slb Four Star Member
Number of posts : 926 Registration date : 2010-11-04 Age : 57 Location : Oskaloosa, Iowa
| Subject: Unbridled Greed Mon Feb 24, 2014 5:37 am | |
| I don't get greedy with this review. http://braytonsbookbuzz.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/unbridled-greed/ |
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dkchristi Five Star Member
Number of posts : 8594 Registration date : 2008-12-29 Location : Florida
| Subject: Re: Unbridled Greed Mon Feb 24, 2014 1:54 pm | |
| How many books do you review a month? Are you compensated for the reviews? A book at least? Some of the books sound pitiful; others exciting. |
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slb Four Star Member
Number of posts : 926 Registration date : 2010-11-04 Age : 57 Location : Oskaloosa, Iowa
| Subject: Re: Unbridled Greed Mon Feb 24, 2014 5:00 pm | |
| When I started reviewing books I had lots of time to read so I was cranking out three or four books a month. I've built up a queue of reviews to be posted. This is good because now with my current schedule I don't have too much time to read and it would cheat those for whom I review. i still grab an audio book or two every now and then from one site because I can listen while at work. So, many of the reviews are holdovers from those sites who sent me books and some are my books from home. Sometimes I have people send me books but I warn them that it may take awhile to generate a review because of my schedule. I don't accept payment for reviews, but I may keep the book sent to me. |
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dkchristi Five Star Member
Number of posts : 8594 Registration date : 2008-12-29 Location : Florida
| Subject: Re: Unbridled Greed Mon Feb 24, 2014 5:58 pm | |
| Your reviews strike me as quite professional. Were you provided with an outline at some point? They are better than the run of the mill review though I forget the belt ratings. |
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slb Four Star Member
Number of posts : 926 Registration date : 2010-11-04 Age : 57 Location : Oskaloosa, Iowa
| Subject: Re: Unbridled Greed Mon Feb 24, 2014 8:06 pm | |
| Thanks. When I signed up to review books for Suspense Magazine and Readers Favorites, they gave me a basic outline of how to review. However when I do mine I just chose what I thought of four elements of a story on which to focus and go from there. White, orange, yellow: there are some problems such as grammar, spelling, editing and the plot characters voice are lacking strength.
Camo, green, purple - not too many editing problems but the entire story may have lacked strength or didn't make sense or was 'boring' or there were problems with flow or just didn't go the way expected (in that I don't always need a twist but something to keep me interested.
Blue - Average. Worth reading. Many books fall into this. They're basic fun stories to read, nothign too deep or intellectual. Good action, developed characters
Brown - Better writing than most with some deeper insight into writing a story
Red - Pretty darn good stuff here. Something that would make me want to read it again. Something that I can really get into and have fun and have an adventure.
Black - Everything blends perfectly.
I will admit that some of the decision on the rank depends on whether I personally enjoyed it, but that's a lot of what reviews are, a personal opinion. I try to remember that others may enjoy something I don't (I have one coming up in a number of weeks that I would not have bought had I not been assigned it but other people may enjoy it.) I try to pick apart the stuff that i enjoyed and the problems i found because although I'm not the smartest guy in the world, I'm pretty sure others would be able to find similar problems, especially when it comes to grammar, spelling, misuse of words, etc. There are some finer, subtler details involved and a lot of it is 'instinct' on where a book should fall. |
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dkchristi Five Star Member
Number of posts : 8594 Registration date : 2008-12-29 Location : Florida
| Subject: Re: Unbridled Greed Tue Feb 25, 2014 10:03 am | |
| Personally, I feel any writer worth their salt will go to great ends to make sure the work is grammar and spelling perfect. Of course, errors slip through like principal and principle; but they should be rare and not noticed.
I think it is an insult to readers and to reviewers to expect someone to plow through a work that may have a great story but not yet ready for publication.
I have been provided many books to review that are quite popular with other readers, but they lack magic in my opinion. They are well-crafted stories but really were not worth my time to read. |
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