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I'm an author. Here's a concept I'd like to propose for getting honest and helpful reviews.

The Problem: Reviewers who feel compelled to post negative reviews on Amazon in the name of "fairness."

The Solution: A support group of authors who can review each others' work under the following agreement: if it deserves four stars or more, it gets posted on Amazon. If it deserves less, the feedback goes to the author but does not get posted publicly.

Many reviewers refuse to work under those terms, though they seem very reasonable to me. I've reviewed books that had serious problems - bad grammar, poor characters, poor plot etc. I wouldn't dream of hurting someone's chances by posting those things in public. Instead I communicate my concerns with the author so they can improve. Makes sense!

So let us authors band together, give each other honest feedback and, if warranted, strong reviews, but not hang each others' dirty laundry out in public.

If interested, let me know and I'll keep track of who is in.

This is pretty much how I operate, although I have shared 3-star reviews when I simply couldn't go higher. But if I can't give a book at least 3 stars, I don't post a review, but will (on occasion) share my concerns with the author privately--something I'd want reviewers of my books to do. Fair's fair, right?

What is more suspicious in a list of book ratings/reviews? Only 3-5 stars, or a mixture of all?

Big 5 or self-pubbed, how is doing favours by not expressing your true thoughts on a piece of work just to save the author's feelings fair? I reserve the right, when I purchase or agree to read a piece of work, to present my feelings on that work in whatever way I wish. It's certainly not up to the author what I do with my thoughts, any more than it's up to me what readers of my work do with theirs.

But censoring reviews to only include 3+ ratings is falsifying the true effect of that work. Someone at some point will leave a review of 1 or 2 whether or not you do, all books have them eventually, because you cannot please everyone. And if books don't have 1or 2 ratings at some point, then I personally would be suspicious.

I appreciate every single review when someone has put in some effort to explain how they feel. Why make that awkward by going direct to the author, unless you know them directly and personally?

My view of helping self-published authors create a great book is to do that BEFORE they publish. There is no shortage of that help on here, and a lot of it FREE. Why offer to avoid a low-rated review when there is all this help available to avoid a bad book? It doesn't make sense to me.

A final thought on this is that badly received (or just bad) books are left with ratings of only 3+, yet exceptional books (and there are many) are left with skewed ratings as they cover all ratings (because you can't please everyone), meaning they may end up looking equal.

If this is your standing, certainly carry on, but I can't understand why reviewers would want to censor themselves like this, author or no.