"OMGOMGOMG some writer digs my deplorable tweets, YAY!"
Then today a private message arrives in my inbox from this author, to download his lates book for free on amazon. Duuuude! How cool was that. I was so awesomely happy I whooped.
Then I clicked the link to the free book.
"Hey lookathat, he has 4 out of 5 stars out of several reviews for this title." I said to myself. Not bad, but I have learned to be dubious about amazon reviews. Usually I read the one to three star reviews firsts to get an idea of what the main complaint about a product is. This title had lots of five star and only a few one or three stars. When a product or a book has lots of five stars and then just a few one stars it...interests me. Statistics class ruined me in many ways, but mostly in that it tought me to look at weird spreads like these a little closer. Surprise, surprise, the few one star reviews I read were scathing. One reviewer mentioned that their previous review (of one star) had been deleted unexplicably.
The one star reviews for this book all had the same complaints: bad writing and bad character development.
After studying the bad/meh reviews, I looked at the five star reviews to make sure I wasn't being too biased. Most were several paragraphs in length, which to me is a good indicator of something dubious going on. Who bothers to write a five paragraph review for anything...I mean REALLY! It does happen, but paid for reviews tend to be very wordy and often sound more like an advertisement (or a summary of a plot) then a plain old "I HATE THIS THING", " OMG I LOVE THIS THING" or a "meh" review.
The best way to see what is going on with the five stars is to look at the reviewers history. The "see all my reviews" link next to a reviewers name, is a the best thing since popcorn. Click on it and you will see what that person has reviewed and what rating he/she tends to give. I had been hopefull that I was wrong about this author and he was an all around great guy with no ego issues whatsoever. Going through each of the five stars however bashed my hopes to pieces. The reviewers were either prolific five star givers or this was the only item they had ever reviewed. Not saying that a review cannot be legit when it is the only one made so far. Maybe the item was SO good that the reviewer felt compelled to write about how awesome it is. But when you see post after post where the reviewers have only reviewed this one specific item, it becomes suspect. My conclusion after doing this minor research is, that this author bought five star reviews for his book. Does that mean that his book is a piece of trash and shouldn't be bought? No, but it might make you think twice about wether or not you want to spend your money on it.
Authors paying for reviews make me exceptionally sad.
Every author throughout human history has had to rewrite and fail several times before getting any recognition. If you are unable to accept criticism and rejection, then maybe you should rethink writing as a career. We want people to read; trash books with fake reviews turn people away, and eventually you will run out of an audience willing to give you the time of day. Be brave and matue enough to take honest feedback. Use it as a lesson and learn from it, then go forth and write something epic.
(Edited 1/30/13)
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Location:Kitchen with tea
