Product Reviews

This is my first blog, but not my first attempt at putting thoughts to paper (or screen). I’ve been a writer (small w) all my life, and a Writer (capital W) for the past 30 years or more. See Meet Me. I call this blog My Meandering Mind, since that’s the way my mind works these days. It’s all over the map. So I’ll write a more-or-less weekly blog on whatever my mind has meandered to that day. Today, it’s “Product Reviews”.

I don’t know about you but I hate how stores, both online and bricks-and-mortar, are constantly asking (demanding) a review for everything you buy and every service you get. I admit I resent it. I long for the old days when you’d go to the store and buy a thing, bring it home, and use it. If you liked it you’d tell your friends and neighbors about it. If you didn’t like it, maybe you would, maybe you wouldn’t. End of story. You didn’t have to give the store and/or manufacturer a rating on it. The product sank or swam based on its sales. Advertisers have always known that word-of-mouth—friend to friend, neighbor to neighbor—is the best form of promotion.

That being said, I must backtrack a bit. When it comes to books, as always, word-of-mouth is best, so don’t forget to tell your friends about a book you loved. But reviews are of vital importance. If a book doesn’t get plenty of reviews—good or bad—on Amazon, it’ll get lost in the ga-zillion books on its website, and it won’t show up for people to see and buy. It’s not like a physical bookstore where you can look at every book on its shelves and make your decision based on genre, cover, blurbs on the back, et cetera. The irony is that nowadays what few bookstores are left only order the books that have tons of reviews on Amazon. Your review is crucial.

So please, after you’ve read a book, post a brief honest review on Amazon. It’s author will be eternally grateful. In addition, if it’s one of my books, I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave a review at the bottom of the book’s page on this website.

Thank you,

Carol