Are you a hurricane wind or a summer breeze?
Are you a reviewer or a reader of reviews? Or possibly both? If you have something published and have had reviews, what do you do after reading the reviews? Do you take them at face value? Do you become elated with a good review only to be deflated with a bad review?
I was recently in the market for a new laptop. (Recent as in it will be delivered on Tuesday.) As an aspiring author, I wanted the perfect equipment to complete my first book, my blog, and some light surfing on the internet. I did my due diligence and researched for days. Research being a google search on “best laptop for a writer”. As with anything these days, my google search turned up hundreds if not thousands of results for what others deemed to be a good laptop for a writer. There were lists of reviews (so many reviews!) regarding laptop brands, memory, ram, keyboard types and SSD vs HDD. Each time I would narrow down my selection I would, as an informed shopper, read the reviews from others who had purchased the device. This helped me to accomplish…..nothing.
After a week of driving myself crazy by adding a laptop to my online shopping cart only to delete it after reading bad reviews.. I gave up. The opinions seemed to be all over the place. Like the wind. I would allow the reviews to start blowing me one way and then read a few others that would send me the other direction. I ended up selecting a laptop based on what I was looking for in a laptop and a brief visit to a local store to compare keyboard sizes and comfort.
What I decided at the end of the day is that the thing with opinions is that everyone has one and no two are going to be the same. Even with something as simple as a product review. It will always depend on someones personal experience. Two people can have the exact same product and still have two completely different experiences. The same goes for reading a book or blog.
What have I learned through all of this? That reviews can be great and I love to leave them myself. It can be a great asset for a shopper or writer to get an open and possibly negative review so you get a different perspective.
How boring would the world be if everyone was happy with everything all of the time!
Don’t worry, I’ll provide a review on my new laptop next week. 🙂
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