The review itself is a summary or a specific view of the book written on purpose to be able to sell the book better.
If you look on amazon.
com you will experience an enormous number of book reviewers, the top reviewer has reviewed - and therefore read - 13,998 books.
This sheds some light on the productivity behind reviewing which is most of all "pure-production.
" A review requires new text to be produced by the reviewer.
The reviewer may use some terms, on-liners or perhaps certain passages of the books, but should add something of its own to the review; a summary, something about the plot, about the characters, about the style of the book, about other books of the same author or about other books of different authors but on the same topic...
The review serves the sales process of the book and this is achieved by offering a subjective opinion from the reviewer.
A review can never be really objective, simply because the reviewer's view on the book is based on his or her experience on the subject and experience with possible other books from the author.
Besides writing a summary or wrapping up the books' content in one or two paragraphs, the reviewer operates as a spokesman for the book.
This is why the reviewers get ranked according to the number of reviews and the number of contributions they have made to the buying process.
This last fact is derived from the question "...
people found this review helpful.
" One way to characterize a book-reviewer is to compare this role with other existing productive roles.
For example, a reviewer can be characterized as:
- A lawyer - who defends the content of the book, balancing the pro's and con's but presenting a final plea to "buy it".
- A referee - in case of a reviewer this could be someone with language skills focused on the language in which the book is written.
The referee remains neutral to the content, but checks only the structure, layout and all other rules in the writing process. - A information broker -someone who is focused on getting as much as people to read the real book.
This could be done by offering as much as viewpoints as there are possible differents kinds of readers (interests). - A specialist (a competitive writer) - will elaborate on the subject from its own experience and opinion.
In the whodunit category, the specialist could be a whodunit writer. - A teacher - Who will explain the book contents as a teacher for an audience.
In literary books, the teacher could elaborate on the book contents and the importance to add this book to the must-reads.
And finally, - The real sales representative - Someone who is hired to write a positive piece about the book for the sole purpose to get someone to buy it.