It’s great when I review a book I would never have normally chosen – and discover a whole new genre to add to my portfolio.

Tony Riches – 23 September 2014

About Reviewing

How did you get started?

It may shock younger readers to know I started reviewing books before the Internet was invented – and was paid for it!  Early in my writing career I freelanced as a reviewer for a range of magazines. Much later I began posting reviews on Goodreads and four years ago started my blog The Writing Desk.

How do you review a book? Is it a read first, and then make notes, or do you make notes as you go along?

Hard copy books are read right through, with the occasional slip of paper to ‘bookmark’ something I may want to refer to in a review.  A useful innovation now is my Kindle Paperwhite, as I can simply highlight sentences and see them all listed later.

What are you looking for?

It’s great when I review a book I would never have normally chosen – and discover a whole new genre to add to my portfolio. As a historical fiction author I’m always on the lookout for something I can learn from, well researched – with an unexpected twist!

How long does it take you to get through, say, an eighty thousand-word book?

It depends on how much I’m enjoying it. I have read a book a day for a week – but then there are a few lying around that I’m still hoping to get back to…

How did you come up with your rating system, and could you explain more about the rating system?

I use the Amazon rating system – and nearly always cross post to both Amazon US and Amazon UK.

What advice could you give to authors looking to get their books reviewed?

It is so important to make it easy for reviewers with a clear synopsis, relevant links (including social media) and a short bio with a pic. When I have a lot of books queueing up it is always worth offering to write a short guest post for my writing blog.

Do you get readers emailing you and thanking you for a review?

Yes – and I like it when book buyers on Amazon click to let me know they found my review useful.

My advice to authors on getting a ‘bad’ review (hasten to add that might mean a perfectly honest, well written, fair review – just bad from the author’s point of view) is to take what you can from it and move on. Under no circumstances to ‘argue’ with the reviewer – would you agree with that?

Absolutely. No one ever won an argument with a reviewer! (It does hurt when you’ve spent a year doing your best to write a book though. It’s the bad reviews you remember… and learn most from.)

About Reading

We talk a lot about writing here on the blog, and possibly not enough about reading, which is after all why we’re all here. Why do you think people love reading? We’re seeing lots of statistics that say reading as a pastime is dying – do you think that’s the case?

I was intrigued and searched for some reading stats. Take a look at http://www.statisticbrain.com/reading-statistics/ and prepare to be depressed.   My hope is that that the rise of e-readers has made it so much easier for people to try new books and read at times they wouldn’t normally do so. On the other hand, I can hardly remember the last time I was in a public library.

About Writing

What are the most common mistakes that you see authors making?

At one extreme, too may short chapters that leave the reader dizzily trying to keep up – at the other, long passages that really should never made it past the editing and revision process.

We’re told that the first page, paragraph, chapter, is absolutely key in making or breaking a book. Agents typically request only the first five pages of a novel; what do you think about that? If a book hasn’t grabbed you by the first five pages, do you put it down?

No. Some of the best books I’ve ever read took a bit of work before I was ‘gripped’. It does help if the first sentence makes you sit up though!

Is there anything you will not review?

I decided not to cover explicit erotica on my writing blog – and I’m not a fan of zombie fiction. Having said that, I like to be surprised, so I’m always interested in something that ‘bends the genres’.

About Publishing

What do you think of the oft-quoted comment that the “slush-pile has moved online”?

I think it’s great that anyone can publish a book now. I’m not aware of anyone ever buying a book they really didn’t like the look of, and readers deserve as much choice as possible. (Particularly in view of the statistics referred to above.)

Do you think attitudes are changing with respect to indie or self-published titles?

Yes – and I’ve watched conventionally published authors taking more interest in what’s going on in the Indie world.

Do you have any ideas or comments on how the industry can ‘filter’ good from bad, aside from reviews?

It is well documented that ‘word of mouth’ is the best way for authors to gain more readers, so the right use of social media has a very useful part to play.  If anyone reading this wants to help, it is worth remembering that the most popular ‘tweets’ and Facebook or Google+ posts  say something brief and interesting about the book, include a ‘shortened link’ to where it can be found and a picture of the cover. To see examples find me on Twitter @tonyriches.

End of Interview:

Read Tony’s reviews at The Writing Desk.