Following on from last week’s post about self-publishing, another question arose – how do you review a book by a friend or acquaintance without facing some sort of ethical dilemma?
You want to help your friends by spreading the word with a good review, but you don’t want to appear biased, and on the flip side, what if you promote a friend’s book that’s clearly not as good as you say it is? People won’t trust you.
Last week, I commented on three books from authors I don’t know – but I’ve got books in my collection from authors I do know. Lots of them.
Do I review their babies and give an honest opinion? What if I don’t like what I read? What if I do?
Should I just comment on the aspects I like and pretend the stuff I don’t like isn’t there?
What if I only post about the ones I like? That’s an opinion too, and one even more likely to hurt people.
I suspect the best option might be to avoid reviewing books written by people I know, but that’s not helping either.
What’s your take on this problem? Do you review books by friends? Should you? How do you go about it?
If you missed it, you might like to check out last week’s post: Is self publishing a good thing?