New Amazon Rating Row

I'm not sure what the fuss is about; of course this kind of stuff will happen on an online review site. I'd be interested to see whether other Orange nominees received the same treatment -- it doesn't sound like they did.

Also, why pay an agency what you could do yourself, or ask your friends to do? You could easily use a different IP address (assuming it could be traced from the reviews, anyway). Why would this Nathan Barker sabotage his own business by owning up and giving his own name?

I think the Daily Mail is having a slow day!

Firebrain said:

I think the Daily Mail is having a slow day!

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Yeah, because normally it's full of cutting edge journalism...

JimmyB27 said:

Yeah, because normally it's full of cutting edge journalism...

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And touching accounts from celebrities about their budgie's latest feather loss.

Oh! So ms Alison is up in arms!
Actually, I too was underwhelmed by her book.. a kit if telling, little showing. It was shortlisted for the Orange prize and as it was not really of that standard a lot of people slammed it. I can't remember if I wrote a review or not, but I found the book mediocre; the best bit were the first five pages or so, and after that it went downhill really quickly; I couldn't understand how it got on the shortlist, and I was not alone in that opinion.
So this really is a storm in a teacup. Yes, if you have a book on amazon it WILL get bad reviews. And most of those will be genuine. Suck it up!

From the article:

Miss Alison, 46, is said to be in dispute with Amazon about the hostile reviews and has approached Kwikchex, a company which specialises in protecting online
reputations, run by Chris Emmins.
He said: ‘I looked at some of them and certainly the wording and the dates of the postings were indicative of a malicious attack.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...cious-free-readers-victims.html#ixzz16fwE8E2A​

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I just read the one-star reviews and this is just nonsense. It's true that a few reviewers say things like "I threw it into the English Channel" but none of them seemed malicious.
Many people loved the book and gave it five star reviews; the author should let it go at that. Instead, she or one of her friends seems to have launched a counter-attack: a certain "Goth Lady" has commented on almost all the bad reviews, sticking up for the book.

aruna said:

... a certain "Goth Lady" has commented on almost all the bad reviews, sticking up for the book.

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Lol, I did wonder -- gothicangel, is this you?

I'm often encouraged to go on amazon and leave anonymous puffs for our books. I refuse on principle, because I use Amazon, including the reviews, and I think gaming the system is spoiling the whole thing for everybody.

However, I'm in a minority; most of the publishing industry does this, and even when they don't the authors do it themselves. What I can't understand is people deliberately downvoting the competition - that's unequivocally underhand.

And now you understand why I only read three-star reviews, if I read Amazon reviews at all.

aruna said:

Many people loved the book; the author should let it go at that. Instead, she or one of her friends seems to have launched a counter-attack: a certain "Goth Lady" has commented on almost all the bad reviews, sticking up for the book.

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Ugh, I hate it when people do that. And the counter-attack rarely helps the author any. Usually, it just does more harm.

Torgo said:

However, I'm in a minority; most of the publishing industry does this, and even when they don't the authors do it themselves. What I can't understand is people deliberately downvoting the competition - that's unequivocally underhand.

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I don't see any evidence that this has happened in Ms Alison's case. All of the negative reviews give quite balaced REASONS why the revewer did not like the book.

aruna said:

I don't see any evidence that this has happened in Ms Alison's case.

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I'm sure you're right about that, and I don't know if it really goes on, on any kind of noticeable scale.

Wouldn't be surprising if its the case. Amazon won't do anything about it. Heck, I looked up a fairly legit project and it had over 300 reviews, the large majority of which were clearly jokes and nonsense because of the product's nature. I complained and they responded that such reviews were part of the "community" nature of Amazon and in keeping with their rules. So anyone looking for a real review was pretty much SOL. It also was spammed with 100s of fake product images, but they again made the same claim.

At this point, Amazon reviews are rarely reviews, more like random musings from potentially interested parties and should always be taken with a grain of sale. Amazon is all about the web traffic and sales, not legitimate product feedback.

Collectonian said:

Wouldn't be surprising if its the case. Amazon won't do anything about it. Heck, I looked up a fairly legit project and it had over 300 reviews, the large majority of which were clearly jokes and nonsense because of the product's nature.

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I love those threads. The one for a £2499 portrait of F-list celebrity Paul Ross is a particular favourite:

Excellent value and so versatile. Only last week I placed it in my 12 year old son's bedroom having tippexed out the words "Big Brother" from his copy of 1984 and replacing them with "Paul Ross". He now lies awake at night in damp dread that Paul Ross is always watching him and at any moment will leap from the canvas and put a rat on his face. That'll teach him for ruining my wife's womb! Thanks Paul!!!

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If you only buy one 20 inch canvas print of Paul Ross this year, this is the one to get.

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gothicangel said:

Not me! I don't have an amazon account [use my sister's]
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Sorry, I had to ask!

At the end of the day, if you put yourself and your work out there in the public eye, there will always be some people who simply do not like you or your work. It's nothing personal, and while it's unpleasant, it happens, and on the whole there's nothing that can be done about it other than to suck it up.

When it becomes a personal attack that's different, and something needs to be put in place to stop that. But that raisses the question of how to put those safeguards in place without restricting everyone's opinions? How can you tell who is attacking and who just genuinely didn't like the book?

I do agree that Amazon needs to put in place a system where only people who have bought the book are allowed to review it.

SPMiller said:

And now you understand why I only read three-star reviews, if I read Amazon reviews at all.

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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.

sonya bateman said:

See, this is the stuff that makes me sad.

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Well, with most reviews on websites I only tend to look at the ones with the highest and the lowest ratings, and then I try to triangulate from there. The star rating itself is, I feel, irrelevant; it's common points of praise or criticism that I find myself looking out for. Don't feel sad! People are pretty good at sniffing out spam and ignoring reviews that aren't on point.

Speaking of spoof reviews, this is a classic from back in 2000, with over 9000 "helpful" votes! Ping! I love that Duck

This author has made some strange statements form the outset. Most of all, her claim that she "didn't use contacts" to get published. I mean, you're married to the most powerful man in British publishing and you're not going to ask publishers and agents, to give you a read? Whyever not??? I certainly would, and there's nothing at all underhand about wanting not to be in the dreaded slush pile.

I've asked several editors I know from major publishers if they'd like to read my mss; sometimes they say yes and reject, sometimes they say no. It's no big deal. If you've got a personal contact by all means use it! Many agents work only through referrals anyway; if you're a producer of a major film, involved with the Harry Potter series (as she is), that's huge. Sorry, I just can't believe that she didn't use any of those short cuts, and her wanting to hide it just seems fishy.
I don't see why her book should be so threatening to "rival" publishers that they would want to attack it. It really is only minor league.

That is good to know.

I guess I've just seen too many people commenting that they ignore all 5-star (and 1-star) reviews on Amazon - and if it's in a forum or comment thread, there's usually lots of folks jumping in to agree that yes, all the 5-star ratings are the work of fakes and puppets, and are never to be believed.

I try to remember that not everyone who buys from Amazon posts online in the places I lurk. But it's a common sentiment even on the Amazon discussion boards.

Thank you, Torgo!

I love reading reader reviews, both before and after I have read a book. I don't mind whether it is on Amazon or on another site like goodreads.

For me, the best criteria for knowing whether an amazon review is genuine or not is the reviewer rank. Most people don't realise that this system is in place, whereby reviewers with the most helpful votes are rated; the list of them is here. They have their own discussion board and everything, and take reviewing very seriously.

Before I joined AW I was a member of that board, which is why so many of them reviewed my books. If you read a lot of books most of these people's names become familiar; they just like reviewing and getting helpful votes! Even if you don't know them, a Top 100 or Top 10 label behind their reviewer name is usually a token of trustworthiness. I always look out for that.

Especially so if I have felt strongly about a book, either in a positive or negative sense. I love to read reviews that express exactly what I have felt. I write very few myself, though. Couldn't be bothered! Sometimes I comment on reviews.