I know it's late in the year to be accepting new reading missions, but with the holiday season approaching, what better time of year would there be for this particular mission? What is it, you ask?
Well, when I was searching for ebooks to read, it occurred to me that I had a mission once and I have forgotten it and its importance. Here's the best way to explain it... My self-appointed mission to find underappreciated books, read them, and if they warrant it, give them the love they deserve. So, I went to the Top 100 lists on Amazon and scanned through them, only picking books with a low # of stars - ideally less than ten but never more than 50.
I ended up with five books that fit the bill in Suspense/Murder. I finished the first one yesterday and it was really good (from an entertainment aspect, although it was also well-written). I typed out a glowing review for Goodreads, posted it to Amazon, then to Facebook, then a truncated version to Twitter/X.
And I feel really good about it. I get to read a great book and I get to maybe help the author sell a few books. I got these book for free, but I hope to, in some small way, pay these authors for the stories they gave me by posting reviews. Win win.
I don't care if they ever know or even notice. I'm only talking about it here to encourage others to try doing the same. There are a boatload of awesome, underappreciated authors out there, slogging away with no feedback. New reviews are at an all time low. Most people just leave ratings and most of the new ratings seem to suck - like people only bother when they didn't like something and not when they did. It's sad really. So, in my own way, I'm striking out against that and leaving credit where credit is due.
Hopefully, when I have a little extra scratch, I can purchase these authors' other books and support them in a monetary way, too. We do what we can.
Anyway, keep your eyes on my Books Read post and my weekly Saturday Reading Wrap-up posts and find some awesome things to read, too. Or if you have FB or Twitter, follow me and see what I have to say about the books I'm reading.
Oh, and for the record, I don't finish a book if I feel I won't be able to give it at least 4 stars. And I don't review books I don't finish. I think that's only fair. (Also, I don't give the titles of my DNF books - just the reasons. I can get kinda snotty with my reasons and there's no need to harsh some poor author's day because their book didn't suit me.)
Have a great day and keeping on reading!
You are a good soul! Trying to get reviews unless you are a "superstar" author or have a dedicated following whose mission is to buy, read, and review, is like a salmon swimming upstream with nothing but flood control dams between the sea and the spawing grounds. I wish I could "read" more books but by the time I'm done with my own work on the computer, my eyes aren't even fit for TV, hence my dependence on audio books. I'm sure there are a lot of underappreciated autio books too but they aren't free and the budget is what it is.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, GOOD ON YOU! And now I'm going to go drop a little "public service" meme on X about leaving reviews. Heck, I'd settle for just ratings at this point!