As I was hopping along (it ended up being my final stop) in the summer giveaway hop, I happened to find this site, and I love their challenge! Over at the Book Monsters, they are doing a mini review-a-thon from the 7th (today) through the 13th. They are challenging us to review as many books as possible. I have a lot of books I am supposed to review--I'm trying to get caught up! So I thought I would jump in.
Here are the questions they have asked us today:
1. Are you happy with your review format currently?
2. Scrutinize it a little more, maybe compare it to other blogs you like, anything you think you might change?
3. Implement some basic changes and tell us what you think. Or, you can tell us one or two aspects of your reviews that you like.
2. Scrutinize it a little more, maybe compare it to other blogs you like, anything you think you might change?
3. Implement some basic changes and tell us what you think. Or, you can tell us one or two aspects of your reviews that you like.
So here are my answers.
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1. I have done a lot to tweak my review format over the course of the past year. I always include my goodreads review, and I always put in a summary from goodreads (unless it doesn't have it--then I use Amazon). That was the way I began doing blogging reviews. In recent months, I have tried to include an about the author section. In one of my more recent reviews, I included another little section because the book had stayed with me for a good week after I was done reading it. That was actually the review where the author posted a note saying I had encouraged her. I feel that my reviews contain the elements I want. I have compared my style to other review formats, and I feel that sometimes bloggers tend to write reviews that are way too short and not too inclusive. Sometimes reviewers summarize the story itself, and that is something I am dead set against!
2. There is something that I have seen a lot of blogs that is pretty neat. Many book bloggers develop their own rating system. I have seen reviewers rate the books using a movie rating system or using some kind of symbol that is unique to their blog--5 wine bottles down to 1 wine bottle--or something like that. I have not really researched it much, but I would like to add some kind of rating system like that to my blog. Goodreads only has a rating system of 1-5, and sometimes I feel that does not do the book justice. What about when the book is in between two numbers. I think I would also like to specifically point out any problem areas in the book that may be offensive. I think I do that, but perhaps it would be nice for me to do it in a separate section. With my blog being inspirational and Christian in nature, I always feel a responsibility to my readers to let them know what area might be offensive.
3. My goal is to implement one of these into my next review. I will work on developing my own rating system. And then I have to learn how bloggers find and create the symbols. But I do believe that I can immediately add in the "problem areas" section.
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There is still time if you would like to join them in the challenge.
Hello Ruth,
ReplyDeleteso glad you joined the challenge...gave me a way to find you. I love that you have warnings in your reviews.
off to lurk around.....
Thanks for joining us first of all and what great things to improve on! I've seen other blogs that separate or rate the book on objectional material or describe if it has sex, kissing, etc. or hard to handle issues like drug-use etc.
ReplyDeleteWhat you can do for the image is find the image you like and then use a photo editor like GIMP 2 (which is free to downloan) and layer the picture to get however many rating numbers you'll have and save them as separate picture files.