Is Writing Book Reviews Worth It?

Writing book reviews is something that takes effort, but it can also be very rewarding! I was thinking about why I write a book review every week and whether I should keep going, so I devised a list of pros and cons to way up on just how helpful it can be.

Pros

It helps you remember the author of the books you review

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Reading a book doesn’t mean that I know the name of the author who wrote it. But, if I review a book, that means writing down the author’s name several times and ensuring I spell it correctly. Knowing the name of an author who wrote a particular book helps me know about upcoming books that I otherwise wouldn’t recognise. This is really great when you hear about other people talk about upcoming releases and you know the book is from an author you’ve previously read from.

It improves your writing capabilities

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Writing reviews, like any kind of writing, can help improve your spelling, grammar and fluency. It helps you become more descriptive and also assists in making you into a more critical person. Determining the problems in a book can be helpful if you are a budding writer and want to ensure your own work is readable. Put simply, though, writing blog posts naturally gives you writing experience.

It helps you appreciate the book more

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If the book is something that you enjoyed reading, writing a positive review makes you realise just how good the book was. Things like looking into the writing, characters and setting should help you appreciate what was amazing about the book.

Cons

It takes a lot of effort

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Reviews usually take me 1-2 hours to write, and most of the time I don’t write all of it in one go. It can be time-consuming when there are other things in your life that seem more important, and then there’s the possibility nobody will gain anything from it.

People usually haven’t read/heard of the book you’re reviewing

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There are so many books that have been published and it is impossible for everyone to have read all of them! People who read books are interested in different genres and may not want to read a review of a book that is not within their range of preferred genres. Most people do not want to read the review of a book they haven’t heard of, which can make it difficult to relate to the readers of your blog.

Waiting more than a week to review the book

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I don’t know why I’m not smarter about this, but I always wait at least one week after I’ve read a book to write the review! I know not everyone does this, so I think it is just because I’m a lazy person. When I wait so long to write a review, I always remember it less than just after I finished reading it. Sometimes I even forget character’s names. Forgetting aspects to a book can make it hard to write a coherent review.

Discussion

Is writing book reviews worth it? The pros and cons I have listed are not set in stone – I’m sure there are others that I have missed. If you are a lover of books, then writing a review probably comes easily to you. After a while it can get a little tedious, and sometimes it is hard to find the motivation to sit down and write out a review. I usually do things based on whether I feel like it or not, and if I don’t feel like writing a review, then I won’t.

But, I feel that the pros outweigh the cons! It is great to be able to get your thoughts on a book down and discuss them with others.

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• Do any of these pros and cons specifically relate to you?
• Do you think that writing book reviews is worth it?