How important are Amazon reviews...

aruna · Aug 21, 2005

.. to you as a reader AND as a writer?
If you are published, do friends/relatives review your books? Have you ever had a malicious review? Do you ask Am. reviewers to review your books? Are you aware of the Amazon Reviewer ranking system, and do you follow the reviews of any AM. reviewers?

As a reader, are you influenced by these reviews? So you have favourite reveiwers, whose comments you take seriously enough to buy/not buy a book? Do you vote on reviews as helpful/unhelpful?

I ask all this because for several years I was a member of the Amazon Reviewer Discussion board and got quite familiar with a couple of them. You would not believe how seriously they take their rank; you'd think, even, that the reviews are more important than the books! They count each "helpful" vote assiduously and are very much aware when their rank goes up and down; they are competetive (in a friendly way) but one thing is certain: they believe they are tremendously important for a book's success or failure on Amazon.

I never had much to contribute but as a writer it is good to follow the discussions, which can get quite heated when they start on general topics...
there have been scandals, stalkers, trolls, flame wars, all sorts of stuff. I left when I realised hpw much time I wasted there and decided to look for writers' boards instead - I never returned. But there's a whole world of people out there who believe they can help sell your book. Do you agree?

I certainly believe that having a couple top reviewers comments on their amazon pages helps a great deal.

WannabeWriter · Aug 21, 2005

For me, I think some of the positive reviews are from people who have only read a few books and, without knowing what defines an awesome book, they give a book five stars because they easily like it. Then again, reviews can be important if there's a very large number of them.

aruna · Aug 21, 2005

aruna said:
.. to you as a reader AND as a writer?
If you are published, do friends/relatives review your bools? Have you ever had a malicious review? Do you ask Am. reviewers to review your books? Are you aware of the Amazon Reviewer ranking system, and do you follow the reviews of any AM. reviewers?

.

Just wanted to add - with "malicious" I mean just that. Not a negative review about the book itself, but one which was quite obvisouly from someone trying to get at you, personally, through your book; maybe someone who didn;t like you?

aruna · Aug 21, 2005

WannabeWriter said:
For me, I think some of the positive reviews are from people who have only read a few books and, without knowing what defines an awesome book, they give a book five stars because they easily like it. Then again, reviews can be important if there's a very large number of them.

A lot of the two sentence reviews to the tune of "This book ROCKS" are like that. But I mean in particular the intelligent, well thought out reviews from frequent reviewers; those who try hard to write good and helpful reviews. That's why Amazon has their ranking system - so that individual reviewers can develop a reputation. Although the Number One reviewer - Harriet Klausner - writes reviews which read like paraphrases of the books' blurbs! But from Number 2 downwards, they are pretty good.

Richard White · Aug 21, 2005

All I can relate to is my own experience.

I had six reviews on my book. Five positive (3 and 4 stars) and one very negative (1 star).

I received a call from one of my cousins the day after my negative review came out.

"Rich," she asked, "I have one question for you about that review"
"Yes?"
"Did you used to date that girl in college? She really had it out for you."

I look at it this way. You're never as good as your best review and you're never as bad as your worst. Read them, just like you would any other critique. Take the wheat, leave the chaff and drive on.

I'd never do something as stupid as Meiners and as Amazon to remove the reviews. That just makes things even worse. Old reviews are cached somewhere. This is the web you know.

Richard · Aug 21, 2005

Harriet Klausner's reviews are legendary. A squillion books printed every day, and she loves all of them.

BradyH1861 · Aug 21, 2005

As a frequent Amazon buyer, I can say that I pay no attention to the reviews. I have bought books that got negative reviews and really enjoyed it, and I have gotten books that got rave reviews and could not finish them.

I rarely browse on Amazon though. Usually I go there to get a specific book, and so my mind is already made up to buy it before I even see the reviews.

Just my .02 cents worth.

Brady H.

Richard · Aug 21, 2005

I tend to ignore anything that's 5 stars (especially if there's only one, and was put up five femtoseconds after the page appeared - in other words, the author), and the 1s, unless the reasoning is amazingly solid and it's not just 'This book sucks'.

I guess they're relevant when hopping from book to book to see what's linked where, via the 'People who bought this also bought' tail, but usually I know what I want and just buy it.

azbikergirl · Aug 21, 2005

I do read reviews on Amazon when considering a book to buy. I read negative as well as positive, and I check out the reviewers other reviews. IOW, if a book has five reviews which all say "This book is great," yet none of the reviewers has ever reviewed another book on Amazon, I give little credence to what they say (figuring these are friends and family members who may not have even read the book). Similarly, if a reviewer has a number of reviews, but all of them are glowing, I don't tend to use that review to sway me one way or the other.

veinglory · Aug 21, 2005

I read the reviews--it's a good way to avoid surprises. I avoid books with too many obvious 'puff' reviews.

Saanen · Aug 21, 2005

I read the reviews very carefully if it's a book that I'm not sure I'll like (or, for NF, find useful). There may be a bunch of reviews, but generally only one or two that really go into the details of whether the book is good or not, and why. I ignore all the reviews except that one or two. I've made decisions to buy or not to buy a book from Amazon solely on the basis of reader reviews, but only after weighing a lot of other factors (author, price, subject, can I get it at the library, etc.).

LloydBrown · Aug 21, 2005

In my endless web-surfing, I found a writer who tracked his sales following good and bad reviews. Positive reviews seem to have a significant impact on sales (or the bad ones did, depending on how you look at it).

Richard White · Aug 21, 2005

I've been following the review trails on several Publish America books.

Guess what?

They're all given five stars by other Publish America authors.

No one else seems to be reviewing them.

So, how much faith do you want to put in these reader reviews?

Tish Davidson · Aug 21, 2005

I usually read the Amazon reviews before buying and sometimes to decide based on the review to borrow the book from the library instead of buying it. I'm not interested in the number of stars or the "I loved this book" or "I hated this book" reviews, but I am influenced by the ones that give me a sense of what the book is about and its style. It is not enough to have an opinion about the book. If you want me to believe you, you have to tell me why you have the opinion and ideally how this book stacks up against either the author's other works or against similar titles you have read. Those reviews I pay attention to. I also pay attention to the professional review for librarians like School Library Journal.

Cathy C · Aug 21, 2005

Well, as an author, I like to know what people think about the book. We had 35 reviews of our first paranormal, and the ranking is holding steady at 4 stars. But it's difficult because one bad review takes about five good ones to overcome, so that's a bit hard to swallow. But for people who are clicking on the "We think you'd enjoy" section on a book they just purchased, or the "Buy it today with XXX for less!" link, the reviews can be quite valuable.

As a reader, I don't think much about them, except for the occasional one that I see with lots of reviews and only one star. I have a bit of morbid curiosity about those --- like rubbernecking a car wreck.

maestrowork · Aug 21, 2005

As a reader, I don't pay attention to them. However, if I already read the book and like it, I would sometimes read the reviews and see what other people think of it, and if they agree with what I think... it's just for fun. But I don't use the reviews for my buying decisions.

Now, as an author, I'd be interested in how I feel about these reviews...

brinkett · Aug 21, 2005

aruna said:
As a reader, are you influenced by these reviews? So you have favourite reveiwers, whose comments you take seriously enough to buy/not buy a book? Do you vote on reviews as helpful/unhelpful?

With fiction, reviews are important to me when I'm considering a new author. A slew of bad reviews would definitely stop me from buying. With nonfiction, when searching on a topic can result in hundreds of titles, reviews help me choose which book(s) to buy, so they definitely influence me.

I never vote on whether a review is helpful/unhelpful, and I don't follow particular reviewers or have favorites. I take reviews seriously when the review is coherent and conveys useful information about the content of the book (nonfiction) or touches on elements such as strength of characterization and comparisons to authors I've read (fiction). Reviews like "this book rocked!" or "I hated this book--itz stoopid" are ignored.

veinglory · Aug 21, 2005

Richard White said:
I've been following the review trails on several Publish America books.

Guess what?

They're all given five stars by other Publish America authors.

No one else seems to be reviewing them.

So, how much faith do you want to put in these reader reviews?

Most people know about 'fake' reviews--generally they are easy to spot. 'Real' review are moderate in tone and often gove reasons for an opinion.

WannabeWriter · Aug 21, 2005

Also, Amazon.com has the option, though not for all books, to view a few pages of the book to see for yourself. Of course, in a real bookstore, you can read much more if you wish.

alaskamatt17 · Aug 21, 2005

For me the reviews are a deciding factor, but they're one of the last criteria I consider.

First I do a search for a topic that interests me. I like to look at the author's publishing history and what company published the book. Price is important to me, too--usually I won't buy a fiction book that's more than $15. Once I have my search narrowed down to a couple books on the topic I want to read about, I look at the reader reviews. Often quantity is more important than the rating. If a book has a whole contingent of four-star reviews that's worth more to me than one or two five-stars. It means the book has a wide reader-base, which generally indicates quality.

Ralyks · Aug 21, 2005

As a reader, I don't pay much attention to the reviews of books, but I pay a LOT of attention to the reviews of products. I have occasionally been swayed by reader reviews--for instance, when a new book came out by an author I liked, and the majority of reviews said somehting to the effect of, "I loved everything this author wrote previously, but this book really doesn't measure up and it was a real dissapointment"--it did disuade me from buying the book (though I'll check it out from the library!).

As a writer, I check my Amazon reviews daily. They can give me a lift or put me down in the dumps. All of my reviews are three star or above, which is good...but unfortunately, the 3 star reviews are so much better written than the 5 star reviews, and they receive many more helpful votes...so I do fear they deter readers.

JennaGlatzer · Aug 21, 2005

Reviews are important to me as a reader. I'm good at spotting fake positive reviews and meaningless malicious reviews; I do check out reviewers' other reviews, trust the "real name" badges, and am moderately impressed with the "top 100" tags.

As a writer, I know perfectly well that one bad review can and most likely will tank my rank. I've watched it happen and it frustrates the heck out of me. I've had at least two people who I banned from this forum write malicious reviews of books of mine they didn't read. Within a day or two, my book rank fell tremendously. I asked Amazon to remove one of them, repeatedly. They refused. (Which is one of the reasons I can't BELIEVE how easy it is for Meiners to get reviews removed at his whim.)

In the end, that malicious reviewer had a change of heart and removed the review himself. Whaddya know?

When I already have several positive reviews, one or two more doesn't seem to change my sales. But one negative review on the first page ruins it every time.

The Amazon reviewers might like to know how often I've wished I could track them down to thank them. Often the person either has no contact info available, or has posted under a nickname, and I never got to tell him/her how the review made my day. It means a lot to me when a person takes the time to review one of my books.

JennaGlatzer · Aug 21, 2005

P.S. Lloyd, if you ever find that page again, I'd love to see it. Could be a good resource for our newsletter readers.

A.REX · Aug 22, 2005

Yes I read them, but only for nonfiction. For fiction I find that people's opinions vary too greatly, I've loved books my friends hated and vice versa.

But for nonfiction I believe the reviews. If someone says the pictures or diagrams suck and the writing is uninformative I generally accept it as gospel.
As well, if it ranks high in the reviews I usually buy it. Nonfiction is pretty true to the reviews, but fiction- I don't even bother reading them.

JANE007 · Aug 22, 2005

Yes I read them and almost always take into account what they say. As a reader, I appreciate other people's feedback and let the reviews help me determine whether it's worth reading or not. I usually weed out the aimless reviews (you can always tell which ones they are) and I tend to read at least 5 and then take the average opinnion.

As a writer, I would think that these reviews would be extremely important, especially since these are the folks you are writing for. Since I read them so often myself, I would hope that my book would have a lot of reader reviews and that they would accurately reflect the scope of what my book was trying to achieve. I wouldn't mind a few negative reviews, as long as they had valid points and really analyzed what they were saying.

How important are Amazon reviews...

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