Monday, April 19, 2010

New Poll: Do you prefer longer or shorter book reviews? Why?

I just posted a new poll on the right-hand sidebar, but I wanted to expand on the question so that I could link to here for comments.

I would like to know whether or not you, as a blog reader, prefer to read very short, medium-length, or in-depth book reviews. I ask in particular because book reviews are drastically different from product reviews (which are often best when they have serious depth).

I know that I tend to write what I consider medium-length book reviews. There are enough words to snag Google spiders, but not so much depth that I'm spoiling the books for other readers. After all, people aren't likely to read a spoiled book and then neither the author, the publisher nor I benefit at all from my having reviewed the book.

Book Sneeze is asking me to submit short, 200 word reviews of the books that I receive from them. This is below the word count threshold for Google as I understand it, and, which is more, I'm not sure that I can review a book in 100 words (since they want 100 words to go to a synopsis of the book).

What do you think? What do you prefer to read? Is a short review enough to convince you to purchase a book, or do you prefer a more in depth review?

Thanks!