What do you say when an author you know asks you to post a glowing review of their book on Amazon.com? She says “This bonehead gave my book one star and his review is unfair. I’m asking everyone I know to post a good review.”

Other people in your writing circle nod and make jokes about entering multiple five star reviews to up the average. But you sit there, knowing your friend’s book has flaws and may not deserve more than two and a half or three stars. Even worse, a week later, you find some of the writer’s circle actually has posted glowing reviews, with high ratings, and not one of them has declared their relationship with the author.

In this world of advertising hype and “self-interest” sophistry, this might seem like a minor sin. Almost every movie or sitcom or car advertisement portrays its object as THE NEW GREAT THING!!!! And let’s not talk about politically funded “journalists” and those fair and balanced channels. What’s a little misleading review if it gets you attention and earns you a few bucks?

We fiction authors may lie for a living, but we have to lie in the right place. Author and reader have several relationships. One is the trust that allows the reader to accept things they know aren’t true in order to experience a great story. At the same time, there’s also the marketing relationship. Once a reader likes your first book, he’ll look for more of your work.

But what if he read that first book because somebody hyped it to him? Of course, we all have some tolerance for hype — we’re used to the sitcom being just not as funny as the ads say it is. But even that tolerance has limits. If the hype is really out of proportion with the actual reading experience, a reader will feel cheated and probably never read that author again. Worse, he or she will tell all their friends how bad the author is (not the work, you’ll note). In less extreme cases, he or she may just feel disappointed and not buy the author again.

I say we have a duty to our author friends to present their work in a positive light, but not to overblow it. Sure, that means we have to take a moment to exercise a little disinterested consideration, but with so many temptations to act in raw self-interest, the practice can bring perspective and carry over to other things.