I'm moving towards self-publishing a novella in the near future, and I'm planning to give some of my friends copies, and to ask them to read and review it on Amazon, goodreads, or elsewhere. For some of my fellow writers, I could offer to review their books in exchange, but then I wondered if that was getting into foggy ethical territory.
I can think of a few reasons why it should be OK, but I'm still on the fence and I was wondering what other people thought. The main point against it is that you're paying for a review by offering a review in return, but it seems fundamentally different from paying however many dollars in return for a favorable review.
1. These are friends, so I hope we will all want each other to succeed... leading to a positive bias.
2. Many of these people are writers who understand the value of honest feedback, somewhat counteracting the friendship bias.
3. If you know that the other person is going to comment on your book, that might make you round your opinion up a star or two.
I think I had a few other thoughts, but I can't remember them now. So, folks, would you weigh in on the ethics of swapping reviews with your fellow writers?
I can think of a few reasons why it should be OK, but I'm still on the fence and I was wondering what other people thought. The main point against it is that you're paying for a review by offering a review in return, but it seems fundamentally different from paying however many dollars in return for a favorable review.
1. These are friends, so I hope we will all want each other to succeed... leading to a positive bias.
2. Many of these people are writers who understand the value of honest feedback, somewhat counteracting the friendship bias.
3. If you know that the other person is going to comment on your book, that might make you round your opinion up a star or two.
I think I had a few other thoughts, but I can't remember them now. So, folks, would you weigh in on the ethics of swapping reviews with your fellow writers?