Some thoughts on "meaning" and the process.

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gali
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Re: Some thoughts on "meaning" and the process.

Post by gali »

npandit wrote:Gali, I'm glad. :)

The guidelines refer to it and many people use them, but like you mentioned, PashuRu, sometimes I don't see these things mentioned in reviews, and for me it is a little confusing to figure out whether I will like the book or not, when I don't know what criteria the person used to judge it.

I originally proposed this idea as a means to motivate people to write more honest reviews, in case they felt pressured to write only positive things, knowing that the author was going to get back to them.
Likewise and I find the discussion interesting :D

I write in my reviews things I deem important and things that caught my eyes while reading the book. I always write my honest opinion on the book. No purpose to the review otherwise.

I don't like to analyze things to death, nor do I like reading such analyzing in reviews, but I do refer to the above criteria (typos, style of writing and so on) in my reviews or try to in any case... :wink:
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Post by npandit »

Hey Gali, yes! I find your reviews to be clear and balanced, and easy to figure out whether I will like the book or not. The analysis doesn't have to be overt, but it should be apparent that there was at least some analysis that went into it.

(If I was an author, I would like to read more of an analysis on my book, but that's just my personal preference.)

I agree, this discussion has taken an interesting turn. :)
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Post by gali »

npandit wrote:Hey Gali, yes! I find your reviews to be clear and balanced, and easy to figure out whether I will like the book or not. The analysis doesn't have to be overt, but it should be apparent that there was at least some analysis that went into it.

(If I was an author, I would like to read more of an analysis on my book, but that's just me.)

I agree, this discussion has taken an interesting turn. :)
Thank you and I do some analysis of the books in my reviews. :)

I think that the authors would prefer a positive review... :wink:
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Post by npandit »

Lol oh yeah, good point. :)

And I agree that you do! I like reading them.:)
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Post by gali »

npandit wrote:Lol oh yeah, good point. :)

And I agree that you do! I like reading them.:)
Thank you very much :oops:

I also like reading your reviews. :D
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Post by anomalocaris »

Okay. Third time's a charm. I've tried this twice and the post has vanished twice.

I guess as long as authors are ultimately the ones who decide whether a particular review is published or suppressed there's no way to have any real objectivity.

What would be helpful, though, would be to know in advance if an author is looking for private feedback. As a writer, I'm all about target audience. What I'm going to write in a formal review intended for publication is very different to what I'm going to write to an author looking for constructive feedback.

Npandit - Thanks for the compliment on my photo. He's a little 3(ish)-year-old Northern Pacific Rattlesnake sunning on a den, and being very sweet and cooperative about putting up with me and my camera.
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Post by Scott »

The author's can decide to have the review delivered as private constructive criticism if it is below a certain rating, but a while back I made change to only offer that option for paid reviews (as I indeed did not like seeing reviewers volunteering their time to review a book only to have their review not published). The authors do not get to read the review before deciding whether to publish it or not, as I feel that would undermine the integrity of the system. However, there are occasionally other reasons I mark a review as unpublished.

Anyway, I have read through this topic quickly. I appreciate the valuable feedback. I will bookmark this, and reread it later and thoroughly consider all the different ideas and feedback.
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Post by RobertM »

I have skimmed over a couple of the reviews and tried to get a handle on how they are being done. I would say this forum's method is extremely fair. Look at Amazon reviews, for example. Anyone who has made a purchase at Amazon can do a review on anything. And over there, you get a lot shill reviews, thinly-disguised I'm-going-to-trash-your-book-even-though-I've-never-read-it reviews, etc.

I would say the system here works, as far as I can tell. Nothing is perfect and you can't make all writers happy, but it seems to work.
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Post by npandit »

anomalocaris wrote:Okay. Third time's a charm. I've tried this twice and the post has vanished twice.

I guess as long as authors are ultimately the ones who decide whether a particular review is published or suppressed there's no way to have any real objectivity.

What would be helpful, though, would be to know in advance if an author is looking for private feedback. As a writer, I'm all about target audience. What I'm going to write in a formal review intended for publication is very different to what I'm going to write to an author looking for constructive feedback.

Npandit - Thanks for the compliment on my photo. He's a little 3(ish)-year-old Northern Pacific Rattlesnake sunning on a den, and being very sweet and cooperative about putting up with me and my camera.
Lol--! I'm glad it posted your comment this time. :-)

I absolutely agree about it being helpful to know in advance if the author is looking for private feedback. That is a great idea.

The interesting thing is that with this particular website, in the way the system is designed, I've always felt I'm writing the review more for the author than for the readers; and you're right, for that reason, I find myself writing a different kind of review here than I would on say, amazon.

Regarding the rattlesnake--wow! Cool! Never had a snake as a pet before. (I'm assuming he's your pet?) How big is he going to grow?

-- 05 May 2014, 15:55 --
gali wrote:
npandit wrote:Lol oh yeah, good point. :)

And I agree that you do! I like reading them.:)
Thank you very much :oops:

I also like reading your reviews. :D
You're welcome and thank you :-)

-- 05 May 2014, 16:08 --
Scott wrote:The author's can decide to have the review delivered as private constructive criticism if it is below a certain rating, but a while back I made change to only offer that option for paid reviews (as I indeed did not like seeing reviewers volunteering their time to review a book only to have their review not published). The authors do not get to read the review before deciding whether to publish it or not, as I feel that would undermine the integrity of the system. However, there are occasionally other reasons I mark a review as unpublished.

Anyway, I have read through this topic quickly. I appreciate the valuable feedback. I will bookmark this, and reread it later and thoroughly consider all the different ideas and feedback.
Sounds good!

In a way, I think it might be a question of--is this website's purpose to publish reviews for all books in an open discussion format (like something you find on amazon, etc...), or is it supposed to publish reviews for authors who are lesser known and might need the publicity boost (or need the helpful critique?)

I view this website to be in the latter category, since it is designed for authors to get honest reviews on their work, rather than just published reviews (good or bad).

Therefore in the latter case, I don't think it undermines the system if authors read a review and keep it as constructive criticism, rather than have something very critical about their work published, especially if they are first time authors and not established yet (which is the case for many of them).


-- 05 May 2014, 16:11 --
RobertM wrote:I have skimmed over a couple of the reviews and tried to get a handle on how they are being done. I would say this forum's method is extremely fair. Look at Amazon reviews, for example. Anyone who has made a purchase at Amazon can do a review on anything. And over there, you get a lot shill reviews, thinly-disguised I'm-going-to-trash-your-book-even-though-I've-never-read-it reviews, etc.

I would say the system here works, as far as I can tell. Nothing is perfect and you can't make all writers happy, but it seems to work.
I agree that the system here is designed to be much more credible and fair than amazon reviews. But I think the reason for that is two websites exist for very different purposes. The reviewers here are also vetted more carefully.
Latest Review: "Travel Instincts" by James C. Jensen
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