" there’s nothing to be gained by talking about the books I don’t like. "
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Unrelatedly: remember our old post "Yes, of course! I mean no"? It was about The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Here's someone else talking about the same issues.
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4 comments:
Funny you mention the ABNA, I haven't heard boo from them for weeks on any excerpts to review. According to Amazon the excerpts will be printed on 1/15 for all to read and rate. http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200183260
I have to say I'm glad that part is over, some of the excerpts were well not so good. The last one I had opened with a sex scene that would make Ken Follet blush with embarassment and that's saying a lot.
On the thought of not giving a negative review, BALDERDASH! I rely on those honest reviewers who speak their opinions, they have saved me from many a bad book and on occasion when I didn't pay attention to the one and two star reviews until after I wall banged the book I discovered that they were right.
Interesting side note, but the GOD AWFUL Rhett Butler's People which has more one star than five stars, many of the newest five star reviews appear to be sock puppet accounts, no presence in the Amazon community and only the one review. Those are not reviewers I will trust.
Thankfully in the genre that I mostly read there is a small group of regular readers and reviewers and it makes it easier to judge a book based upon those common opinions. Although we don't always agree. Yikes, when I took the word of one of my favorite reviewers and wasted time and money on Ken Follet's disgusting and poorly written Pillars of the Earth.
Of course it's balderdash. Oh, rather, it's a coy attempt to explain away why some of these guys never post anything negative. Well, in reality, it's because they're either hired reviewers or in cahoots with some publisher in some other way, for example, being an author published there and, sort of, 'helping a bit' to move the wares in general.
> the GOD AWFUL Rhett Butler's People
> which has more one star than five stars,
> many of the newest five star reviews
> appear to be sock puppet accounts
Of course -- it's damage control. I've noticed many times, on some book's page there would be a few positives and no action at all for a long time; then someone posts a negative, and what do you know, next day positives start coming in thick and fast. They 'fix' the overall rating and also, before Amazon randomized reviews display last year some time, the new positives would simply push the negative down and off of the page -- out of sight.
Malleus is correct, it's more than readily apparent that these reviewers are in collusion with publishers. The phenomenon whereby a weaker entry in a publisher's catalogue is given glowing reviews by other authors in their current stable has been frequently noted at Amazon. (the publisher's stable of authors is also filled with horseshit)
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