Contrary to the suggestion in the title, I'm not channelling the spirit of Fagin. That could get me in to a spot of hot water! No running street gangs for me!
No, I'm considering how important it is for an indie writer to receive reviews for their stories. Firstly a confession. I do try my best to give products a review, especially now that I know from personal experience how important they are. And yet, I'm not perfect. When I see an email pop into my inbox asking for a review, I don't always spare the time to do it, especially when I keep being asked for reviews for my own books! It's tempting...
...But of course it would be dodgy to do that wouldn't it? So I ignore those ones. These days amazon makes it slightly easy for the person who's too busy to review. You can now leave a star rating for a book without leaving a review. That's pretty cool and I appreciate those. It gives you an idea of what someone has thought about your stories which is better than nothing. The downside is if you're looking for some feedback, you have no clue what an individual star rating means without a review.
I had an example of this recently. I've been very fortunate with reviews and ratings since publishing "The Nemo & Co. series".
So far I've had 25 ratings & reviews for "The Vanishing Office" (20 worldwide) 7 for "The Ghost Society" & 3 for "The Kill Switch". Not bad at all. I've also been lucky that I've had some decent ones. I'm obviously very glad to get good reviews but even two or one stars can be very useful, if you know why?
I would be lying if I said that getting a oner or twoer is easy, but if you get some constructive criticism with it that will help your writing, then that's a positive thing. I had a twoer recently but no feedback. It's cool that the person took the time to post a rating but it would've been cooler if they'd left some feedback too. It might've been hard to swallow...
....but if it helps the old scribbling improve then it's ultimately worth it. After all none of us writers are perfect. Some people will love what you write and others will hate it but pointers help you grow and improve. So if you're not too busy and you've enjoyed (or not) reading an indie book, leave a rating or even better, a review. Ultimately, it will help us more than you realise. Tatty b for now.
P.S. I've about a thousand books to review for other indie writers but I will do it and once I have, they'll be on here!