Battle of the Reviews: Should Authors Write Them?

I would like to be a published author one day. I’ve got about six or seven ideas started and I’m concentrating most heavily on one in particular. It’s going to take me a while to get there, but hopefully I will. Go team and all that jazz.

On the other hand, I love to write reviews. If I was ever to make it as an author one day, I don’t see my need to share reviews changing very much. I would hope I’d be much busier writing books, but I wouldn’t be able to separate myself entirely from reading other books and I naturally like to talk about my POV of them and hear other POVs in turn. But the more I read and the more I write reviews, the more I run across the opinion that authors shouldn’t write them.

*scratches noggin* But WHY?

I think the strongest argument (note, I’m not saying I agree, just that it seems to be the most vocal one) is that authors are only writing reviews or pimping another author’s book to “scratch said author’s back”. These types of reviews don’t offer anything and are not being honest.

While I suppose it’s certainly possible for this one to be true, it has the unfortunate side effect of labeling any author that reviews a book as dishonest and not offering a “real” opinion of the book in question. And readers are of course entitled to feel this way if they choose, but to assume at random that any author isn’t also entitled to an opinion of another author’s book? To assume that just because they are an author, that they are being dishonest or lack credibility and objectivity? That idea just sounds plain crazy to me.

Authors are, for the most part, readers too. Rarely do I run across an author that has secluded themselves away from other books for eternity, although I know some will while actively working on a book. But they do read and they are regular people, just like the rest of us humans, that buy the books and it’s not that hard to believe that they too will have reactions and feel like sharing them.

So do you “mind” when you see an author pimping a book in a review? Or raving about it online in blogs and forums and discussions? Is it misleading? I don’t happen to think so. I find back cover blurbs are often much more misleading than a review. I’ve picked up plenty of books that had great back cover descriptions, but in no way encompassed what the book was about. Now, those I feel may have been deliberately misleading. At best I’ve chalked it up to the person writing the summary as “having a bad day”.

I guess, for me, it all goes back to the fact that I chose to buy the book, or I chose to seek it out at the library and spend my money/time on it. No matter who writes the reviews or promos I may have checked out previously, I can’t rightly blame them if I didn’t enjoy the book or come away with the same impression they did. I do think there are reviews out there that are intentionally misleading, but to lump one group of people all together, in this case – authors, is a bit extreme. I’m an adult. Reviews don’t make the decision for me on what to read. And anyone else (author or not) raving about a book doesn’t make me extract my credit card either. I make that decision for myself in the end. If I’m unhappy by The End, it’s my doing.

Most recent case in point for me personally: I didn’t really care 100% for Meredith Duran’s Duke of Shadows. Author Ann Aguirre’s internet contest and ravings about it really caught my eye. I was ready at that point for something “different” to read and word spread pretty quickly that this book would deliver. Well, I just didn’t see it that way completely, but I in no way ever entertained any ire towards Aguirre or any other reviewer or reader that loved it. It’s all based on opinions and the freedom to choose what we read. I chose to read it; I liked some of it, other parts I didn’t. That’s no ones “fault” but my own.

I know that if I’m ever lucky enough (or more rightly, work hard enough) to get a book published, I’m probably still going to want to share opinions on books/receive them in turn and hope that the community of reviewers/readers will still be welcoming enough to keep a space open for authors in the review and discussion arenas.

So where do you stand on this one? Should authors feel free to write reviews and share opinions on books? Why or why not?

illustration snagged via photobucket and DevinDart115