Writing 101: Trust or Popularity?
One of the hardest questions a reviewer – whether in print media or online – needs to ask him- or herself when starting out is “Do I want to be trusted or do I want to be popular and get a lot of hits to my reviews?” In a perfect world, the answer is “both,” of course. We humans tend to seek some reassurance in being admired and well-liked, and those of us who want to eke a living out of writing tend to want popularity, critical acclaim, the respect of our peers and the reader’s trust, sometimes too much so. Unfortunately, on planet Earth nothing is perfect, and more often than not it becomes difficult to strike a healthy balance between writing what is truly in the writer’s mind and writing what some readers might want to hear, not out of conviction but to get those “helpful” votes at Amazon or other consumer review sites. For instance, I discovered early on in my “career” as an unpaid reviewer at Amazon that when you try to express an honest opinion that runs coun