Posts in this series (start at the beginning!)
- Setting everything up
- Your first reviews (here)
- Affiliates
- Getting Products for Review
- Connecting with the Community
- When Companies Try to Trick You
Part 2: Your First Reviews
So. You’ve gotten a name down, you’ve propped up a blog design, and you’re ready to write. There’s nothing else stopping you. Start. Writing.
Your first few reviews might sound a bit clunky. That’s totally okay. They might feel way too short or way too long. They might sound a bit too academic for your taste, or way too racy. That’s all fine. Your first couple of reviews are just stepping stones. If you don’t like how they sound, that’s a great sign! It means you have good taste, so just keep on plodding along. Sooner or later, you’ll settle into a pattern of review writing that you’re comfortable and satisfied with.
A few tips:
Organize. I’m (obviously) a huge fan of organizing my work. Each of my reviews are cut up into little bits. This isn’t actually for my reader’s benefit. It’s for my own. By tackling one tiny heading at a time (ie, vibration strength), I find it a lot easier to start, write, and finish my reviews. I tend to write long reviews (some up to around 1,300 words), so breaking things up into pieces helps keep me organized and motivated. Does it help my readers? Maaaaybe, but maybe not. Do I recommend doing it? Yup. If you’re not a fan of headings, no worries! Still try to organize your paragraphs into themed topics. This definitely makes it easier for readers to skim your reviews without missing important pieces of information.
Just tell the truth. If something is bothering you, write about it. If something is awesome, write about it. Readers won’t thank you for endorsing a toy they later find out doesn’t work nearly as good as you made sound. If you’re reviewing a toy that was sent to you for free, resist the urge to soften the blows. Products come and go. Readers stay. Your readers are more important than product producers.
Buy a few toys first. Please don’t start a sex toy blog if you haven’t tried sex toys. Whether it’s for pleasure or educational interests, sex toys need to hold interest for you. The more experience you have with sex toys, the more likely you’ll know if blogging about them is something you’ll want to do in the long run.
Learn about material safety. I cringe when I see new reviewers writing glowing reviews of porous PVC or Jelly toys with no mention of safety. Please, please please educate yourself to some degree about material safety before publishing any reviews. Do you need to be a chemist? NO! But consumers will look to you to educate them. If you’re promoting a rubber dildo, buyers won’t have any sort of awareness that rubber isn’t a body-safe material. As sex toy bloggers, we really need to work together to create change in this industry, and it’s disheartening when new bloggers don’t hold a baseline safety knowledge of the products they’re featuring.
Don’t copy/paraphrase other reviewers. If you’d like to avoid pissing off other reviewers, don’t copy or paraphrase another reviewer’s review. In a tight-knit community like this, it is extremely easy to tell when this has been done. I’d even suggest that you avoid reading other people’s reviews of something you’re about to review, as absorbing someone else’s ideas beforehand will make it more difficult to formulate your own ideas. Just don’t do it. You won’t last long if you get a reputation like that.
Count them up. Before I made my blog public, I had around 6 reviews written up as drafts. Having this stack of reviews was to show myself that I held enough interest in the topic to actually write a few out. Before investing in huge amounts of time into this industry, just try writing. Remember: half the work is just showing up. So if you want to blog, you need to be prepared to blog regularly. That could mean you’re publishing once a week, once a month, or once a season. Just be prepared to show up at some point. If you need to take a month or two off from posting reviews, that’s totally cool! Just let your readers know. No one likes to feel abandoned, so readers will appreciate any communication regarding long absences.
Photo Tips
Some super brief pointers:
- Turn off your flash. You want to avoid harsh shadows. Flash tends to make images look flat.
- You need light. So either take pictures right by your window on a bright day, or take them outside, or invest some time in a light box.
- Rinse your toys beforehand. Otherwise, the dust speckles will make you cry.
- Don’t feel like fancy photos are a must. It’s nice to have nice photos, but your main goal is to assess the quality of your product. Photos come second.
More Posts in this series:
- Setting everything up
- Your first reviews (here)
- Affiliates
- Getting Products for Review
- Connecting with the Community
- When Companies Try to Trick You
Last Updated on May 27, 2020 by Miss Ruby
