Grady Harp's Instant Vote™ in action:

Taking place right now (July 27 12:36 pm PDT): check it out. It just went from 19 to 21 in a matter of seconds (in sync by the same amount for the last three reviews). Amazing. Completely in sync: one, two, three; one, two, three.

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Zodiac (Widescreen Edition), posted on July 26, 2007:
12:36 pm PDT: 21 votes.
12:41 pm PDT: 22 votes
12:43 pm PDT: 23 votes
12:46 pm PDT: 24 votes
12:53 pm PDT: 25 votes
02:44 pm PDT: 26 votes
03:54 pm PDT: 28 votes
06:06 pm PDT: 29 votes
08:40 pm PDT: 31 votes

07/29/07 10:42 am PDT: 57 votes

Origin: A Novel, posted on July 26, 2007:
12:36 pm PDT: 21 votes.
12:41 pm PDT: 22 votes
12:43 pm PDT: 23 votes
12:46 pm PDT: 24 votes
12:53 pm PDT: 25 votes
02:44 pm PDT: 26 votes
03:54 pm PDT: 28 votes
08:40 pm PDT: 29 votes

07/29/07 10:42 am PDT: 54 votes

Talking to the Moon, posted on July 26, 2007:
12:36 pm PDT: 20 votes.
12:41 pm PDT: 21 votes
12:43 pm PDT: 22 votes
12:46 pm PDT: 23 votes
12:53 pm PDT: 24 votes
02:44 pm PDT: 25 votes
03:54 pm PDT: 27 votes
08:40 pm PDT: 28 votes

07/29/07 10:42 am PDT: 52 votes

'The voters' went for two previous reviews now:

Factory Girl (Unrated) (was 37 for a day or so; posted on July 19, 2007):
12:46 pm PDT: 38 votes
12:51 pm PDT: 39 votes
12:53 pm PDT: 40 votes
02:44 pm PDT: 41 votes
03:54 pm PDT: 42 votes
03:56 pm PDT: 43 votes
08:40 pm PDT: 44 votes
07/29/07 10:42 am PDT: 54 votes

Picture Windows (was 41 for a day or so; posted on July 18, 2007):
12:46 pm PDT: 42 votes
12:51 pm PDT: 43 votes
02:44 pm PDT: 44 votes
03:54 pm PDT: 46 votes
08:40 pm PDT: 47 votes
07/29/07 10:42 am PDT: 57 votes

'The voters' went for another previous review now:

Britten: Serenade/Les Illuminations/Nocturne (was 40 for a day or so; posted on July 18, 2007):
12:53 pm PDT: 41 votes
02:44 pm PDT: 42 votes
03:54 pm PDT: 43 votes
03:56 pm PDT: 44 votes
08:40 pm PDT: 45 votes

07/29/07 10:42 am PDT: 60 votes

Here's a good man

A post by Travis Deputy occasioned by Harriet Klausner's review of the book Dead Man's Song:

HA! HA! HA! SHE'S FULL OF CRAP, TOO, JUST LIKE MR. POMERVILLE IS, EVEN THOUGH SHE GAVE MABERRY'S BOOK 5 STARS. SHE DOES THAT WITH JUST ABOUT EVERYONE(HINT:SHE DOESN'T READ THE BOOKS). TALK ABOUT 2 LOPSIDED REVEIWS. NEITHER OF THEM READ THE BOOK, BUT ONE GAVE THE WORST RATING AND THE OTHER GAVE THE BEST. CRAZINESS x 10 = INSANITY!!!!!! COME ON PEOPLE!!!!!! LET'S BE HONEST AND ACTUALLY READ THE BOOKS AND GIVE A FACTUAL OPINION OF WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT AND IT'S STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES AND NOT OUR BIASED OPINIONS OR ANY MADE UP BULL JUNK. HINT: DON'T WRITE A REVIEW USING THE BACK COVER SYNOPSIS. BOTH OF YOU ARE SO FIRED YOU'RE REHIRED FOR DOING THIS! COME ON NOW PEEPS! READING ISN'T DIFFUCULT TO DO! LEFT TO RIGHT, TOP TO BOTTOM, GROUP OF WORDS ARRANGED IN PROPER SYNTAX MAKE A SENTENCE, GROUP OF SENTENCES MAKE A PARAGRAPH, BUNCH OF PARAGRAPHS MAKE A CHAPTER, BUNCH OF CHAPTERS MAKE A BOOK. AMAZING, YES I KNOW! CONFOUNDING THAT TOO! AND WHO KNOWS YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY ENJOY AND LEARN SOMETHING. REMEMBER, READ THE BOOKS, THEN RIGHT A REVIEW THAT ISN'T BIASED OR BASED ON A BACK COVER SYNOPSIS. IN OTHER WORDS, BE HONEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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I couldn't put it better. Travis, we like you. :-)

The Notorious Grady Harp Voting Machine sputters (?)

The latest three (?) reviews of Maître Harp appear stuck on about thirty votes for longer (far longer!) than usual! What's up with that? Stretching it over a week or something? Pulling that Klausner-pause thing on us? Get to work, mother@%@$@#$s! :-) Ninety votes or you don't get your supper.

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What?! From Grady Harp's review of the film Factory Girl:

[...] But Edie spent all her wealth on parties and drugs and broken promises of fame, fell in love with an unnamed folk singer (Hayden Christensen - very shallowly imitating Dylan Thomas), and eventually fell out with the world and into the realm of drug addiction [...]

Dylan Thomas? Folk singer? In any case, whoever he was, Dylan Thomas was dead by that time. I haven't seen this movie, but this must be Bob Dylan, no? What's he smokin'? Grady, I mean.

The Harriet Klausner of Movies?

I give credit for this lead from Vick of the Dayton Daily News, http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A10ODC971MDHV8/ref=cm_pdp_reviews_see_all/102-4421097-9253744?ie=UTF8&sort%5Fby=MostRecentReview.

My goodness he's a busy boy. But, go look at his profile, more specifically his website, http://www.bestmoviesbyfarr.com/

Hmmm.

Quality Comments™ by JP Picks

Curtesy BuyBlogComments.com: Examples of Paid Blog Comments

Our Blog Comments are of high quality! [...] Our promise to you is that the comments will look very real, from real people (which they are from). The blogger won't recognize that its a paid post.

1. JP Picks comment
2. JP Picks comment
3. JP Picks comment
4. JP Picks comment
5. JP Picks comment
6. JP Picks comment
7. JP Picks comment
8. JP Picks comment

9. JP Pics comment


? Uhm.... I mean.... If the shoe fits... :-) :-)

Comment parler des livres que l'on n'a pas lus?

Curious: How to talk about books we haven't read? Check this out.
More detail here.
Babelfish.

Harriet Klausner: the publishing industry’s Big Bertha.

A curious (as always) post on Bloggasm: Harriet Klausner: the publishing industry’s secret weapon?

[...] These [commenters'] responses are part of a larger backlash against Klausner, a mixture of conspiracy theories, skepticism and ridicule. The most tame of these criticisms simply point out that she rarely includes anything in her plot summary that isn’t on the back cover, indicating she hasn’t actually read the book. Others say that her sentences often suffer from grammatical quicksand, tripping over themselves and in need of editing. The most radical members of the backlash offer theories that she either works for Amazon or the publishing industry, astroturfing the customer reviews section to promote sales. Nearly all express annoyance at her tendency to only give four and five star ratings. [...]

A good post, check it out (link above).

Priceless

Find what's wrong with the following situation:
362 of 363 people think this post adds to the discussion.

No, no, no! Gregory Callahan, you got it wrong again.

In a recent comment, Gregory Callahan makes a mistake again. He says:

[...] From what I gather, Grady's detractors are more concerned about pre-pub books or small press books that he may have received FREE promotional copies of to review. [...]

No, no, no. Gregory, you got it all wrong! No one talks about how Grady gets his books, nor has anybody even looked at Grady's reviews themselves for the sakes of analyzing them in isolation yet (perhaps these topics deserve discussion as well, but it just hasn't been done yet.)

The problem with Grady Harp's reviews is not the reviews themselves but the mind-bogglinggly high rate of their being voted 'helpful' immediately upon the posting of every single review of his, no matter how obscure the item, no matter how poorly written the review. This instant vote is the problem: it's obvious that the voting is done by a bunch of flunkeys rather than curious, review-reading visitors to the site in search of a book to read or a flick to watch. This has already been discussed ad nauseam! You never learn, Gregory Callahan!

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Unrelated: a convenient clickable link to the 'time thing' Comment (see below, in comments here).

What's going on?!

The Notorious Grady Harp Voting Machine (TNGHVM) slows down? Check out his reviews page: there's a review that's already three [sorry, I got carried away] two days old (Deseo) and it still has only eighteen (18) helpful votes. Everything above that review appears to be voted helpful at no more than a half of the usual voting rate of the first two days. I'm worried!

The object of our veneration, Harriet Klausner, hasn't added anything since she posted those thirteen (13) reviews on July 12. I'm worried!

John Matlock "Gunny" reviews a book once in every two-three days! All five stars, as before, but what happened to the reviews' usual (five-to-ten a day) rate of arrival? No more science/technical books either.

What's going on?!

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I am, however, glad to see that our friends Top Reviewers W. Boudville and Robert Morris are going strong. Not as strong as before (sigh) but almost.

In a normal person's words: The Drama that is Amazon

Here's an eminently normal reaction to the current Amazon goings-on (the world has not gone crazy, despite what you can see on amz 'discussion' board! :-) .

[...] I for one love to review books for Amazon. I do it for the fun of it and feel I am giving a service to those who would appreciate it. I always go to Amazon for my shopping needs and when I want to find out about something, especially about a book I read the reviews by everyday people like myself. Some are informative, others look like they have been written by a five year old.

[...]

Harriet and I have a interesting history. About 5 years ago I starting noticing her reviews. I became enraged because she would post reviews for books that wouldn't come out for months in advance. How the hell did she get ARCs and galleries from publishers and authors? Were her reviews so amazing that they thought tons of people after reading her less then steller reviews, would run to the nearest book store or online website like Amazon to purchase it? I then calmed myself down and started to realize this woman could possible be a scam. Perhaps a group of people reviewing for their own means under one name? And I also started to wonder if anyone cared like I did?

[...]

Somehow I know this is not Quality Comments^® and I'm sure this was written for free. :-)

Plug your book?

Oh my, look what I stumbled across whilst reading a topic on the book discussions at Amazon.

http://www.weberbooks.com/2007/02/contents-for-plug-your-book-by-steve.html


I haven't read through all the threads but look at the topic of Amateur Book Reviews. FYI, it looks like you only get to read one page, but at the top left corner you can keep reading. Very illuminating.

If you want to join in that discussion on Amazon, pick any historical fiction book, scroll down to the bottom and under book discussions it's the thread "Calling all authors......"

Does anyone have Vic's email at the Dayton Daily News? He might like this one :-)

Astroturfing (very curious, from Bloggasm)

An interesting article (and a few related links).

It’s called astroturfing. A hired PR agency will send its minions into a blog that is criticizing one of its clients’ companies and defend it. But instead of admitting that it’s a PR agent, the person will act like he or she is an everyday reader [...]

Look familiar? Remember trolls from The Klausner Protection Squad on the Amazon 'discussion board' and review-comments threads? People who'd materialize out of the blue and immediately attack you whenever you'd question the credibility of 'reviewers' like Klausner/Harp/Boudville/John Matlock "Gunny" ? Remember Eileen Rieback, LE Cantrell, Cherise 'Switch-the-Topic' Everhard , FTF, Pam "not a requirement" T., and the rest of strange personages there? If the shoe fits... For more detail on this 'business model' visit Buy comment spam, by Simon Owens

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Also curious on the same theme:
1. Peddling comment spam (again), from Making Light
2. I am not content; I am a human being (Making Light)
3. Astroturfing - from Wikipedia

Why Shill Reviewers Are Untouchable on Amazon

The Amazon reviews system is designed, programmed, and operated in a way that gives advantage to book-hyping shills indwelling the place — this is a suspicion that's impossible to avoid after paying careful attention to its workings for a while. For example consider this nuance: a reviewer can at any time delete a review of his own. In itself, this is good and sensible: why not, it's his review, maybe he doesn't like it anymore. But how about this: the same reviewer can repost this very same review, and — attention please — this review will appear as posted on the original posting date (of the deleted review). That is the case even if the review was several years old. Now, this is strange, isn't it? I mean, if you deleted something, it's probably because you didn't like it (for whatever reason) — and it's gone! You'd think the new review should appear marked as posted on the date when it was actually posted. That's not how it works on Amazon.com, and the way it does work is very strange. Why would this be done this way?

I think an example will give a hint:

(1) Here's a review by Harriet Klausner (of the book One Step Over the Border: A Novel) as it appears right now, i.e. this is how a newcomer to the site will see it.

(2) And here is the google-cached version of it; it appears as it was a month or so ago. Please note that there are a number of comments in this version. ¹

Have you noticed that the current version does not have ANYTHING at all in the Comments section? It is pristine; it looks like no one ever posted anything there. And yet there were posts — and not just any posts, but posts questioning the credibility of the reviewer (in this case, HK). Where did these posts go? How did they disappear?

Here's how: the reviewer deleted and reposted this review. This operation does not preserve the comments yet the review appears posted on its original posting date: there's no sign of this reviews' having been tampered with, and — how convenient! — there's not a hint that there used to be comments under this review (and, needless to say, what they said, and why, and so on). In other words: a reviewer can get rid of comments posted under his review and he can do it unobtrusively, 'cleanly' as it were; w/o leaving any traces of any comments' having ever been there to begin with.

Eureka? Effectively, a reviewer is in full control of comments made by others for his review. He can censor and expurgate them any time and for any reason. Suppose you've been shilling for a publisher, posting, say, two dozen five-star reviews every day for the said publisher's books. Now suppose someone notices that and posts a comment expressing his outrage. Bummer! You've been outted! Well, you don't need the public alerted to your shilling of course, and the good news is, Amazon is on your side: all you need to do is delete and repost this review — the unwelcome comments will be gone, the review will appear untouched, a common Joe reading this particular book's page will supect nothing. Not knowing that what he's reading is hype by shills, he may even be swayed by the positive rankings and buy the book.

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1. [Read this only if the cached page comes up w/o comments] Alas, no longer: no sooner have we mentioned this cached version as it disappeared: the link to cached page now displays the regular (current) page. Someone must be monitoring this blog really carefully and taking action where possible; well, OK, it's nice to see we're read :-) Anyway, the point is, there were a number of comments in the older version of this page (I'll see if I saved the cached page: if I did, I'll post it here; if I didn't, just take my word for it: there were comments there).

2. Yes, I found it: here it is (loads slowly, give it a few seconds).

Amazon 'fixes' the review problem (the John T. Reed case)

Here's an interesting story from John T. Reed, one of the few respectable writers on real-estate investment (as well as some other themes). This story concerns his experience with the Amazon reviews system. I offer this excerpt w/o commentary: the story speaks for itself.

Review
Amazon once received a very favorable review of my book Coaching Youth Football. In fact, that book is so successful that two other books that used to have different titles changed their titles to Coaching Youth Football. [...]

The fact that the other publishers copied my title to profit from my writing is not Amazon’s fault. But [the following] is. I asked Amazon to stop selling my books, which they sort of did. But they put the very favorable review of my book on the page where they were selling one of the other Coaching Youth Football books. How do I know the review was about my book? Because the reviewer used my name as the author in the review!

I called to complain. [...] Finally they 'fixed' the problem. But how they 'fixed' it tells you volumes about the IQ and integrity of the people who work for Amazon. They left the review of my book on the other book’s Web page, but they removed my name from the review!!

How would you do it?

If you were to invent a method of publishing reasonable (i.e., truthful) book-reviews, how would you do it? What would your approach be? A special site, or a site ring, or a dynamic group of totally independent yet connectable pages/sites? How would you approach the credibility-maintenance aspect?

Think of this (and share; if you're not a member of this blog, feel free to email; if you'd like your email published here, mention it).

Response from Amazon about mass deletions

Took a long while and about five requests from me, a couple of back-and-forth messages in between, and finally there's a response from Aaron of Amazon Customer Service [emphasis mine]:

Greetings from Amazon.com.

I have reviewed your account and your status in regards to our
Customer Discussion Forums.

Your posts were found to be profane, obscene, inflammatory and
spiteful.

Because of this, it was determined to remove your posting privileges
from your account in accordance with our Conditions of Use.

We have also removed all of your posts. Please take a look at our
guidelines for more information: [...]

Aaron
Amazon.com Customer Service

Well, you know what these posts were. One more discovery about Amazon, I guess? Or, perhaps, our suspicions confirmed...

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Note: Someone asked me to clarify matters here a bit: most of the posts in question dealt with shilling and other shenanigans by some Amazon reviewers. The rest were something like "Thank you, Sir", "I agree", "here's where more info about this book can be had from", and the like. There was nothing profane or obscene in any of them... well, unless Amazon considers the very broaching of the topic of book-shilling profane and obscene... which, in a way, would make sense — for them :-)

Examples of bad reviews

What's up every one? I was browsing through Amazon the other day and found something interesting. I thought I'd share it with you guys. One of the top 500 reviewers made a listmania list of how reviews shouldn't be written. I found it interesting, so i thought you guys might too. Anyways here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/byauthor/A4LLXH0IZ3LMQ/ref=cm_pdp_content_listmania/103-2943256-4400656

Off Topic from HK, but have you checked out powells.com?

I remember Barbara mentioning Powells before. I love Portland, but I'm terrified to go to Powells as I'm afraid I'll buy the whole store. Nordstroms I can resist, book stores -- forget it! When you post your reviews online, you have the option to be in what they call their "Daily Dose" -- if your review is chosen you can win a $20 gift certificate. What the hey and one week later after posting a few reviews and I won!

Harriet Watch: Thirty-Eight (38) reviews today already.

Not bad, huh. :-)

PS. It's forty-five (45) now. !!!

A Hidden Dragon Riseth

All,

Roaming around Amazon randomly, and ran into a review by this individual. Read the review, and it was not particularly interesting or useful, just your standard worshipful amateur puff-piece. Or so I thought until I glanced at the postive votes: 399/400 since Feb. 2007 for a little-known niche TV series?

What?

Harp NEEDS this person's cabal--Grady is strictly small-fry compared to this reviewer. Check it out, and laugh.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A16Z7G9BBYH9EN/ref=cm_cr_auth/002-0341736-9724042?ie=UTF8&sort%5Fby=MostRecentReview

Lauren H. Lavine is the reviewer's name.

Cheers,



MK

Even more Soap Opera

Here is the link for an nice on going comment section for another one of Harriet's reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/discussionboard/discussion.html/ref=cm_rdp_st_rd/105-7707976-6050051?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0375424865&store=yourstore&cdThread=Tx2LQ0W8ZJU8OMK&reviewID=R28T9GGFMQ1OSD&displayType=ReviewDetail


Look at the post from Linda G, a new fan of HK perhaps?:

Harriet Klausner is a human being, a sensitive soul, as well as a speed reader. I sent her an E-mail asking a few questions about Amazon's reviewing policies when I began reviewing in 2005. I was surprised to receive a prompt, courteous reply to that first communication and to each of a few sent periodically since then.Is it time now to realize that this is a human soul being repeatedly battered? Give the bruises a rest.I wonder what would happen if those here wishing to decapitate Harriet's Number 1 rank would attempt something different for a few days...A few weeks ago, in one of my periodic taking time to post a few Yes votes on Harriet's list, I was going to post a comment with a compliment. I picked my favorite line in the review and was ready to quote it and say what I thought was interesting and well composed in it. When I got to the comments string I noticed that the line I had picked to compliment was the same line picked by those who wish to criticize Harriet's reviews endlessly. I was so shocked and saddened that I didn't post a comment at all.I realized that my compliment would give no solace to Harriet in any case. What human being putting our her type of production, and I know personally that she does write these reviews, would be able to read any of what is being posted here, and come away without needing a month to heal and regenerate the ability to breathe, let alone work?Decades ago, when I was giving public talks on rape prevention as a crime prevention officer in Portland, Oregon, what we taught foremost, in the case of being taken captive by a rapist, is to somehow get the person to see you as a human being.Harriet is a human being. She will continue posting reviews as Amazon's # 1 reviewer until she decides, for her own reasons, to stop. You are doing nothing to change that except contribute to ill will in the world.I'm wondering, honestly, how this group of posters would feel if they decided to try giving compliments to Harriet for a while, instead of a constant diet of negative input. I believe that not only would the posters feel a welcome relief, a sense of humanity, but the world might literally shift on its axis, to the good.Bless this world and its poor tortured souls who have need to do this type of slashing to another human being. I believe you know that you are not attacking something which is lifeless. You know what you are doing. Please stop. No, instead please turn your anger and hatred into something which might begin to be compassion for a fellow creature.Forgive them for they know not what they do. Or do they.It's past time for me to go cook supper for a husband who works nights in a coal mine.

And I had a good laugh from Brandi in response:

oh god. linda save the preaching for someone who CARES. and i no more believe you then i believe harriet. as touching as your little speech is you said nothing to prove she isn't a fraud