How To Review an Anthology

With Schreyer Ink Publishing releasing 4 anthologies in 2017 and 6 in 2018 we thought we’d release this helpful guide for reviewing anthologies on blogs, Amazon, and Goodreads. It is important to note that, because there are multiple authors in each anthology, the authors can safely post reviews as well, if they follow a few simple guidelines.

The biggest piece of advice I can give is to treat each story as an individual entity. So, a review should say something about each story, as well as a note about the overall collection – do the stories suit the theme, etc.

BLOGS:

Perhaps the easiest, just devote a paragraph to each story and then a paragraph or two at the end to the overall collection. Remember to note both the title and author of each story (unless it’s a single author collection of course). You can rate each story out of 5 stars individually and then offer an overall rating at the end.

AMAZON/GOODREADS:

Reviews on these platforms are often shorter. Aim for 1-3 sentences per story and 2-5 on the overall collection. The star rating will reflect your overall opinion of the book but you have the option of giving each story its own star rating in the written review. You may want to do this if one story stood out, either as better or worse than the others.

BUT I’M ONE OF THE AUTHORS:

Simple, when you get to the story written by you it’ll look like this:
Title by My Name: Since I wrote this story I can’t review it. Here’s a short summary instead. (1-3 sentences telling what the story is about)

And that’s it. Very easy! You just have to remember to be honest. Don’t try to review your own story or give it a star rating. If you’re caught you can get in trouble with Amazon or your blog readers.

We look forward to seeing your reviews of Open Minds and The Twilight Madhouse (Volumes 1-3) in the coming months.