Writing & Posting Book Reviews || A Discussion

Since I've been writing and posting book reviews for almost a decade, I have a lot to say about it.

It's been a long time since I wrote a proper discussion post and have been wanting to write one for a while. When I saw this topic on the Let's Talk Bookish list, I knew that it's a great topic to help me get back to writing discussion posts.

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme created by Rukky @Eternity Books and co-hosted by Aria @Book Nook Bits and Dini @ dinipandareads! In this discussion meme, participants get to talk about certain topics, share opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! Learn more about LTB, past topics and future topics here.

book reviews are (technically) the base of book blogging

It's in the name, and it's how most of us started our book blogs.

Unlike book reviews for school curriculum, writing them on our blogs gives us all the freedom. We're allowed to yell (in all caps), vent our frustrations, and sing praises without any restriction. There's no word requirement or limit and no one to judge how we format the book reviews.

It's hard to find a book blog which doesn't have standalone book reviews. After all, it's hard to find someone in real life who will listen to us ramble about a book for a long time. Most people don't care about what themes a certain book explores or how the characters grow through their troubles. Book reviews are the place for us to spill all our thoughts without inhibition.

However, I didn't always like book reviews, both reading and writing them. I've written about my mixed feelings with book reviews before and actually stopped writing them for a good while in between. I found my way back to them only recently.

I still don't believe that book reviews are everything, or even necessary, in a book blog. But I found a new joy in reading and writing them after I changed my relationship with a bunch of other things.

This post is the perfect place to explore why I didn't like book reviews for a while, general thoughts, and detailed opinions about them now.

do book reviews make up a big part of your content?

It was a much bigger part of my content pool when I first started blogging, probably because I was discovering the freedom of talking about each book at length (300 words back then). The frequency petered out until I developed a dislike to full-length book reviews. I continued writing mini-reviews in wrap-ups, though.

One of my goals for 2024 was to write at least 25 blog posts and that number seemed much easier if I wrote book reviews. The biggest issue in my blogging slump was coming up with post ideas so fitting in many book reviews solved that problem to an extent. It had been long enough for me to look at them with fresh eyes too.

Due to the above, around 1 in every 4 posts was a book review in 2024. The ratio is fluctuating a bit now since I'm in the mood to write a bunch of other stuff. But I'm pretty sure I'll keep writing reviews fairly often. I write a few measly lines about every book in my monthly wrap-ups so if I have more to say, it's best done in a full book review.

Honestly, thinking about it now, those mini-reviews from earlier were as long as some full-length reviews. Even a few hundred words on every book can be a full review, I don't know why I was so conscious about how long I write book reviews. I felt like the review had to be of a certain length i.e. have enough content to justify being a post of it's own. Not sure where that mindset came from.

Even now, I sometimes struggle with writing full-length book reviews if I feel like I don't have enough to say. That's ridiculous. First of all, I always have a lot to say. Even when I think I don't, I find myself writing a ton. Secondly, there's no specific length requirement! This is my blog and I can do whatever I want. It's slowly getting easier to put aside those random nonsense thoughts nowadays by telling myself those 2 points.

It's easy and amazing to write book reviews when you're bursting with opinions but it's also nice to write at length about a book that seems "okay." I've learnt so much about myself by doing the latter because it forces me to lowkey pick my brain to understand why it's just "okay" and what would have made it better.

do you prefer writing long or short reviews?

Long, obviously. You'll be hard-pressed to find a blog post that is "short" on this blog. I easily write thousands of words, even when it seems like a post isn't going so well. Book reviews are no exception.

Every thought is interlaced with random contexts which people usually don't put on the page but I do, hence making the reviews long. You will hear about that random other book which had something marginally similar, or that life experience which influenced how I thought about something.

Most of my reviews are around 2k words (including the synopsis). If a review is only around 1k words, it feels short, haha. I used to spend multiple days writing a single review but nowadays I'm able to get it out in one or two sittings if the mood strikes. As I write reviews, it gets easier.

I write whatever comes to mind and stop only when I've run out of things to say. I don't have any length goals. Sometimes, I make a list of points that I'd like to mention in the review beforehand. It helps because I can gauge how much is left to write.

I think that my wordiness works both against and for the reviews. On one hand, it's too much for a person to read if they don't know that book or don't care about it, and are simply there to get a verdict on whether it's good or not. I add a conclusion but it's at the end. (Maybe I should write it in the beginning? 🤔)

On the other hand, the length helps readers who want to know all of my thoughts and want to discuss the book. Usually people who have already read the book in question. I mostly write reviews simply to air out my thoughts but I love every comment discussing it.

The post length might also help the SEO ranking but I'm pretty sure most strangers don't read 2k words and quickly leave, cancelling out the SEO ranking uptick.

how does reviewing ARCs change your approach to reviews?

I'm pretty sure this was a big reason why I grew to dislike book reviews for a while. I got caught up in the ARC (Advance Reader Copy) wheel, vying to get good books "for free" and being disappointed because I wasn't getting the books I wanted since I'm an international blogger. I thought I had to prove myself by reviewing first and ended up reading many books that I didn't like, and the forced reviews for some of them didn't help.

Coincidentally, I got an email from NetGalley recently that my account hasn't been used in 3 years and will be deleted soon. Good riddance. It might work for many reviewers but it didn't work for me. The last 3 years were spent in avoiding writing reviews and slowly liking them again.

Thankfully, I never had a relationship with authors and publishers for that to have much of an effect. Sure, I was jealous seeing others get books for free from publishers. Influencers from India were getting books too. Although I tried, it didn't work out and I quickly gave up, thinking it'll happen if it is meant to. I'm glad I did.

I don't accept review copies except once in a blue moon now. Even if I get an email with an interesting synopsis, I prefer to add it to my TBR and seek it out later on my own time. I hate reading on a schedule set by others or reading due to the guilt of promising something.

After about 2 years or no ARCs, I signed up for one recently and reviewed it only because it's written by someone I know and I knew that finding the mood to read it wouldn't be hard. Mood reading is a challenge, okay? And I don't want to sign up to promote a book only to do a disservice to it by forcing myself to read it.

I admire readers who review ARCs often but I would rather not. It adds more to my plate than it is worth. When I write reviews for ARCs, I'm quite conscious about what I write as well. It definitely changes my approach because I have to think about writing a "good" review.

Instead of simply writing whatever comes to mind, I focus on how to highlight the best aspects of the book while smartly talking about what could have been better. I think about the flow and the overall appeal. I think about "doing justice" to the book because (I feel like) I owe something in return for the review copy.

I am on the influencer program on Libro.fm but it doesn't cause any headache because there's no stresses attached to it. The authors aren't looking at my reviews, no one is specifically looking at my reviews, I don't have to report or share what I write, and there's no deadline attached. There are several options to pick from and no hard feelings if I drop some of them. This actually makes me review more of those books, since I can review freely.

do you review on other platforms?

The book review sites, sometimes. Otherwise, if I can help it, no.

I used to diligently cross-post my reviews on GoodReads and Amazon but I've let go of that practice. It added to my plate and I simply did not enjoy doing it. I know that it helps authors and readers but I don't do it unless I specifically have the time and energy to do it.

The problem is the formatting, I'll admit. I'm used to writing long reviews on the blog which often have subheadings or lists. When I copy over the text to other sites, I have to spend some time to fix the formatting. Cross posting is annoying enough to copy over the text because I can't do it in one go, and then I've got to fix all the formatting. I'd rather not. I know, I know, I don't have to fix it but it doesn't look good and I absolutely hate posting badly formatted text.

I use StoryGraph as my main reading tracker app but I usually only write one-liners there right after I read. I don't write big reviews or cross post there after I post on the blog. I don't even use all the complicated review options that the app provides, I simply choose a rating and write "meh" or "nice" as the review before moving on.

Once every few months, when I remember to and have the mood to do it, I update GoodReads with my reading progress; I don't even both to copy over the one-liners, simply adding the ratings and the dates. I don't think I've added a proper review there in a long time.

When it comes to ARCs (not Libro.fm ALCs), I try to cross post. I sometimes forget and do it months later, but I try. I've made a commitment, after all.

I quit social media in 2023 and haven't posted a book review there since then. Social media affected my reading enough to warrant quitting (which I realized only after I did) but I left because none of it appealed to me anymore.

Even if posting on this blog is a more obscure way, I don't mind the "low" interaction here. It's too apparent in social media which makes me feel sad about posting at all. I compare myself to others, okay?! I'm only human. It's good for my mental peace to not be on social media and not post.

I sometimes open the social media sites to post a link to my book review on the blog but that's it. I do not write even one proper sentence about books on social media and I don't miss it. (No, my post on quitting social media isn't out yet. I'm procrastinating.)

For all the good that my reviews would do on those sites, I don't really want to be on them. I wish there was a tool that automated the process. I could make one but the I know that coding the formatting fixes would be a headache. I like to believe that writing about the books on my blog is enough contribution.

what do you think?

This was fun to write! Instead of worrying about coming up with my own sections like I used to a few years ago, I decided to just go with the prompts and it was much easier to write this post. I really need to stop doing too much and make this hobby harder for no reason.

Do you write reviews? How do you write them? Where do you post them? Has your preference for writing/posting book reviews changed over time?