A lot of readers don’t leave book reviews.

They don’t want to take the time to do so.

I am an independent author without a traditional publishing contract so reviews are important for me to sell books, which may be why I think about reviews more now than I used to.

I don’t leave reviews so people will leave reviews for my books, just to clarify.

But the fact that I need reviews makes me think of how reviews can benefit the reader and the author.

A review can help a reader decide if a book is for them, based on the good, bad, and all-in-between reviews.

The book may have a ton of great reviews but by reading them a reader may realize, “This book still isn’t a book I’d like.”

Or the bad reviews might tell a reader the book is for them.

For example, someone may give a negative review saying the book has too much romance, which makes a reader who likes romance say, “Oh! This book is for me!” Or maybe the reviewer said they didn’t like the fantasy element and the reader says, “Oooh. I love fantasy. I’m going to read it because this person didn’t like it.”

While I’m leaving a review for a reader, I am also leaving a review for the author. Some of us may think that an author doesn’t need a review or to read their reviews. In fact, I’ve heard many authors tell each other to not read their reviews because the reviews aren’t for them.

I don’t agree with that advice.

A review is for an author as much as a reader.

Yes, it can be hard to read bad reviews, but sometimes those bad reviews improve our writing or they make us realize that our books aren’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea.

Even if an author doesn’t read a review, though, it can make them feel good to see the number of reviews and know that people are reading their books which makes all that work feel worth it. It feels good as an author to know that people are reading your books. We work a long time on those stories and just writing them can be satisfying enough in many ways, but it can still be nice and fulfilling to see that others have read it and enjoyed it.

So I write reviews for the readers and the authors. I don’t always want to stop and write a review, to be honest. Writing one only takes about five minutes, though, because I know reviews are not book reports. Reviews are a simple few sentences to say I liked a book and why. It doesn’t have to be extensive. In fact, most people who look at reviews don’t want to read a super long review anyhow. They just want the gist – did you like it or didn’t you?

I won’t always do well at leaving reviews but I hope to keep doing them for the benefit of both the reader and the author.