful companies need only be adept at continual business model innovation, a task that isn't included by the author in what leaders need to be doing. The omission isn't surprising; CEOs have limited roles in defining and creating new business models.”).

Now go back and read the major reviews and better online customer reviews. See if you’ve left something out that should be addressed. Be sure to add this element to your review if many people are getting something wrong (from your point of view).

Learn to be a patient writer and let the review sit for a day or two before you publish it. Today’s “great” writing always looks sketchy tomorrow. Your prose will look even worse after two days. Time helps heal the wounds in our writing by letting us see the words more objectively. Rewriting goes faster and produces better results if you allow more time to pass and your writing passion to cool before beginning.

As a final disaster check, read your review aloud. Fix anything that sounds awkward. After all, you are trying to have a conversation with someone you want to think of you as a trusted friend. Be sure you sound fluid and friendly.

Picking Books to Read and Review

Step Seven: Identify the Right People and Provide the Right Motivation.

— Donald Mitchell, Carol Coles, and Robert Metz in    The 2,000 Percent Solution

It’s one thing to realize that you can do great things for people by reading and reviewing books; it’s another thing to act on that impulse. You can enjoy an easier start and gain faster feedback about your reviews if you first write about great books you’ve already read. You won’t have to feel awkward about telling others about a book you think is great. After all, if someone would benefit from reading this book, your experience with the book and opinion could make an important difference in encouraging readership.

From writing about great books everyone would love, you’ll probably remember some wonderful books you’ve enjoyed that would be well worth a reader’s time if only the reader knew how to interact with the book in the right way. Review those books next and explain your ideas about ideal reading methods for those books. Works by Marcel Proust, James Joyce, and William Faulkner come to mind as being rewarding for readers who receive the right reading instructions. For example, Proust is best read in bed when you will have few distractions. Reading Faulkner aloud or listening to an audio recording makes quite a difference in your comprehension of and pleasure in the writing. With Joyce, you have to be sure you read a corrected version of Ulysses; the printer made a mess of the original text.

When you are feeling more confident about reviewing, pick out some bad books you’ve read that were published recently and review those. Don’t wait too long to review bad books. Once the poor quality is finally accepted among readers, few people will be interested in reading reviews of those books, and you won’t gain much feedback on your reviewing style.

Next, take on some average, but newly published, popular books that you’ve already read. Point out the good and bad elements, and let a balance develop in your reviews that’s richer than simply plugging or condemning a book.

You’ll eventually be ready to cross the Rubicon and choose a book you haven’t read before to read and review. That will seem like a big step, and so it is. You are going to invest a lot of time (and possibly some money) before you can write a review. You’ll probably feel more motivated if you start with authors you like. Pick some of their best-known, more recent works you’ve missed. Most of your choices will be books you’ll enjoy, and you’ll probably start spending more time reading than you used to. That’s good.

If you are unsure of which book to choose, there are two paths that make sense. For nonfiction works stick to subjects that fascinate you. For novels, collections of short stories, and poetry, borrow from the library audio versions of several books that might interest you and give each one a 20-minute tryout. Audios make it easier to quickly grasp the best aspects of a imaginative works, especially if they are author readings. You might be surprised that I’m suggesting libraries to you, but it makes good economic and reading sense. Otherwise, you’ll have to lay out a hundred dollars just to check out some audio books, many of which you may not want to listen to after all.

Here’s how a library can help you avoid increasing your book-buying budget by several hundred dollars a year: Locate a library open to you that can order books from a large network of other libraries. Near my home in Massachusetts, for example, is a tiny, but well-run, town library. If I browsed the shelves there as my sole source of free books and audio books, I’d be in trouble. Fortunately, this library is linked to dozens of other larger libraries in our area. I can order books on Monday and most will arrive at my local library by the following week. Even better, my library has a brilliant reference librarian who can usually persuade some library outside of our network to mail us a copy for me to read. Still better, if all else fails in satisfying my request and the book is in print, our library will usually buy a copy and I’ll be the first person allowed to borrow the copy. Best of all, I can do all of this ordering online or by telephone. I pick up the new books whenever I drop off the old ones. I get a daily e-mail telling me what’s in for me to pick up and I plan my trips accordingly.

This acquisition process may sound a little daunting to you, but it shouldn’t. Libraries need to show usage or officials cut back their budgets. As a result, any library worth its salt is happy to show you how to work with them to get you the books you crave. Plus, you’ll make a lot of new friends with the library staff with whom you can discuss books and receive helpful suggestions.

By now you may be ready for the best-seller list. After all, lots of people want to read best sellers or they wouldn’t buy so many copies. Surely some of the authors will appeal to you if you give them a try. Here’s a hint: You can probably use standard browsing techniques to check out best sellers in advance. Almost all book stores and libraries have a section for new best sellers. Take one of the volumes down from the shelf, find a comfortable chair, read the blurb, and if all looks good, continue on by reading the first 20 or 30 pages. Most chain book stores and more and more libraries offer attractive seating areas where you can relax with a cup of coffee and a snack while you browse. How bad can that experience be? Such browsing can be a pleasant way to spend part of your lunch hour during the work day or to make a relaxing transition before going home after work.

If you’ve done a good job with your reviewing and let readers know how to contact you, you’ll soon be receiving offers of new books to review. Generally, the books will be sent to you for free, and you have no obligation to read and review them. Authors and publishes are hoping you’ll take a look, like what you see, and want to write a positive review. If that idea bothers you, don’t accept review copies or do send back copies of books you don’t like. In my case, I grill authors and publishers pretty thoroughly before I let them send a review copy. Otherwise, my house would look like a book warehouse (which it almost does anyway).

From there, think about what you really want to do with your reading and reviewing. Set out a plan and enjoy yourself!

Part of the benefit from this activity is that you’ll become a better reader. You’ll be surprised by all the things you notice when you are also thinking about writing a review as you read a book.

If the idea of developing an audience appeals to you, it’s fair game to invite people to look at your reviews. Tell your friends you are writing reviews and let them know how to find your reviews. If you want feedback, tell them so. Amazon.com also has a feature that allows you to introduce yourself to other reviewers. If you find reviewers whose reviews you admire, you can link to them and check out what they are reading. Most reviewers are quite friendly about answering questions about reviewing. Amazon.com also has an active discussion board for people who want to discuss reviewing. In the process, you’ll find yourself with more things to discuss with more people.

Reexamine Reviewing

Step Eight: Repeat the First Seven Steps.

— Donald Mitchell, Carol Coles, and Robert Metz in    The 2,000 Percent Solution

Sometimes the results of your plan may turn out differently than you expected. When that occurs, it’s a good idea to go back through the steps I’ve outlined in this chapter to see what you should be doing instead.

Let me share with you my experience to give you a sense of why reexaminations of your purpose and methods are important. One of my original ideas was to inspire other online reviewers to improve what they were doing. I decided to do this in part through the discussion board about reviewing on Amazon.com. At the time, the discussion board was a new feature and was not moderated.

About once a month, I would post a question or pose a challenge with the idea of starting a constructive discussion about improving reviews. For a while that worked, but a backlash set in. Many people would write nasty comments about my question or challenge and make personal attacks on me. After posting such a question or challenge, my recent reviews would each receive dozens of “not helpful” votes and my books would be inundated with snide comments in the guise of reviews submitted by anonymous people. Discouraged by that negative reaction, I stopped participating in the discussion board. The attacks continued. I eventually stopped reviewing on Amazon.com for over a year. My plan at the time was to still review but to put up the reviews on other online sites.

That new direction turned out to be a bad plan. Why? First, only about one in ten of my reviews would be accepted at other sites while Amazon.com used all of my reviews. Second, I still got bad comments on my books that seemed to be related to a backlash against my earlier discussion board efforts.

What was my next plan? I asked Amazon.com to take down all of my reviews and they did. That low profile lasted for about a week before a company executive contacted me to insist that the reviews be restored. I was, however, given the option to make my reviews anonymous and I took that option. A funny thing happened: My reviews became much more popular after I stopped putting my name on them. From this I learned that my reviews were better than my image at the time with Amazon.com customers.

More than a year later I asked Amazon.com to take down my anonymous reviews, and they refused back in the days when you couldn’t delete your own reviews. However, Amazon.com’s representative did tell me that they were planning a number of changes (not all of which have occurred yet) that would make life easier for authors who wanted to review books on Amazon.com’s site. Taking those promises on faith, I left the reviews up and agreed to let my name again be associated with them. Things worked much better this time as long as I stayed away from the discussion board.

The only long-term harm of my withdrawal was that a few hundred of my reviews permanently disappeared. Oh, if I had only backed up all my reviews! Amusingly, I found myself back as the number two reviewer (which I had been before my name was deleted as author of my reviews) even though I hadn’t posted a new review in a long time.

The only remaining problem was that too many people were trying to get me to review their books. I could spend eight hours a day just speaking with and responding to these people. Most of the books weren’t appropriate for me. I needed some fast, logical way to cut down the requests. I hit on the idea of asking people who approached me to make donations to Habitat for Humanity. Initially, I asked for $50 to be donated, but that didn’t seem to slow things down enough. I kept raising the requested amount. At this writing, I charge $1,000 and still get more books to review this way than I would like. A friend of mine tells me that the price should be $2,000. Why so high? Forbes contacted me about my reviews in 2006 and interviewed several authors about the impact of my reviews. These authors reported that not only did their book sales soar after one of my reviews, but they also gained many additional paid speaking engagements and consulting assignments. If I can keep making my reviews better, perhaps someday I will be able to raise thousands of dollars every week for Habitat for Humanity. Eventually, I’ll shift the beneficiaries of these donations to include organizations that are advancing the purposes of the 400 Year Project. 

Copyright © 2007. 2012 by Donald Mitchell.