As promised—or threatened, depending on your POV—please find attached a post on Amazon reviews. Same disclaimer as with my last OBSERVATIONS post:
PROCEED WITH CAUTION, OPINIONS AHEAD.
If you don’t agree, by all means speak up.
Recap of previous post: I am a loyal Amazon customer but do not buy books via Amazon.com unless I have to. Moreover, I’m not a fan of Amazon’s (or anyone’s) blanket freebie book schemes. Downloads do not equal reads, and in my opinion, the market is becoming saturated with free books. On Wednesday, I shared all the freebies that hit my Facebook stream before early afternoon. It amounted to twenty-two books. That’s a lot of free books for one day, mid-week. Just sayin’…
But that topic is dead to me. Now it’s on to Amazon Reviews.
Best to be blunt. I loathe Amazon reviews and loathe even more they carry so much import.
What with the phony slams, the sock puppet reviews, the friend reviews, the bought and paid for reviews—it’s hard to understand how anyone could look to Amazon for a book recommendation. Professor Bing Liu of the University of Illinois estimates one third of all online reviews are fake. My guess is the number for fiction reviews is even higher given that non-fiction business writers don’t bother. Instead they eliminate middleman reviewers by simply buying their way on to the best seller list.
None of this means I don’t understand why authors’ seek out Amazon reviews. Of course I do! If I had a book, I’d certainly be lobbying, but that doesn’t make these fake or bartered-for reviews any more legitimate or meaningful.
Frankly, I blame Amazon.
If Amazon is as gung-ho to put a stop to the corruption as they claim, why not start with Harriet Klausner? I won’t say more about Ms. K, but if you’re interested in Amazon’s top reviewer, go here. I also won’t discuss the sock puppet scandal as it’s been covered exhaustively elsewhere.
To clean up their mess, Amazon is reportedly removing reviews: writer reviews, family reviews, friend reviews. WTF?!!! Why this draconian approach when there are so many sensible and straightforward ways to address the issue?
- How about allowing reviews only from folks who have legitimately purchased the item from Amazon? Sure, if you’re online you can look to see if a review is marked “Amazon Verified Purchase,” but that notation is not available when browsing on either the Kindle or Kindle Fire.
- Why not make real names mandatory? If someone is too embarrassed to sign his or her name to a review, then s/he likely has no business posting it. Any of you who maintain blogs with unmoderated comments understand the dark evil that is anonymous.
- On the create your review form, would it be so awful to ask respondents if they have a personal relationship with the author? Yep, I hear you, people lie. But if the review is posted under a *real* name, lying becomes less likely. It’s called accountability. My opinion? If your mother wants to post a review of your book, she should be allowed to, but I want to know she’s your mother.
- And why delete writer reviews? Can’t Author Pages be connected to Amazon IDs in such a way that whenever an author posts a review, it’s clear the review is coming from someone who might be biased one way or the other?
- It would also help if Amazon made it easier (possible?) to flag suspect reviews.
- And in an unrelated rant—quit with the ratings inflation. How can three stars be considered a “critical” review?
Will any of these suggestions do away with abuse? Hell no, but they’re a step in the right direction and more effective than Amazon arbitrarily deleting reviews.
A couple months before the sock puppet scandal broke, I deleted sixteen years of Amazon reviews. It was obvious there was a lot of crap going on. But when I ran into two 5-star books in a row (25+ reviews each), neither of whose authors knew enough grammar to make their stories intelligible, suddenly my careful, genuine Amazon reviews became an embarrassment. Those reviews are no more.
These days, when I have time to write a review, I post it to Goodreads.
Here’s the dark truth. Until Amazon makes a good faith effort to actually clean-up their review system beyond capricious censoring, every author with a book for sale—and this very well may mean you—will lose out to she who can buy, cajole, falsify, or scam her way to the top of the rankings via fraudulent reviews.
There must be a better alternative.
Thoughts? Good or bad, bring ‘em on!
______________________________________
This Friday, I will be participating in the Back From the Future Bloghop hosted by the amazing M. Pax, Suze, and Nicki Elson.
Want to join in the fun? Go here to sign up!
Reviews are definitely flawed. I don’t find them so imperative for fiction or any sort of entertainment, but for other products I find what people think more essential and truth is needed.
I’m exactly the same, Mary. Still, it makes me uncomfortable that so much rides on a system so easily manipulated.
On a lighter note, I’m looking forward to Friday’s Back From the Future and posting something FUN.
I’m not a huge fan of reviews, but in the current system, I think they’re necessary. The thing is, no two people see things alike. Even those who normally like the same things are going to disagree on something. And this is before you get to the problems you discussed. It’s a mess. A year or so ago, I began trying to review every book I read. I made myself crazy and stopped. I’ve only done a couple since, and they’ve been very short. I don’t know what the answer is.
True, reviews are a necessary evil, although I’m beginning to wonder why given that reading tastes are so varied. When I was researching this post, I scrolled through the feedback for TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. There was an ample number of one-star reviews, calling the book in turn, outdated, a snoozefest, and overrated. Go figure.
You’ve made some good points and offered good suggestions but, sadly, I think we’re a long way from a solution to this mess.
Absolutely. With sales, rankings, and site presence so dependent on reviews, it will be a long while before it gets sorted out—if it ever does. I understand Amazon is refusing to do business with ResultSource, a company set up to help authors to buy their way onto the WSJ or NY Times bestseller lists. I hope this is true.
Yes, exactly! Blocking writer reviews is the silliest. And the “like” situation — so many likes gets an author better visibility in searches or suggestions — drives me crazy. Generally the only people who click that “like” are authors who are doing it for one another.
Although Goodreads is also a mess in terms of overwhelmingly positive friend/family reviews, it has been a great way for me to find out about books I might like (or not) which I might not otherwise know of. I always post Goodreads reviews. I only post Amazon reviews when I think about it (generally when they send the nag email). I’m on Goodreads under my real name and have a “holy fuck that sucked” shelf that I put the stinkers on. I’ll own it.
I’d like to see only verified purchase reviews on Amazon (I’m not sure if that counts if purchased through an affiliate, used, but it should). It’s such an easy fix.
The “like” system is insanity! Amazon appears to have removed the “like” buttons from individual books, but it’s still possible to “like” an author if you go to his or her author page. No clue how an author “like” affects visibility. I’ll admit a year of you like me and I’ll like you posts between writers nearly sent me over the edge. I believe Amazon has also eliminated book tagging.
No question there are fraudulent and biased reviews on Goodreads, too, but there is also a lot of thoughtful, honest feedback that is missing from Amazon. Plus the sheer volume of reviews on Goodreads blows Amazon out of the water. When you add quantity to quality, there’s no contest.
I’ve heard a number of writers say they’re afraid of Goodreads because the reviewers are “brutal.” I think what they mean is the reviews aren’t an automatic four or five stars.
So glad you dropped by!
Requiring the use of real names would be a plus.
If they want to delete reviews, how about ones where the person hasn’t even read the book? Where they admit they only downloaded a sample or just complain that they can’t open the book on their Kindle?
Yes! Thank you for mentioning this.These non-review reviews are so unfair, both to authors and to potential readers. I find the one-star reviews complaining to authors about publisher-set e-book prices are especially painful to read.
Hi, Vi,
You have really covered this situation well. I RARELY leave reviews on Amazon. GoodReads is the place to find accurate reviews and ratings.
I must say, I LOVE your passion behind your posts. It nice to know that you are watching…. You have something REAL to say and not just hocking your next book.
BRAVO…. I applaude you!
BTW glad you enjoyed my cover reveal for Alex. Our adventure continues in my post today. LOL. If you get a chance drop by.
Aww, thank you. Passion, sounds so much nicer than opinionated.
Just visited your cover reveal for Laura Eno’s JEWEL OF SHAYLAR. Awesome!! Now I want to know what happens next with you and N Cpt. Alex. Don’t suppose you have another reveal coming up soon, do you?
I have to admit I don’t follow developments like this very well. I find so much of it so depressing. What happened to good old honesty & integrity? I reported a couple of reviews where the reviewer said in the 1st line he/she hadn’t even read the book – but didn’t like the cover so he/she gave it a 1 star review. Yikes! Sadly those reviews are still standing today.
Grrr… Any review that starts with “I haven’t read the book” should be pulled immediately. The situation *is* depressing. It’s also scary. Judging a book by its cover (forgive the cliche) is simply not acceptable.
Preach it, sister.
I can understand why reviews can be important to readers (and therefor authors) but there’s absolutely no use to them if their credibility can’t be verified.
Absolutely, Misha. A detailed, authentic review, negative or positive, can send me running to the bookstore. We’ve all had books recommended to us that we recognize as well-written and compelling—this doesn’t necessarily mean we personally enjoyed the book. Ranking subjective, qualitative information is always iffy.