Assaph Mehr talks about the importance of book reviews, and how to craft a review that helps all sides in the reviewer-reader-author love triangle. This is essential advice to all book bloggers and indie authors out there.

I’ll start with what my father taught me about wine appreciation, and is pretty much the golden rule (or only rule) I know about fine-art appreciation:

If you like it, it’s good. If not, it’s not.

Simple and to the point, with no apologies or complications. I read for enjoyment, so if I enjoy reading it – it’s good. I make no pretense of deep theoretical learning, of absolute truth, or of anything else. I read to enjoy. It’s that simple.

That said, people have different tastes so a review based on just whether I personally enjoyed a book or not is not going to be helpful. I also don’t quite agree with the inverse – if I didn’t like it, I’ll only say it wasn’t for me at the time.

I also believe people’s enjoyment (besides genre and theme preference) has a lot to do with expectations. When an author or publisher sets the right expectations, readers know what they’re getting into and are less likely to be disappointed – which helps sales in the long run. (More on settings expectations effectively in an upcoming post).

So this is what I came up with:

Continue reading on: How My Book Reviews Help Sales