How to tell if reviews are real?

Or only were reviewed by fellow writing group members, for that matter. If there are only 20 reviews, and they are all raves, I automatically doubt their accuracy. Anyone might have 20 friends or relatives to do this. 1000 reviews must mean the book has appealed to strangers. There is no "hiring" of fake reviewers that I know of. If a book is terrific, word of mouth will increase the number of reviews.

It's also possible on amazon or goodreads to click on the reviewer and get a sense of what they've said about other books. If they've only reviewed a few, I ignore them entirely. I look for reviewers who have both loved and loathed books, not caring if the book is by someone famous or not. On goodreads, I follow some reviewers, strangers to me, but people who have written insightful critiques. I don't care if I agree with them on any one book (and I don't, as a matter of ethics, ever say a review is "unhelpful" because I disagree with its conclusion, though that seems to be mostly what people use that button for.) Are reviewers balanced and thinking? Do we share tastes?

You can also go to goodreads, find people who raved about books you loved who have several other reviews, and "compare books" with them. If you match on a majority of your preferred genre titles, go look at all their books, and you might find titles that way. If you're lucky, they've set up "bookshelves" by genre, which makes that easier. Or, you can sort by high rating.

If you're not willing to work that hard at checking out reviewers, ignore reviews. "Look inside," read the summary and decide for yourself if it's appealing writing to you.

HTH

Clicking on a reviewer's name will show what else they've reviewed (a good way to tell if their tastes match yours) and reveal if all they ever do is give 5 stars to self-pubbed stuff.

Beware buzz phrases which suggest the reviewer hasn't put much thought in.

Look up the book on Goodreads - if it's a deliberate review, you'll probably find it in both places. People can also rate books without giving a review, so you can, again, look at their preferences and make a judgement call.

Are the five-star reviews generic? That is, do they say something about the book, or is it just a single line, e.g. "The book was very exciting from the very first page. It was hard to put down. Look forward to future books from [author's name]." Be particularly suspicious when a brief, superficial, meaningless, generic review promptly garners fifteen or twenty "helpful" clicks.

Note: When readers like books they like specific things, and they say so in specific terms. At length.

Is the review the only review that reviewer ever posted? (Or, are all the reviewer's reviews of the same author's works? Don't be fooled by someone who also posts a single review of some random item, on the same day as five-star book review, with nothing else before or after.)

Note: People who read read a lot and people who review review a lot.

Does the review lack the "Amazon Verified Purchase" tag?

Note: If we're talking about a Kindle book, if the reviewer didn't buy it from Amazon how did he or she manage to read it at all?

Does the review pop up on the same day as, or within a few days of, the book's release?

Note: Same objection; how did the reader find this book, manage to read it, and decide to review it so fast, if the reviewer isn't one of the author's buddies?

Does the review mention the name of the book's stil-unreleased or yet-to-be-written sequel?

Note: That's either the author him/herself or the author's Number One Fan (e.g. mom).

Those are some flags you can look for to recognize fake reviews.

Or, you could just disregard all Amazon reviews altogether. Read the reviews on book blogs instead.

I rarely have a friend recommend a SP book (for... reasons), but when they do I sit up and listen. I'd also recommend paying close attention to the sample. It's not a perfect solution, but many times those reviews on Amazon are less than useless.

lorna_w said:

There is no "hiring" of fake reviewers that I know of.

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Alas, there is.

You might want to go over to fivver.com and search on "Amazon review." You'll find page after page of people who are offering to do just that: Post five-star reviews for five bucks a pop. A $500 promotion budget will get you a hundred glowing reviews.

James D. Macdonald said:

Alas, there is.

You might want to go over to fivver.com and search on "Amazon review." You'll find page after page of people who are offering to do just that: Post five-star reviews for five bucks a pop. A $500 promotion budget will get you a hundred glowing reviews.

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holy &%$#. I'm educated now, thanks! I guess if there's a system, there's always a scam for it.

James D. Macdonald said:

Does the review lack the "Amazon Verified Purchase" tag?

Note: If we're talking about a Kindle book, if the reviewer didn't buy it from Amazon how did he or she manage to read it at all?

Does the review pop up on the same day as, or within a few days of, the book's release?

Note: Same objection; how did the reader find this book, manage to read it, and decide to review it so fast, if the reviewer isn't one of the author's buddies?

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I sometimes get kindle-version of books from netgalley, as long as four or five months before the release date of a book, and when I do, I write the review as soon as I have finished the book, then save the review on my computer. On Goodreads, I usually post the review before the release date, based on the publisher's preferences, but on amazon, I have to wait until the release date.

When I have a netgalley copy, there will be no 'Amazon Verified Purchase' tag on my review, but I state that I have written my review thanks to a book I received for free, because I think that is important for people to know when they read my review. I am not sure if all ARC reviewers do this, though.

James D. Macdonald said:

Alas, there is.

You might want to go over to fivver.com and search on "Amazon review." You'll find page after page of people who are offering to do just that: Post five-star reviews for five bucks a pop. A $500 promotion budget will get you a hundred glowing reviews.

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Well, I learned something new today.

James D. Macdonald said:

You might want to go over to fivver.com and search on "Amazon review." You'll find page after page of people who are offering to do just that: Post five-star reviews for five bucks a pop. A $500 promotion budget will get you a hundred glowing reviews.

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And they'll vote down negative reviews and vote up positive reviews. You can also buy review rebuttals.

Lately I'm seeing an awful lot of so-called "critical" reviews that are nothing but praise. "The writing is really good, and the plot is awesome, but I don't like stories that have people in them." Sometimes the author then has someone respond to the critical review with something along the lines of "I see what you mean but I luuuurve stories with people in them. You just convinced me to buy this."

But on the other hand, I'm seeing more and more 4- and 5-star reviews that are really 1- and 2-star reviews in disguise. "The writer worked really hard on this. The plot isn't too slow. Only a few typos per page." So sometimes the good reviews are very informative.

My problem is that while paid reviewers are easy enough to suss out, the friends and family reviews are often people who have legitimate Amazon accounts with a varied buying history and varied ratings. Then it's a game of comparing how much they gushed in their other 5-star reviews. What a lot of time wasted.

You have a week to return an Amazon ebook, and I've heard that if you complain enough, they'll honor a return beyond that timeframe. When the writing/editing/story falls apart shortly after the free preview, I return the book and don't feel guilty at all.

Reviews on self-published books are so hard to trust that I tend to ignore them entirely if they're five stars. A three-star review is likely to be from someone who actually read the book and has honest opinions about it, but I almost never see any.

What I've started doing is reading the blurb, and then grabbing a sample. The blurb (if competently written) will give me an idea if the book has the kinds of tropes I like, and then the sample will give me an idea of what the actual writing is like. At that point, if you like the sample, it might be worth going and looking at the reviews.

My solution is: Ignore all reviews (except as interesting reading on their own, if they're well done.) Base reading decisions on the provided sample or browsing at the bookstore.

If I like a sample, I almost invariably like the book -- I've only had one serious disappointment using this method, but that was with a novel that failed SPECTACULARLY at the climax after being pretty good at the outset. IME, most novels that are going to fail have tell-tale warnings of the disaster in the first pages, whether blatant or subtle.

A.P.M. said:

I'm bringing this up as a reader, not a writer.

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Everyone games the system. I look for references to substantive facts in the novel, ie, evidence that the reviewer has read it. Even this can be gamed.

The criterion I use is the excerpt. If there is no excerpt, I don't buy.

I never read 5-star reviews on any book, no matter how it was published. There is way too much deceit going on from all sides. It's a total waste of time.

Read the 3-star reviews and below. Look for reviews that mention specifics rather than vague generalities. Also, cross-reference with Goodreads. Often I find the Amazon page for a book, esp. SP books, will be littered with fake reviews, but Goodreads will have more honest reviews. (GR is gamed too, but to a lesser extent.)

Ultimately, I think the most valuable tool before purchasing a book is the Look Inside function. Always read an excerpt before buying.

I ignore the 5 star reviews and look at 3 and below. I also look at the sample chapters -- that often tells me more than the reviews do.

dangerousbill said:

Everyone games the system.

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I don't.




And sigh, once again the "Lots of people loved your book so you must be a liar and cheat" gang shows up to punish people with high review ratings by insisting they must be faking it.

Stacia Kane said:

And sigh, once again the "Lots of people loved your book so you must be a liar and cheat" gang shows up to punish people with high review ratings by insisting they must be faking it.

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I fully believe that a lot of 5-star reviews are valid and accurate. And it actually makes a lot of sense to me that the people most likely to review a book are the people who loved it, so weighting towards those doesn't bother me at all.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of noise in there from the fake 5-star reviews. So for me, trying to figure out how good a book is by reading 5-star reviews is like trying to read wet newspaper; there's definitely information there, but it's really hard to parse. It doesn't mean I think all the high reviews are lying; someone can quite honestly show up to post a 5-star review of "this was my best favoriestest book evur!!!" and honestly mean it. It just means...there's too much noise obscuring the signal. So I go check out something like the sample instead.

I'm surprised more authors aren't pleased if people check out the sample first instead of the reviews. That's an even better chance to hook people directly with their own writing, compared to relying on how strangers want to explain the book to others.

Stacia Kane said:

And sigh, once again the "Lots of people loved your book so you must be a liar and cheat" gang shows up to punish people with high review ratings by insisting they must be faking it.

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I don't think they're actually doing that - but the gaming is apparently happening often enough that it creates a 'beware'. And if your reviewers aren't 'one shot wonders' or any of the others that merit the warning, readers are going to see that.

I don't think it this 'gang' you should be upset with - blame those authors who think gaming the system is part and parcel of self-publishing.

I don't think it this 'gang' you should be upset with - blame those authors who think gaming the system is part and parcel of self-publishing.

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Let's not forget the self-publishing gurus who advise all sorts of dubious self-promotion schemes.

The single greatest reason anyone buys a books is that the reader read and enjoyed another work by the same author.

The second greatest reason is that the book was recommended by a trusted friend.

The rest of the means of promotion vanish into the noise.

Which leaves the new author who has merely written an excellent first novel ... where? With trade publishing the reader knows that, somewhere, there's an editor who is saying "I'm betting my paycheck that you'll like this book," and a bookstore owner who is saying "I'm betting the rent that you'll like this book."

James D. Macdonald said:

Which leaves the new author who has merely written an excellent first novel ... where? With trade publishing the reader knows that, somewhere, there's an editor who is saying "I'm betting my paycheck that you'll like this book," and a bookstore owner who is saying "I'm betting the rent that you'll like this book."

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You make them sound heroic. And you know, I suppose they are.

I don't understand why a 5 star review would have no worth, if someone read a book and really loved it, then wrote a real review telling why, based on language, plot, story and character development, why would it not be something to look into?

Does that also mean that if / when you are published, you hope to 'only' have 3 stars or less for the reviews of your own book? Is that how you'll be able to sell more books and build a solid fan-base?

Even if some are gaming the system, I think that especially on Goodreads, where readers who read and review regularly have at least hundred reviews that say more than 'I hated this' or 'I loved this', you have a chance to find gems you might not have found otherwise, whether those books are self-pubbed or traditionally pubbed.

fadeaccompli said:

I'm surprised more authors aren't pleased if people check out the sample first instead of the reviews. That's an even better chance to hook people directly with their own writing, compared to relying on how strangers want to explain the book to others.

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Hey, I have the first FIVE chapters of UNHOLY GHOSTS up as a free download on my site, along with the first three of subsequent books (save the last two, haven't gotten around to it yet). Believe me, I WANT people to d/l and read the sample; a few thousand have, and that pleases me very much. I'd much rather they read it and decide to buy based on it, or decide not to buy based on it.

I always check the sample. I absolutely believe the sample should be checked.

I just find it depressing to see people completely dismissing five-star reviews, especially when they say they don't care who it's from or whatever and don't even look at them. More than a few of mine are from review bloggers who post their reviews on Amazon etc. in addition to their blogs; the blog is listed right there with their names. That's hardly a fly-by-night review from some anonymous person.

I often read the reviews for a book I'm thinking of buying online, and if I buy it elsewhere I often look at the reviews before or after I read it. I don't think it's hard to tell the difference between a real review and a cheap paid-for or pal's-favor review, and it takes barely a second to do so.

But as Lexxie says above, so...I'm supposed to hope nobody gives my books more than three stars? I'm supposed to hope nobody loves my work enough to rate it better than "It's okay but nothing earth-shaking," just so people will actually check out their opinions and believe them?

I have to be honest and say I truly wonder how those claiming they ignore five-star reviews would like hearing that about their own books. "Oh, damn, another five-star review. I was really hoping someone wouldn't like it much in order to entice new readers." "Oh, damn, another five-star review. Since I got into this business to write mediocre books that people would just sort of like okay and then forget about, I'm quite disappointed by that."

shadowwalker said:

I don't think they're actually doing that - but the gaming is apparently happening often enough that it creates a 'beware'. And if your reviewers aren't 'one shot wonders' or any of the others that merit the warning, readers are going to see that.

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Yes, but people here and elsewhere have said specifically that they ignore ANY and EVERY review above three stars. Which means it's not a matter of "Hey, that book has just over a hundred reviews and 95 of them are four- or five-star, so maybe I should look at those reviews, read the sample, and judge for myself," it's a matter of "Hey, that book has just over a hundred reviews and 95 of them are four- or five-star, so obviously those are all fake and I'm going to either read the two- or three-sentence negative reviews or move on and find something else under the assumption that the author is a lair and a cheat."

People are entitled to choose books based on whatever criteria they like, but again, I find it depressing to see people saying this on a writers' forum. Really? You guys really believe no book could possibly garner an overall high review rating? You guys really think that if a lot of people love a book it's not worth your time to at least read some of the reviews and find out why? You guys really think authors who write books people overwhelmingly enjoy shouldn't get a chance at your reading dollar because...well, because their work is reviewed positively by too many people?

I don't think it this 'gang' you should be upset with - blame those authors who think gaming the system is part and parcel of self-publishing.

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Oh, I do, which is why I repeatedly blog and tweet and discuss this subject and outright say those authors are scumbags.

But I really expected other writers to do the same, and consider the sources, instead of blanket-blaming any author who had the misfortune to write a book the majority of its reviewers loved.

Stacia Kane said:

I often read the reviews for a book I'm thinking of buying online, and if I buy it elsewhere I often look at the reviews before or after I read it. I don't think it's hard to tell the difference between a real review and a cheap paid-for or pal's-favor review, and it takes barely a second to do so.

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Very much agree here. It's really not. Just like "OMG LOVED THIS RITE MOAR" isn't really much of a review and suspect, neither is "OMG HATED THIS DONT WASTE UR TIME". Those useful reviews explain in some manner what it is they liked/hated about it.

Stacia Kane said:

Yes, but people here and elsewhere have said specifically that they ignore ANY and EVERY review above three stars. Which means it's not a matter of "Hey, that book has just over a hundred reviews and 95 of them are four- or five-star, so maybe I should look at those reviews, read the sample, and judge for myself," it's a matter of "Hey, that book has just over a hundred reviews and 95 of them are four- or five-star, so obviously those are all fake and I'm going to either read the two- or three-sentence negative reviews or move on and find something else under the assumption that the author is a lair and a cheat."

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I can't say that I'm at the point to be deeply suspicious of a lot of positive reviews for most trade published books. But I do look at them and note that something is going on. What, exactly, requires a little more reading/digging.

Stacia Kane said:

People are entitled to choose books based on whatever criteria they like, but again, I find it depressing to see people saying this on a writers' forum. Really? You guys really believe no book could possibly garner an overall high review rating? You guys really think that if a lot of people love a book it's not worth your time to at least read some of the reviews and find out why? You guys really think authors who write books people overwhelmingly enjoy shouldn't get a chance at your reading dollar because...well, because their work is reviewed positively by too many people?

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I won't lie, I am suspect of an unusually high review rating when it's a self-published book and yes, I am one of those readers when I see it, I do scroll up and look at who the publisher is. I think it's a visual indicator that there may be something going on.

But also, I look at ratio of 5 star to 1 star. If it's within the 10% range then I suspect there is balanced and fair rating going on. It's then that I take a peek at the 1 and 2 star ratings to see what the negatives have to say because I'm more confident that if there is something problematic in the text, it's going to be spoiled there and not in the 5 star ratings.

I'll grab a sampling of the 5 star next to see a more positive review and then, when I'm satisfied that I may not be purchasing a dud, I'll read the sample.

The thing is, all that I've described takes less than a few minutes, just on visual cues. As a result, I'm ...happy? ...sad? to say that my book purchases are almost 95% guaranteed to be read from beginning to end and enjoyed thoroughly. I've only put one down out of the last 15 I've read. I've put down two so far in the past couple of years, both of which received a great deal of hype and passed the initial tests of favorability. Which then, shows in my reviews on GR because almost all my reviews are positive....and apparently now shoots the author in the foot because I only review books I've read (or tried to) and even though I've gone through a pretty rigid system of buying books that I'm mostly assured I'll like, and then end up reviewing favorably....

A.P.M. said:

How common is this? Is there a way to tell if a dozen five star reviews are all left by the author's friends or parents?

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funny you mention this...last week someone on a writing site I won't specifically mention said something "off" and I got nosy. I checked a book they linked in their sig, and read the reviews. Well, scanned them. Here's whay I saw:

They had around 10 5-star reviews, some of them ridiculously, uselessly glowing--I'm leery of anything calling a debut author the next Koontz or whatever as either fake or, if not, over-enthusiastic fanboyism, and still not very useful. Anyway, on a whim (hey, it was this or work) I liiked at the profiles of the first 5 of that 10.

4 of the 5 had only reviewed that book or that book and the other book said author had written, nothing more. Not a blender, not a similar book, not even a book in a different genre. The other one had reviewed a dozen e-books, all looking to be self-pub. I'm not saying these were paid reviews, I suspect it was the friends-and-family plan. But it was interesting. Nobody who had large review lists, overly effusive praise, a lot of typos and questionable phrasing in the reviews themselves....nothing damning in itself, but multiple flags.

Next, I read the five or so 1- and 2-star reviews. They were well-written, generally better than the others. They were also more detailed, and more specific. Gaping plot holes, implausibilities, etc....a scene that seemed to reveal a complete lack of physics, etc. etc. etc.



look at a handful, say 5 or 10, of the best and worst reviews.....see who seems to be talking out their proverbial ass. It certainly clarified my impression of that particular author and their books.

Stacia Kane said:

You guys really believe no book could possibly garner an overall high review rating? You guys really think that if a lot of people love a book it's not worth your time to at least read some of the reviews and find out why?

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I am someone who only reads 3 star and below review ratings on Amazon. It's not because I don't believe a book does not deserve its 4 and five star ratings. It's because even when I LOVE a book I don't tend to gush and five star reviews are generally all gush. Authors who write great books deserve gushy reviews. But books I love have flaws. Typically, I can recognize those flaws but still LOVELOVELOVE the book.

If I were a reviewer it would be tough to get a four or five star review out of me. A five star review means "perfect" IMO and not much is.