I've found hundreds upon hundreds of threads on the Kindle forums where self-pubbed authors arrange swapping reviews to promote their books.
Now, this struck me as a dishonest and degrading practice. What it boils down to is just giving 5s to each other and writing some meaningless praise, even when you don't like what you've read, because you're obliged to 5-star a person who 5-starred you.
But what if we could create such a system, much more sensible and wholesome:
A board divided into genres. Fantasy, Literary, Thriller, etc. In each subforum, authors would post fragments of their books and short descriptions. This way, you could choose to review only what you enjoy. You read the fragment, like it, and then ask for a review copy and post a review on Amazon or wherever.
To submit your work for review there, you'd have to first review someone else. (But what to do at the beginning is the question.)
You don't have any guarantee that somebody will choose your book for reviewing if your writing sucks.
You're not obliged to five-star a lousy writer with no knowledge of spelling just because he five-starred you.
What do you think?
Now, this struck me as a dishonest and degrading practice. What it boils down to is just giving 5s to each other and writing some meaningless praise, even when you don't like what you've read, because you're obliged to 5-star a person who 5-starred you.
But what if we could create such a system, much more sensible and wholesome:
A board divided into genres. Fantasy, Literary, Thriller, etc. In each subforum, authors would post fragments of their books and short descriptions. This way, you could choose to review only what you enjoy. You read the fragment, like it, and then ask for a review copy and post a review on Amazon or wherever.
To submit your work for review there, you'd have to first review someone else. (But what to do at the beginning is the question.)
You don't have any guarantee that somebody will choose your book for reviewing if your writing sucks.
You're not obliged to five-star a lousy writer with no knowledge of spelling just because he five-starred you.
What do you think?
