How To Review a Book
What does a book review contain?
- Include the “why”: The best reviews include not only whether you liked or disliked a product or service, but also why. Feel free to make comparisons with related products or services you’ve experienced.
- Be specific: Your review should be relevant to the product or service you’re reviewing and focus on specific features or your experience. For video and image reviews, we recommend that you write a brief introduction.
- Not too short, not too long: Written reviews should be at least 20 words and are limited to 5,000 words. The ideal length is 75 to 500 words. Video reviews have a 10-minute limit, but we recommend 2 to 5 minutes to keep your audience engaged.
- Be sincere: We welcome your honest opinion about the product or service. We do not remove reviews because they are critical. We believe all helpful information can inform our customers’ buying decisions.
These are Amazon guidelines.
Here are some things you could put in a review:
- Adjectives that describe the book (it was good, it was awful, etc).
- Say something you liked about it. Things that you could focus on could include the plot, a particular scene, characters, how things changed during the course of the story, etc.
- If there was a moment or character that personally impacted you in some way, don’t be afraid to say so. Put yourself in the review. Authors love to know their readers and I know that I’m always touched when I can tell someone made a personal connection with what I wrote.
- Talk about what you wanted to see more of or what needs improvement. Do you wish another character was in the book more? Say so. Did bad spelling distract you? Tell us that too.
Tips to remember:
- Don’t be afraid to be honest. Do, however, remember to be helpful. Don’t just say “it was bad” but tell everyone why it was bad.
- Don’t give away the ending of the book. You can allude to it very vaguely (“the ending surprised me”) but don’t say specific plot details.
- You’re not being graded. Write a review as long or short as you want. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece of art—think of it more as a conversation or what you might tell people you know about this book.
- Make sure that you read the book before you review. This seems like it should be obvious but… it’s not.
I copied this list from Katherine Lowry Logan’s website
Just remember to be honest and write at least 75 words. And thank you!Once you have read the book, you post a review on either Amazon.com or Goodreads.com.
For Amazon, do a search for the title of the book and my name, such as, Remembrance Book Anna Payne, to easily find the book or go to my authors page. Then scroll down to reviews and click the post a review button.
For Goodreads, you would need to be a member of Goodreads and it would be great if you could click the Follow button on my author page and post a review on any of my books there. Fill out this form to Review a Book for me!
