Image From: http://www.businesspundit.com

As a reader, I do a lot of book reviews.  I didn’t used to, but in the past year I’ve discovered Goodreads, and I review all of the books that I read on my Kindle.  Reviews allow me to sing the praises of a book I really love and it allows me to vent when I’ve slugged my way through something for which I’m less than enthusiastic.  I’ll also say that I pay a lot of attention to reviews prior to purchasing a book.  They make a difference for me.

A recent incident gave me pause when after a less than stellar review, I was contacted by the author.  He was quite nice in his email and while he didn’t ask for a review change, he made a few points I thought were valid.  I was a bit irritated with the book and the protagonist when I initially wrote the review.  This came through in all its glorious colors.  I redid the review to tone down the snarky-ness but I didn’t change my overall premise.

Then the issue came up about not having the right to post a review if I didn’t complete the book.  In the review I stated that I had completed about 40% before I just couldn’t stand it any more.  (FYI, I did end up finishing the book at a later time and my opinion didn’t change.)

I was curious about this “right to review” concept so I tweeted:

The half dozen or so responses clearly indicated that as long as a statement was in the review about the percentage read, it was all good.  I tend to agree.

My thoughts on book reviews

• I think they are important.  If you read a book, do the author and other readers a favor and write a review.  If you bought it at Amazon, go there to write the review.  If you bought it elsewhere, consider joining a readers site like Goodreads.
• Don’t make all of your reviews glowing.  Don’t make them all snarky.  Try to include info from your perspective that may help other readers or the author.
• Don’t be surprised if an author contacts you regarding the review.  Carefully consider how you respond.
• For the love of Pete, try to keep them reasonable in length.  Criminy, some reviewers are so stinkin’ long winded.  I don’t WANT to read a blow-by-blow that’s 8 paragraphs long.  It’s a review, not a synopsis – get off yourself.
• I think it’s perfectly ok to let the world know that the book drove you so crazy you couldn’t finish it.  Best to provide concrete examples of why it didn’t work for you in this case.

Your Turn

What are your philosophies for book reviews?  Have you ever been contacted by an author after a review?  Do you think it’s okay to write a review when you didn’t finish the book?

Through the newsletter sent to me by Mark Coker over at Smashwords, I learned that March  7 – 13 is Read an E-Book Week.  Awesome!  There are so many ways to read e-books.    If you have a computer, you can participate.  Head on over to ebookweek.com and have a look at all of the resources to help you in this worthwhile venture.

You may feel like you’re cheating on your paper books, but Ms. E is a worthy mistress/temptress.

I’ll bet your paper books will forgive this one little indiscretion.

Be sure and let us know about your experience this week!

From: http://www.thedoorbell.net/

Hey Folks:

Please welcome this guest post from Anna Miller.  I’m digging the straightforward and simple approach to the whole topic of guest blogging.

Take it away Anna!

I’ve been a guest author for quite some time now, and from the feedback I receive, I guess I must be doing something right. Writing for other people is often more challenging that writing for yourself – not only are your options limited by their niche, your work is also likely to be rejected because it doesn’t fit your host’s idea of what is suitable for their blog. In general, guest blogging is a good way for any writer to gain more exposure and promote their own website, so it pays to learn the finer aspects of writing for other people. And to this end, I’d like to share with you a few tips and tricks that I’ve picked up over the years that help you become a better guest author:

• Don’t jump the gun: When you’re posting on another blog, it’s best to go through its contents, not just the articles, but also reader comments, before you begin writing for it. This helps you gain an insight into the essence of the blog and its readers, using which you could decide on what to write and how to go about writing it. When you blog as a guest author, you have to tread the fine line between adapting to the style of the blog and compromising on your own, and the best guest blogger is one who can achieve a sensible balance between the two.
• Don’t promise what you cannot deliver: And what you do promise, make sure you deliver. The whole idea of being a guest blogger is to develop your connections on the web and maintain healthy and fruitful relationships with others in the blogging community. So when you fail to keep your word, your credibility is shot to pieces and blog owners will not want to have anything more to do with you. So if you’ve said you would give them one post a day or one every week, stay true to your word even though this means neglecting your own blog because you’re pressed for time.
• Keep your blog current and interesting: And finally, don’t forget the real reason you’re guest blogging – to secure links back to your own site and entice readers to become regular visitors to your blog. So when you focus completely on the guest blog and lose sight of your own, you end up sabotaging your own efforts. In fact, the best time to guest blog is when you have many interesting things going on at your blog. Visitors who drop in at your site for the first time are bound to hang around and come back for more when you’re able to hold their interest.

Guest blogging is a great way to get more people to visit your blog, so if you’ve never considered it before, it’s time to give it a try.

By-line:

This guest post is contributed by Anna Miller, who writes on the topic of online degrees . She welcomes your comments at her email id: anna.miller009@gmail.com

My past few posts have addressed different aspects of owning a kindle. I’ve looked at perspectives from reader and writer standpoints and I’ve included a post on how writers can publish their ebooks using Amazon’s Digital Text Platform. I think there may be a segment of the population that does not have a Kindle. The itch may be there, but there’s no back scratch-er in sight.

Here’s your back scratch-er

If you have a PC, an iPhone or a Blackberry, the wonderful folks at Amazon have been kind enough to develop free software that allows you to download and read Kindle books on any of these devices. As I said, it doesn’t cost a thing to download and use any of these apps.  Here is the starting page.

I’ve talked to several folks who say that reading an entire book on their PC would cause their eyeballs to melt. Point taken. I’m not sure what the remedy for this may be. Larger font size? Shorter reading sessions? If anyone has suggestions for this, I’m (and I’m sure the readership here are) all ears. I’ve also talked with people who do read books on their iPhone and they tell me that it takes a little getting used to, but overall the experience is not too bad. I can’t speak about using the Blackberry to read books because Amazon just came out with this version and I’ve yet to talk with someone who owns a Blackberry.

The process

The first step in the process is to have an account at Amazon. If you don’t already have such a beast, it’s super easy to get, and just takes a few minutes. Avid readers will find that there can be a lot of benefit to an account at Amazon. From bestsellers to out of print books, you can find most anything you may be looking for.

After you have your account set up, you want to go to the download page here. The instructions to download are simple and clear.

If you already have a Kindle, downloading the software for your PC will show your Kindle books. It will also synch with last pages read on your actual Kindle, assuming you have connected to the wireless since your last reading session.

If you don’t have a Kindle yet, yeeee-haw! Head to the Kindle store and start cruising the Kindle books. On the home page there is a tab in the top right corner that says, “Shop in the Kindle Store”. Tons of free books are there as well as lots of 99cent books and bestsellers.

Once downloaded, the interface is silly-easy to use and you’re ready to rock and roll.

For me, I’m a kid in a candy store. I hope you’ll feel the same.

One of the comments left on a recent post (Kindle Thoughts – A Writer’s Perspective) was from Amanda Evans.  Amanda has been very helpful to me over the last year or so and she has a website called Ghostwriting Uncovered.  Part of her comment was a query regarding publishing your ebook on Kindle.  Sounds like a fine idea to me, so let’s get into it.

Step Number One:  Write a book.

Okay perhaps a bit tongue in cheek snarky, but truly it is the starting point for this venture.  Short books, long books, novels, how-tos, short or flash story compilations are all fair game.

You publish your book through Amazon’s Digital Text Platform site.  The very first and most important step in this process is to download the .pdf Amazon DTP Quickstart Guide Fantastic document, really.  Step by step and so easy a caveman um, writer could do it.  You need to have an account at Amazon, but this is free and takes just a few minutes to register.

After you create all of your account information at the DTP site, you will see an Add New button at the top of the page.

Clicking this button will bring up a screen that will show the four steps you need to complete to publish.  Each will have a red X until completed, then they will change to a green check mark.

Step one is to enter the product details.  Don’t skimp on this section.  Here you add things such as the title and product description.  The more robust your description, the greater chance folks have of finding your work.  Take the time to do it right.  Good descriptions, keywords and categories make all of the difference.  Be as complete as possible.  This is also the section where you get to upload the cover image.  Don’t be fooled – people DO judge a book by its cover so make certain you use an image that is worthy of your book.  Oh, and use an image for which you own the rights, okay?

Next, You need to confirm content rights.  A couple of bullet checks and you’re done with this section, assuming you have the rights to what you want to publish.  If you don’t have the right, bad on you.  Stop right now and go somewhere else.

Moving on to the upload of your book.  The folks at Amazon are very clear on this crucial aspect.  HTML works best.  MS Word is a good second option, but if you try and upload a .pdf file you may be sorely disappointed with the results.  Fortunately if you are using MS Word or Open Office you can save your file as a HTML file.  Once you do that, you’re golden.  Follow the easy steps in step three and upload your file.

Almost Done!

Step four seems easy enough.  Just enter the suggested Retail Price for your ebook. Except pricing isn’t really that easy as my previous post about Kindle indicates.  If you are a new author, you need to make the unfortunate decision about how much money you don’t want to make on your book.  Price it too high and folks may flock to it by the 1’s.  My suggestion?  There is a whole genre, if you will, about 99 cent books.  It is a popular tag and folks will scoop these up all day long.

Once you’ve completed all of the steps click the “Publish” button and wait 24-48 hours to see it show up.  be sure and let the world know by any means available to you.  As well, encourage reviews to help bolster your book’s standing in the Kindle community

Once you start this journey, Amazon has tons of support forums and FAQs.  Most any question you may have is likely to be answered in any of those places.

For myself, the experience has been painless, if not pleasant.  Absolutely recommended.

If you publish over at Kindle, I’d be interested in hearing about your experience.  I’d also be happy to purchase and write a review.