Fake

In the past few months I have learned more than I ever thought I would about networking and marketing. It's not my favorite. At all. One of the biggest networking sites for book lovers and writers has been very valuable. Here's the problem: trading reviews. A lot of authors on that site are trading their own books with other authors for review. The more reviews a book receives, the higher it climbs in rankings on Amazon, Barnes&Noble and Goodreads, and the better chance it has of catching the attention of readers. Sounds great, right? Yeah, except that the authors tend to give automatic 5 star reviews in order to get a 5 star back for themselves. I actually had someone tell me, "I give five star reviews within five days." My reply was that I would love an honest review of my book. I got a five star review five days later. Great. She did read the book, as they all do, but in her message to me when she was finished with it she called it "cute". That's nice. It is written for young teens. Cute is good. So why did she give me a five star rating, which means "It was amazing!"?  She didn't think it was amazing, and neither did the other author I traded with. I didn't think theirs were amazing either. I thought they were really good. Interesting. I liked one a lot more than the other one. I should have given two stars to one of the books and three to the other. But I didn't. What did I do? Yep. Just what was expected of me. I am a big, giant jerk. I have just lied to thousands of people who rely on book ratings on that site to pick their next read. SO, I have decided that I will no longer be trading reviews with other authors unless I know that we can be honest with each other and honest with everyone on that site.
I have received many reviews of my book, none too bad, many of them very good. When I say 'none too bad', it means the book was rated 3 out of 5 stars. Anything lower than that would feel terrible (one of the 3 star reviews stung a bit for a few days because the reviewer not only put the writing style down a bit, but decided to give away the entire plot in her review). The best review I have recieved so far was not even a formal review. It was an email from a woman I never met who found my book by accident and was almost late to work because she stayed up too late the night before to finish it. She called it unique and refreshing (I printed the email and saved it in my drawer of special things). If you have read the book and would like to review it on Amazon or Barnes&Noble, I would love to hear what you have to say. Reviews are great, even the not so fabulous ones, as long as they are honest.