The Importance of Reviews

Dave White's original 99-cent eBook Witness To Death was recently reviewed by Carol Barrowman of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, after which the book's Amazon sales rank spiked 2,000%. It's quite a coup for Dave, whose early stories I edited for The Thrilling Detective Web Site.

Today at Do Some Damage, Dave asks how important reviews are to readers. I commented:

Reviews are important to me insofar as they address what interests me about a particular book. For instance, how did Jeffery Deaver's CARTE BLANCHE go about bringing James Bond into the present day? What did reviewers think of that?

Given the reviews I've read and what I like about Bond, I'm not sure I would like the changes Deaver made. It hasn't been enough to put me off buying the book entirely, but I have passed up CARTE BLANCHE a couple of times now in favor of books I knew I'd get into right away.

Reviews have a definite impact on sales, but an author has no control over whether he gets good or bad reviews. An author has the most control over how much effort goes into writing the book.

Congrats on the review, Dave. Keep writing.