I’ve wondered this a few times, but hesitate to share it out loud.
Reviews are marketing tools. They would attract readers to authors. Now there’s reviews everywhere and from some who simply want to either make something look great or tear the work apart. Trolls I believe is the term.
How do we know anything about the reviewers? Is it the author writing them under multi-names? Friends writing them just to boost their pal. Someone who just doesn’t like the author so wants to blast them.
Reviews aren’t necessarily dead, but where’s the resume? Where’s the checkpoint that this person, I guess the word is vetted?
I started as a volunteer for a website that was already alive and well before I joined the internet and chat groups. They wouldn’t have posted a crap or mean review…it was their reputation, then mine.
I ended up volunteering…free books for all sites was my payment…at another site. This person suggested a few times that it was time for me to start my own site as I was such a prolific reader. Again, they wouldn’t have posted if I didn’t meet their standards…their reputation first.
Nearly forgot about the other site. They would not send me anything until I offered up a certain number of my own reviews…how serious was I…their reputation first.
I gained the trust of some publishers and PR people…sadly the online sales companies helped run them out of business. And that’s a whole other story.
There’s talk that writing is professional with the selling of material, the earning. Okay, there’s a point there. But, it is also professional with how it’s created, marketed, treated from start to finish.
I didn’t take my first publications that serious…serious enough to search out reviews. Please don’t follow my path. Take the time and energy to find dedicated reviewers who have an audience that may not want to scroll a shopping site.
Reviews may not be dead, but they could use a boost of energy.