Sunday, August 10, 2008

Why do crap books demand 5 stars just because you got them free?

Some months ago I was contacted by author Brandon Simpson who wanted me to review his book, Demystifying Spanish Grammar as I have reached a reviewer rank in the 180s. He sent it to my address in the U.S. and it took a while to get to me. But last week, I read it and began formulating an honest review of this fairly bad, amateur and self-published work. Imagine my surprise when I got to the Amazon listing and found twelve 5-star reviews already there, with Grady Harp's leading the pack. Why do top reviewers feel a need to give 5-star reviews to self-published dreck?

Are they afraid that self-published authors will stop sending free review copies? Well, in that case, so what? The vast majority of these publications can't be unloaded for cash at a used bookstore, so you lose nothing if people stop sending them. Some of the top reviewers are doing just fine padding their collection of reviews with fluff pieces on items major publishers will notice and care about. There's no need to do so much for one dude in Kentucky who thinks he is so skilled in Spanish just because he got a B.A. in it.

When I tried to post my 2-star review, it did not appear on the page, and is presumably being held for evaluation. For what it's worth, here it is:

As I am an Amazon Top Reviewer, Brandon Simpson sent me a copy of his book DEMYSTIFING SPANISH GRAMMAR. Unlike some others here, I'm going to give the book the evaluation it really deserves, because learning a foreign language is a serious business, and people deserve the best tools. Simpson received a B.A. in Spanish and has worked as a Spanish tutor. He noticed that his pupils had especial trouble with a handful of Spanish grammatical concepts: 1) the use of accents, 2) the difference between "ser" and "estar", 3) the difference between "para" and "por", 3) the distinction between the imperfect and the preterite, and 4) the use of the subjunctive. He decided to compile helps on precisely these issues.

The result is all but unusable. When dealing with foggy areas, like the difference between the preterite and imperfect of "estar", Simpson asked random Spanish speakers instead of citing trustworthy studies prepared by trained linguists. There's little coverage of the considerable differences between Latin American and Spanish usages, nor literary Spanish (which form the small town American student will probably encounter more than the spoken language). The book appears to have had no professional editing and is amateur in all respects. On the back cover we find "This Book Will Demystify... the Dreaded Spanish Subjunctive!!!" Using exclamation points so abundantly doesn't inspire confidence. Inside, misspellings and lack of punctuation abound. Typesetting was done in a word processor, Microsoft Word, instead of a suitable typesetting engine and the result is hard on the eyes.

I'll give the book two stars because the grammatical paradigms within aren't wrong. However, the student of Spanish would do better to get the [[ASIN:0007224206 Collins Gem Spanish Grammar]], a nice little pocket-sized reference of all aspects of the language, including a number of completely conjugated verbs, still widely available available on the used market.

12 comments:

Malleus said...

Did you email them asking why the review doesn't appear? I'd be curious to know.

> Why do top reviewers feel a need to give 5-star
> reviews to self-published dreck?
They probably feel it's part of the package. They must have a reputation for reliability (five stars, guaranteed). Finally, maybe they didn't read the book?

I loved the book's page. If the book is no good, these motherfuckers are lying through their teeth helping someone to rip you off.

Deborah Hern said...

I review for publishers (not on Amazon) and I feel no pressure at all to give every book a great review. I've given great reviews and not-very-great reviews. The publishing people don't take it personally; they know not everything can be stellar to everyone.

I think this 'must give 5 stars' mentality is specific to the Amazon Top Reviewers breed of reviewers. HK aside, most publishers do not respect a reviewer who never gives anything but glowing praise. It's my theory that some publishers use HK quotes on books simply because it's a 'known' name. Yes, HK is pretty much a brand now.

Generally, the self-published stuff is going to be crap. If it was good, an actual publisher would want it. Harsh, but usually true.

Malleus said...

>I think this 'must give 5 stars' mentality is specific
> to the Amazon Top Reviewers breed of review
I think you're right. Cause although we call them "professionals", they're only professionals in quotes, that is wannabes, and many of them (charitably) are quite stupid. What a pitiful crowd.

The Cleaner said...

Over here in the UK I have long resented the 'practice' of Amazon failing/refusing to publish a negative review. The authors that spring to mind are Mark Billingham and (what a coincidence) his friend Stuart MacBride. I've given both of them 5-star reviews in years past but their novels have either stagnated or worsened of late and my reviews have reflected this opinion. I remember for a Billingham novel in 2006 or 2007 (not sure) I must have posted my 3-star review at least 20 times and eventually I gave up. I was convinced that there was a filtering system that rejected such insults. Meanwhile every other review were 'fivers'. Then this year I gave Stuart MacBride my first tongue-lashing and I was assaulted by a crowd of negginators - within hours I had 0 helpfuls and 19 unhelpfuls. Is there a conspiracy going on? Does Stuart MacBride have 19 dummy accounts? Wouldn't surprise me, not after the things I have discovered authors doing as soon as I learned how to find the real name of a reviewer, by clicking on their Wish List. That has revealed some JUICY gossip. But anyway, although I hope to break into the Top 100 (UK) within the next year, I doubt that I will receive any author freebies because any brief look at my review history will show that - shock, horror - I actually write what I think and if I think a book is crap, I will say so!

The old adage 'if you can't beat them, join them' is being whistled somewhere in my subconciousness...

Malleus said...

> Over here in the UK I have long resented the 'practice'
> of Amazon failing/refusing to publish a negative review
I haven't seem much of this: what usually happens is that a negative (or, rather, non-positive, since three stars isn't really a negative rating) reviews do make it, but then nearly immediately, sometimes within hours are "disappeared". That I think happens (a guess, I can't know for sure) because the author/publisher is watching the page and sends a cohort of his minions to click on the "report as inappropriate" button, and then, when a number of clicks reaches a certain level (known only to Amazon), the review gets automatically deleted.

Otoh, when a review doesn't make it at all, this, I think, is because there's some verbiage that triggers their "bad word" filter. That said, it's not impossible that they hold back negative reviews, but I haven't seen this done consistently, so I can't really say they do it. But, who knows. Since no rules are public, one can only guess. In fact, if they remove a review and you ask them about the reasons for the removal, you'll get back a form letter having nothing to do with anything specific in your review and a suggestion to modify and repost -- which usually works.

> within hours I had 0 helpfuls and 19 unhelpfuls
Yes, it appears that the same kind who gang up to "report-as-inappropriate" your neg review, also like to "retaliate" by negging everything they can find that is yours. This gotta be purely vindictive, since negs don't appear to matter (other than in comments, where they close the "offending" comment, and, in the past at least, could result in its being "deleted-by-Amazon", that is, completely removed).

> Does Stuart MacBride have 19 dummy accounts?
Well, I suspect that an author doesn't need to work that hard. It seems to me that any author would be published by a publisher, and the said publisher would have more than just this author. So, it looks like publishers send their authors to massage the site helping one another. Iow, they don't have to do protect their books individually, by setting up and using multiple accounts (which is not to say that they don't do it, they just don't have to). The place is overrun by all sorts of cliques: publishers, reviewers, authors, Mystery Voters, you name it -- whoever isn't lazy enough to manipulate the site, can: there are many possibilities to do so, such as, neg harrassment, review/comment deletion/closure, fake-voting, and so on.

> although I hope to break into the Top 100 (UK) within
> the next year, I doubt that I will receive any author
> freebies because any brief look at my review history
> will show that [...] I actually write what I think and
> if I think a book is crap, I will say so!
I gotta say that so far I like the Vine program: it appears that in it, Amazon finally addressed some of the most egregious problems with reviewer fraud. Such as: the freebies come from Amazon directly, not from publisher; the publisher doesn't control who gets them; they (freebies; apparently) are not to be resold or even passed along to someone. If that's for serious, then it's a huge improvement in weeding out smartasses like, for example, our Friends Top Reviewers Harriet, Boudville, Gunny, etc. However, I understand that one joins this program by invitation only, so, Amazon if they wanted to, could themselves weed out "unreliable" reviewers. If I were you and I got a Vine invitation, I'd join and see how it goes. So far, some Viners at least, do post realistic reviews in serious numbers, it's not all-five-stars (so far, for some people -- of course, the types who used to post all-five-stars twaddle as unaffiliated reviewers, will continue to do so as Vine members.).

The Cleaner said...

I belong to the Vine program but AFAIK the only monitoring carried out is that I do a certain percentage of reviews, and the ratings I give are irrelevant (as they should be). The problem is that I have yet to receive anything via Vine that I would have ordered and paid for myself, so I don't feel as if I've saved any money at all. On a vaguely related note - and how about this for irony - one of my favourite authors was so gobsmacked by the glowing reviews I posted of two of his novels that he has promised to send me a signed copy of his next book a month before publication date. The irony? Well, I'm halfway through yet another of his books at this very moment and it's....well, not that good really. But I daren't post a cool review until I've got my freebie!

Just wallowing in a sea of hypocrisy...

Cathy said...

Well that's a telling list of glowing reviewers, isn't it? I would recommend emailing Amazon and find out why it's not gone through -- there could be a word in that there seems harmless enough but might have stuck in their filters. You could also start a book discussion -- see at the far bottom of the page and post your review there as well.

As far as negative reviews not posting, I've written some pretty scathing ones when I've been fired up enough about a book and they've always posted. I have had reviews not show up, but those have been the gamut in the rating I've given them so it's something more than that. Had one that I'd given up on and it showed up 3-4 weeks after I posted it.

If on the other hand your review posts and then disappears it's most likely a victim of the report abuse button by the author/publisher and their minions.

Interesting side note, I read in a discussion on Amazon where it was stated that a top reviewer SOLICITED a book from an author, wrote a lovely recap of the book jacket and promptly listed it for sale on Amazon as like new.

The Cleaner said...

"I read in a discussion on Amazon where it was stated that a top reviewer SOLICITED a book from an author, wrote a lovely recap of the book jacket and promptly listed it for sale on Amazon as like new"

Wasn't Chippindale by any chance, was it?

(o:

Stanley H Nemeth said...

Cathy and Malleus are on target in pointing to the dirty word filter as the likeliest cause for a low-rated review's not being posted. I've had one and two star reviews appear with no problem, only to have had a five star one mysteriously held back. It was a glowing review of a production of "King Lear" on DVD! The reason for Amazon's prudishness, it turned out, was my correct reference to the character named Edmund the Bastard. Once the word "Bastard" was omitted, the review was posted with great dispatch. Go figure!

Cathy said...

"Wasn't Chippindale by any chance, was it?"

No name mentioned but I got the impression it was one more highly rated than Chippendale is at US. How do they sleep with themselves at night?

Stanley's right about the words -- those catch phrases are the most likely culprits in my experience.

Malleus said...

Edmund the SingleParented he'll be from now on. I had once the word "gay" bowdlerised. I was saying something like "unless you're gay, so and so" and the review got held up and then surfaced with the ... instead of "gay". I thought "gay" was approved terminology? Well, anyway. Sometimes it's hard to figure what they espy in your verbiage...

The Cleaner said...

Another taboo word on Amazon is any variation of PLAGIARISM. If used in your own profile, the profile will be rejected. I know this because I tried to describe myself as someone who seeks to expose plagiarists (among other things) but after fiddling around I managed to get acceptance with plag1ar15ts

Who am I supposed to be offending - the plagiarists?