Stars Online

I avoid reading reviews of my books because I feel they are for other readers and not for me. Readers are entitled to their opinions. I simply write my tales as I see fit and it is up to a reader to decide if they like them or not. I adopted that approach I guess from my uncle – who told me he avoided reading his reviews for that reason.

Accidents do happen, though. A little while ago I noticed that Capture The Cause got ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ from an early reader:

I spotted that by chance when I clicked over to my “author page.” I had wanted to refer to the page generally for a (different) post (not this one), when my PC cursor going over the book cover led me to see those stars pop us. This post then came to my mind.

I take that sort of a review as a HUGE compliment, because if I am brutally honest with myself I don’t believe that any of my books are truly ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️; they are probably more in the range of ⭐️⭐️⭐️ to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. To me, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ is a novel that will be read a century or more after the author is dead, has been made into countless films, and even prompted socio-historical reflections, and I would not flatter myself in even imagining any of mine will be any of those. Put another way, if a new one is already ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️, what then is the likes of a War and Peace? (There needs maybe to be ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️? LOL!)

We also know that a reviewer’s number of “stars” mean what the reviewer wants them to mean and they do not necessarily characterize a book in that “classics” manner, and that is fine, too. Oftentimes ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ is just a way to say: “You gotta read this! It’s great!” And what author does not want a reader to say that about their book?

[From Instagram. The latter sentence is my suggestion in response to what that author posted.]

I also see what some authors get up to on Amazon in particular. There are “buddy reviews” from friends and family – which, technically, is not allowed by Amazon, but of course it goes on all the time. There are also authors angling for (hopefully also ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) reviews from readers in order to “boost” their book’s visibility on the site (I have even seen authors outright tell readers that), which is, to me, again, trying to “game” the system and even possibly mislead readers as to a book’s quality. (I have read in the last few years the free samples of several “new author” novels that had a dozen or so glowing ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ reviews within days of release and I was “underwhelmed” by what I read of the books to say the least. No way were they, in my opinion, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ novels even in the Amazon “You gotta read this! It’s great!” heads up sense.)

If you don’t know this already because you are new here, so you are aware I do NOT ask for and will NEVER ask for reviews – as you can see was asked above by an unnamed author on Instagram and my response to it I had added just below that author’s request. So a review you see of any of my books is a 100 percent legitimate review that the reviewer decided to post entirely on their own. I did NOT seek it or solicit it in any way.

I hope you are having a good day, wherever you are. 🙂