And now you understand why I only read three-star reviews, if I read Amazon reviews at all.
See, this is the stuff that makes me sad.
(And this is not directed at you, SP. Just a general observation.
)
I have 23 Amazon reviews. 11 of them are 5-star. Only two of those 5-star reviews are people I know, and I didn't ask them to post reviews. They just did, because they read the book and enjoyed it.
The rest of them are 4 stars (9) and 3 stars (3) - again, none of them from people I know.
Both of the 3-star reviews have been upvoted as "helpful" far more than any of the others.
So, readers on Amazon get to my book's page from wherever. They see all those 5-star reviews... and many of them automatically think oh, it's all inflated praise from friends and sock puppets. The sucky 3-star reviews must be right. And off they go to the next possibility.
All this review war stuff on Amazon really hurts nobodies like me.
I almost want to send something out to readers asking them NOT to give me 5-star reviews on Amazon, even if they do enjoy the book. But I won't do that, for the same reason I don't counter-attack any of my negative reviews, or the reviewers. It'd make me look bad no matter what I said.
Yeah, I know. Go cry in my kool-aid about it.
There's nothing I can do, but it still sucks.