I was reading through this Goodreads discussion and found that some authors comment on 4 or 5 star reviews of their book. They thank the person or “like” the review. I know we don’t respond to negative comments, but I never thought about positive ones.
I don’t pay much attention to comments for positive reviews of other authors’ books, so I have no idea if this is a common practice. I actually read another Goodreads discussion awhile ago where people said they didn’t like it when authors responded to reviews.
I don’t see a review, positive or negative, as an invitation to start a dialogue. If a person wants to talk to me about my book, they can email me or contact me through my social media accounts.
On the other hand, I do see authors re-tweeting positive reviews. That’s cool. I could get behind that. I’ve had authors comment on book reviews I’ve posted here. I was real excited about that.
What do you think? Do you respond to positive reviews for your book? Should this be something more authors do? Would it better to comment on a positive blog posts about your book while leaving the Goodreads and Amazon reviews alone?
I did some research on it and here’s what I found.
The one thing an author should never, ever do.
When should an author respond to reviews?
