#AugustReviews: Write a #Book #Review!

August 2016 is Write An Amazon Review Month!  

On Monday 25th July, book blogger Rosie Amberwrote this post encouraging readers and writers alike to post a short review on Amazon for any book they’ve read and enjoyed ~ following this up, I’m starting this initiative along with other writer-bloggers includingRosie, Cathy from Between The Lines, Barb Taub, Shelley Wilson and Alison Williams. 

*Please note* #AugustReviews is not for own book promotion.  There are plenty of other opportunities all over the internet for you to market your books; this is not one of them.  Please respect this! 

Remember, this isn’t the Times Literary Supplement, it’s Amazon, where ordinary people go to choose their next £1.99 Kindle book.  No one expects you to write a thousand word, in-depth critique; I don’t know about you, but I’m more likely to read one short paragraph or a couple of lines saying what an average reader thought of a book, than a long-winded essay about the pros and cons of the various literary techniques used.  Yes, those are welcome too (!), but no more so than a few words saying “I loved this book, I was up reading it until 3am”, or “I loved Jim and Vivien and the dialogue was so realistic”, or whatever!

• They help book buyers make decisions.  Don’t you read the reviews on Trip Advisor before deciding on a hotel, or any site from which you might buy an item for practical use?  Book reviews are no different.
• If the book is by a self-published author, or published by an independent press, the writers have to do all their promotion and marketing themselves ~ reviews from the reading public is their one free helping hand.
• The amount of reviews on Amazon helps a book’s visibility (allegedly).  If you love a writer’s work and want others to do so, too, this is the best possible way of making this happen.
• It’s your good deed for the day, and will only take five minutes!

• If you need any help with writing your review, do click on Rosie’s post, above.
• A review can be as short as one word.  The shortest one I have is just two 🙂
• You don’t have to put your name to the review, as your Amazon ‘handle’ can be anything you like.
• No writer expects all their reviews to be 5* and say the book is the best thing ever written; there is a star rating guide on Rosie’s post.
• Would you like to tell the Twittersphere about your review?  If so, tweet theAmazon link to it with the hashtag#AugustReviews ~ and thank you!  I will do one blog post a week featuring these links: The #AugustReviews Hall of Fame(thank you, Barb!).    Please note, Amazon links only ~ not your blog, or any other site on which the review is posted ~ this initiative is all about encouraging people to write views onAmazon.  Thanks!