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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ghostwind" data-source="post: 1519279" data-attributes="member: 3060">Gee, I think I just got a compliment. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Seriously though, as someone who works in the industry full-time as a writer/developer, I very firmly believe that you can write product reviews as long as you do not review your own stuff or those books by the publisher you tend to do the most work with. For instance, I personally steer clear of reviewing any Bastion Press products since I am very closely tied to that company. That's why I let my staff handle them. There are also quite a few individuals other than myself who both freelance and write reviews in this industry. Andrew Hind, Jeff Ibach, Christina Stiles, Chris Sims, Megan Robertson, and Monte Cook all come to mind off the top of my head. And I am sure there are more that I can't think of at the moment. The key to writing a review (no matter who you are or what your name might be) is professionalism. As long as present your review in a manner that shows your objectiveness and willingness to be fair, you will be more highly regarded than if you write a review that boils down to nothing more than a rant that sounds like you have a personal vendetta against the product. You can be critical without being condemning when writing a review. As I tell my review staff, if you find something good, point it out and tell why. If you find something bad or wrong, point it out too - but make sure you explain why. And therein lies one of the secrets to good review writing. Explaining why you don't like or do like the material. All too often I see reviews that boil down to a "I hate this and that, so the whole book must suck" without any explanation as to why the reviewer felt that way.  An example of this is the critcism of nonstandard class progressions. If the new class does not have the same progression rate as an existing class, then it must be broken because it is different. I see this time and time again out there, especially among certain reviewers who tend to view anything that deviates from the core rules as 'questionable'. These reviewers fail to go into why they believe the progression to be wrong. Criticisms are useless without sound and logical reasoning to back them. With the exception of a very small handful of publishers, nearly every one I have ever dealt with in my three years of review writing has treated me with respect, professionalism, and a friendly attitude. That respect carries over into the freelancing and writing side of my career. If I have a reasonable request or favor I need from one of the many publishers, usually all I need do is ask and 9 times out of 10 I get it. Why? Because of the professionalism I maintain with them and the honesty in my dealings with them. Publishers know that everything they release will not be stellar Origins award winning material to every single reader. Nor do they expect that every review will be an A+. But they do expect fairness and honesty in the manner in which the review is written and how you deal with them. Writing a review is more about providing good information than good 'copy' and I believe that most publishers fully understand that. So, if you feel like writing a review, then by all means do it. In the end, it shouldn't really matter who you work for in the industry as long as there is not a direct conflict of interest between your product(s) and the ones you review.</blockquote>

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