For over two years now I've been doing reviews pretty similar to the way that many other bloggers do them. I copy a synopsis from goodreads, link to author websites, twitter pages, and the like.
But, as I reflected on the way that I do my reviews, I decided that a lot of the things that I do BEFORE the actual review really detract from what you want read. Which is the review.
Which is why I'm introducing a brand new review format. It's a format that I think you're going to like. Basically, I will have a cover image and the review. With some links at the bottom of the review to relevant author information like websites, blogs, and twitter pages, places to purchase, and it's link on goodreads so you can read the synopsis and such.
I will briefly summarize the book. I used to hate to do this, but ever since I started contributing to The Deseret News, I've become a lot more comfortable doing it. It should give some background on what the story is about for those readers who don't know anything about the book, but won't be distracting for readers who are already familiar with the synopsis.
I am also going to change the way that I do author interviews. In the past, I have done interviews in a Q&A format. But, I realized that I don't like to read Q&A interviews. I vastly prefer a more narrative approach. I understand that this is going to take more time for me to compile these interviews, but I think that you'll find that you like reading them more.
Giveaways are changing too. The last two giveaways that I've done have utilized Rafflecopter. While rafflecopter isn't perfect, I'm really happy with how it's worked so far. I liked the IDEA of extra entries, but I hate adding them up or requiring you to leave more than one comment. So, for each giveaway you will have the option for extra entries. However, no one entry will be mandatory. It won't be mandatory for you to follow, or leave a comment, or tweet. But, you have to do one of those things. Which, really isn't much of a change from how it is now.
With these changes, I'm really hoping to make this blog more friendly to both me and you. If you have any questions or comments about these changes, feel free to leave them in the comment section. And, watch for the new review format to be debuted tomorrow!
Interesting ideas. I don't read many author interviews because I hate the Q&A format and because most people ask the SAME questions. Hopefully, this narrative approach will allow for different content. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteCool ideas! I like reading the summary though, maybe you could have the summary after the review or something?
ReplyDeleteBenji, the summary isn't going completely away. I'm just no longer going to use a publisher summary. I will be using my own version that will be shorter and probably less spoilery than what you'll find on Amazon.
ReplyDeleteSounds great--I never read the summaries anyway -- I'm always afraid it will give too much away. I always make the title "clickable" for those that want a "better" summary than mine.
ReplyDeleteI like the book review idea. I'm not really loving the giveaway entries though. It was nice to just be able to leave a comment to enter. Plus I don't use twitter.
ReplyDeleteKami, it is one extra step from leaving a comment. However, it ensures that I have an email address for everyone. A lot of people don't have their email addresses linked with their profiles and its impossible for me to track them down to tell them they've won!
ReplyDeleteAs far as the extra entries, I won't ever have a lot of them, so it won't be that big of a deal if you can't enter. I did do one tweet per day as an entry, but I think I'll change it to one tweet for the entire contest. If you don't have twitter, it won't put you at a great disadvantage.
Emily, I just discovered you today when I did a Google search on how to make those nifty reading challenge progress bars that I've been seeing everywhere, and you are now my new best friend for the day! Thank you for not only showing me how to do it, but assuming that I am at least semi-HTML literate, and giving me the breakdown, so I can duplicate the result on my own. You rock!
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Good ideas. I'm looking at my reviews and getting a little bored. Maybe I should shake things up too.
ReplyDeleteOh, I do like change. Sometimes it's hard for me to slow down enough to switch lanes, so to speak, but I do like when things are new and different. Have fun and good luck!
ReplyDeleteGreat ideas! I don't use publisher summaries myself because I don't read them - I just skip over them on other people's blogs. I like to know very briefly the general idea of the book and then get straight into a reviewer's opinion of it. So that's how I structure my own reviews. I figure, if someone wants the synopsis, it's available on Good Reads, Wikipedia, and about a thousand other places on the internet, so it's not necessary to repeat it again.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a great idea! I'm glad that you are still going to do a synopsis though because I tend to only read the reviews of the books that I know nothing about. Q&A or narrative format doesn't matter to me but it will be interesting to see the change.
ReplyDeleteIt is very strange hearing two such different reviews on the same book. I think is has a lot to do with the individual reader. We can write as many reviews as we want but everyone's views a world and characters differently.
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I came across your blog while researching data regarding "Q&A" versus "Narrative" interview formats. I conduct celebrity interviews on my site, Boomerocity.com. I always felt that Q&A's was "lazy" (please, don't take offense because I really would prefer to use Q&A in order to make it easier on myself) and didn't show the celebrity respect for the time they shared with me. Besides, since my target audience is baby boomers, I like injecting reflections that the readers might relate to. That all said, someone mentioned that Q&A might be a better format so I started researching what the preferences are in other genres. That's how I stumbled onto your site. I think it's interesting that you're making the move away from Q&A. What's been your reader's reactions so far? Is it too early to tell? Anyway, thanks for your great insight! Randy Patterson, Boomerocity.com - randy@boomerocity.com
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