One of my favorite aspects of book blogging is writing book reviews. Maybe it speaks to my background as an educator–constantly evaluating and analyzing. Whatever it is, I love to write reviews and with the advent of the internet have gone beyond reviewing solely books. In addition to posting my reviews here, I also submit them to Amazon.com.
Last year I joined Trip Advisor (nat-n-ant) and have since published a few reviews of the hundreds of places we’ve traveled to during our annual summer road trips. Though Trip Advisor has been recently criticized for review integrity, I love the site and have found many wonderful places to visit and restaurants to try that I might have otherwise missed. I have notes on so many great places (pictures, too!) and fully intend to post more reviews when I have some free time.
I also write short book reviews and recommendations for my local library. Brevity is the key to those mini-reviews–written on an index card–something that can be elusive to a chatterbox such as myself! I love suggesting great books to other people and recently got some great feedback from a teen volunteer who read Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty at my recommendation. She told me that she loved the book and read the remaining books in the series to find out what happened to the characters.
At restaurants, I always fill out comment cards complimenting on the good and noting the not-so-good. When given constructively, feedback is a valuable tool for any company that deals with the public.
So, how about you? Are you a reviewer of books or other things on sites beyond your blog? Do you write for Yelp! or some of the others that offer public opinion?
Book, Line, and Sinker 
I write reviews on my blog, for ARCs from Library Thing and Bookreporter(dot)com, and I have been writing reviews for TheStarCeleb(dot)com since early this year. I love reading and reviewing books! I was writing personal reviews before I started doing it publically so I thought, “Why not do it publicly?!”
Great article!
http://thetruebookaddict.blogspot.com/
Nope, don’t review anything apart from the books I read and put on my blog. I wish our library allowed for us to put up mini reviews of books. That would be fabulous.
I’m a volunteer at the library once a week and the manager knows I have a book blog…I think that’s why he lets me write some reviews. 🙂
Nope, my blog is it for me! It’s all I can do to keep up with it.
Honestly, I have no idea how you keep up with all your reading, reviewing, commenting, and building good will across the book blogs–that’s why I voted for you in BBAW!!!
If there’s a chance to comment, I will.
Also a fan of Trip Advisor… one of the hotels I reviewed actually emailed me to thank me for the glowing commentary.
I think I’ve written one review on trip advisor, and I used to write reviews on Amazon… but now it’s pretty much only book reviews on my blog (with the exception of the few I write professionally). I think I should start reviewing restaurants, though that might be motivated by the fact that we had a terrible dining out experience last night. 😦
Yay, Sloppy Firsts!! And I’ll have you know that I’m almost done with Bitter Is The New Black right now — another of your recommendations! Well, I’m not sure if that’s the Jen Lancaster book you recommended… but that’s the one I grabbed, with it being first and all! LOVES IT! She reminds me so much of Laurie Notaro, another of my heroes, but Notaro is grosser. At least, that’s why my sister and I think!
Where else do I review? I do tend to post book reviews on Amazon at some point or other, but not that regularly. My reviewing on LibraryThing is very consistent, though — I like keeping that up to date! Sometimes I leave comment cards in restaurants if I’ve gotten particularly good or particularly bad service, but I don’t usually do too much in between! I try to keep my snark levels to myself. Well… most of the time. 🙂
Wow, great work on all the reviews. I wonder if my library needs someone to volunteer to write mini reviews on index cards.
I have a couple of trip reports and reviews on slowtrav.com. But my blog seems to have taken over my life.
Very nice blog! I came here from Stopbouncing. I am not a book reviewer but am a Librarian in a Public Library. I’m also an avid reader, always looking for somebody new to read. I’m supposedly working at writing a novel, but only sporadically. I’ve added you to my blogroll.
My blog is all I can handle, but I was asked to write a book review for a professional newsletter and they accepted by article for publication — that was exciting. Other than that, I’m on the blog and Library Thing.
I love filling out surveys!
In addition to book reviews, I offer travel tips at http://www.virtualtourist.com – though I am not as active anymore.
I started out reviewing when I would get ARCs from Bookreporter.com or Library Thing then I was asked to review for my friend’s celebrity blog thestarceleb.com. I’ve been reviewing for that site since early this year. I started my blog the beginning of August so now all my reviews go on my blog too. I LOVE reviewing books…and I might occasionally review a movie especially if it has a book tie-in.
I also review books on my library’s blog and on the library system catalog from time to time. I do also fill out restaurant comment cards and any surveys that come my way!
I enjoy reviewing audiobooks because it never ceases to amaze me what a good narrator can do for a book or story. On my site, I try to promote audiobooks by linking to others’ blogs when they review audiobooks and posting my own reviews. I’m a librarian and try to encourage patrons to give audiobooks a try.
Hm. Not really. Well, unless I receive some FANTASTIC customer service somewhere and then I’ll find the manager and INSIST on telling them about it.
Or if I find an HONEST AND FABULOUS MECHANIC. That was the only reason I set up a CitySearch account in the first place.
I review books and my husband reviews hotels and places we travel on Trip Advisor — it is a nice division of labor! : )