A Recommendation

I've commented many times on various sites and blogs in the past that the recommendations I consider the most and take the most to heart are those by fellow readers. Even readers who more or less create a professional review site are given less weight than my fellow "regular" folks whose reviews I read.

Why? Because I know that their loyalties to an author they love or a sub-genre are out of true joy and love and not motivated (usually) by anything else. So in my reasoning process I trust those reviews more and am much more likely to buy a book based on a review from the blogosphere than a magazine or professional review site.

The reason I'm bringing this up now is that like most ardent readers I'm on my share of author newsletter mailing lists. It bugs me a bit to get a newsletter from an author that is recommending a book to me. You know a book that just so happens to be by the same publisher as the author? This isn't a vague cover quote, although most of those, if I notice them, make me roll my eyes. This is an out and out recommendation to read a book often implying the endorsing author has read the book. After reading some of these recommendations I've realized (duh!) that the person recommending the book doesn't seem to have actually read the book and is only really requesting her fans 'buy' the book.

Does it aggravate you when a favorite author uses their newsletter/mailing list to recommend books to their fans that you know they never read? I wonder how much pressure is put on authors to do this? If I didn't see the several authors from the same imprint pushing the same book I wouldn't be so jaded. It's particularly annoying when the book that's being recommended you know isn't very good because you've already read it.

Fortunately this peeve is easily rectified by unsubscribing to the author's newsletter. Although my Nosy Nora self has fomo. *sigh* It's just not easy being a fan is it? ;-)

I've really got to get back to writing in the evening instead of in a hurry before work. I'm not reading back through this even once so I hope it wasn't too hard to understand what with my love of run-ons and all.