I know writers are always going on and on about reviews, but that’s because they’re important. They only take a few minutes and they make an enormous difference. Many people look at reviews before deciding whether or not to buy a book, particularly when the book is written by an author they haven’t tried before. Yet most people don’t review the books they read. See how this can be a problem? I used to be guilty of not reviewing. Then several years ago, I started reading several independent authors and following them on social media. That’s when I realized how important reviews were to them. I now make sure I review every book I read. Book reviews lead to more people taking a chance on an author they haven’t read before, which means lots of potential new readers, which means more success, which makes it easier to keep writing and producing more books. Now that I’ve started writing, I’m even more aware of how important they are!

I recently saw a review (for someone else’s book, not mine) where the reviewer said that even though they had thousands of books, they never review but made an exception this time because they hated the book so much. Reading that made me pretty sad. They’ll take time out of their day to complain about a book (I actually loved the book, by the way!) but won’t take five minutes to review a good book and help out the author who wrote it?

What if you want to review a book but don’t know what to write? It’s actually very simple.

Actually, the most important thing is the star rating. Some sites will allow you to do this without writing anything at all. Others insist that you write a few words. The thing is, it really does just need to be a few words. No one is asking you to write a book report (unless you really want to!)

For the star rating, if you liked the book, consider a 4 or 5 star review. If you loved it, go with 5 stars. If you liked it, but you felt something was missing, or there was something about it that you found annoying, give it 4 stars. Both are good, positive ratings and the author will be deliriously happy. Three stars is a bit of a wishy-washy rating. Use that if you thought the book was okay but nothing special. Three stars is fairly neutral.

One or two stars is a negative rating. Please be careful with those. Stop and think if the book truly deserves it. If the book was well written but just wasn’t your cup of tea, consider going with three stars. If it really does deserve only one or two stars, please say why. We all have different tastes, so someone else might not have a problem with whatever you found annoying.

You don’t have to write much for the review. If you liked the book, all you have to do is say so. That’s all. Four or five stars and “liked it” or “loved it”. If you want to say more, feel free (although you should always try to avoid writing anything that gives away the plot to someone who hasn’t read the book.  For example, if it’s a murder mystery, don’t give away the murderer’s identity).

If you didn’t like the book and you’re giving a negative review, try to say why. Again, you don’t have to write a thesis. Just a few words saying why you disliked the book.

These are examples of simple but perfectly acceptable reviews:

5 stars – Loved it!

4 stars – I enjoyed this book.

4 stars – Liked this book but the heroine could be a bit annoying at times.

3 stars – It was okay but there were too many typos.

3 stars – The book was well-written but it just wasn’t my thing and I couldn’t get into it.

2 stars – It was an interesting idea for a book but there were far too many mistakes. Plus, it was really very short and then ended on a cliffhanger.

1 star – This book was supposed to be about vampires but it had aliens instead! It’s full of spelling mistakes and the plot makes no sense.

You get the idea!

People reading the reviews want to know whether or not the book is full of typos (one or two isn’t a huge deal, but if the whole book is littered with them, then people want to know that), if it has a cliffhanger (where the story ends abruptly and you have to buy the next book to find out what happens), and whether or not the story is enjoyable.

That’s really all there is to it. Reviews can be left on the online store where you bought the ebook (e.g. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, etc.). They can also be left on sites like Goodreads.

So, on behalf of writers everywhere, thank you for reviewing! You totally rock