I had an interesting conversation with a friend at lunch yesterday and it brought to mind something that I had been thinking about for a while. When you go onto Amazon.com or other sites, you see the option to review a book. While it is true that best-selling authors don’t need the reviews, people often post them because they are excited about the book or sometimes disappointed. For we little known authors though, 4 & 5 star reviews are extra important. As people search for books and consider taking a chance on an author they are not familiar with, they are likely to read the reviews. The advent of E-books has made it easier than ever for writers to be published and that comes with advantages and disadvantages. It greatly increases the number of books available, but also makes it more difficult to choose when you don’t know anything about the author. That’s why features like “Look Inside the Book” are important, but another tool is the reviews.

I, of course, have an affinity for lesser-known authors and now that I have a Kindle, I often take time to roam through, looking for those that I might add to my list of, “Hey, you need to try XXXXX. Yesterdays Are Forever by Andrew Badger was one such book. Since it is a story about two professors in the literary world, it will be mostly keenly appreciated by readers who understand all the references, but it is also the story of a marriage of many years that contains more secrets that either spouse realizes. Anyway, my point is that when you do discover a new author that you like well enough to award a 4-5 star rating, please consider taking the time to post a review. It may not seem to be a big thing to you, but it genuinely can be a big help to the author.