About a week ago I read a post by Damyanti about giving support to indie authors. How? One way is to leave an honest review of their book.
Easy right?
Well, what if that indie author was your friend? Could you still leave an honest review?
When I first responded to Damyanti’s post I said that it would be wrong not to give my honest opinion on a book (regardless if the author was a friend or not). However, I didn’t take into account the power of a review. These days, reviews can be the deciding factor in a customer’s decision to buy something. So my review could hinder or help my friend’s book sells. Yikes!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I wont write an honest review, I’m just saying that I may be hesitant to.
Here’s what Damyanti had to say about the subject:
“I do buy books for fellow authors, read them too.
I share their books on social media and feature both the authors and their books on my blogs. But I’ve stopped short of doing a review. I’m terrified of reviewing author friends–I could write a balanced review and probably not offend any of my excellent blog friends. But then, I could. So I do everything I possibly can, other than a review.”
What’s your opinion? Could you write a honest review of a friend’s book?
I can see the issue. It is difficult, though I think if a book isn’t great and the author is your friend, I would try to let them know via email or something. Hopefully they would appreciate the advice! 😀 I wouldn’t post a review if it wasn’t great or to my taste.
If I loved the book, then obviously I would post a review then! Honesty is always the best policy 🙂
That’s a good point! Keeping things private would be a great gesture to extend to a friend.
I agree with Harliqueen. If it is a positive review, I’d post it. Everywhere.
Heck yeah! If it was something that was negative I don’t think that I could muster up the courage to publish it.
For me, I go about it like this…”What would I want the other person to do for me?” and approach it like that. Anger or not, it’s the best way to handle the situation. You can’t lose friends by being honest with them in a respectful way.
True. That’s what I was thinking after I commented on Damyanti’s post.
What was that golden rule they always said in kindergarten? “Treat others the way you’d want to be treated.”
Unless we know for certain how the other person wants to be treated, that is the rule we need to adhere to I suppose. Or when in doubt, don’t make it public. 😉
I think that it really depends on who exactly this friend is- like Damyanti sorta put into words, I have a couple friends who wouldn’t be offended by an honest review, but then others who might.
Makes sense. Some people would only want your true honest reactions while others may take offense. It depends on how well you know your friend, I guess.
Most definitely 🙂
Well, personally, I would tell my friend if their book needed work, but post a positive review. Yay! The best of both worlds.
Lol, I suppose that’s one way to do it!
Yup :3