Tuesday, May 7, 2013

A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That




I’ve recently read a disturbing discussion on Goodreads. It seems some readers/reviewers are taking advantage of the ‘glimpse of a book’ opportunity—a growing trend with Amazon reviews. Some people are reviewing books based off the 10% downloaded sample or from the “Look Inside”. The discussion on Goodreads states that a few one-star reviews acknowledge their review is based off the sample. If this is true, it affects the overall star rating.

According to the person who started the discussion, she stated that during a 20-minute browse session on Amazon, she came across five books that received a one-star based off the sample. I spent about 15 minutes and didn’t find any.

If this is truly a trend, and it continues, some of these so-called sample reviewers might not even reveal it’s from the sample. I think it’s horrible that people might want to boost their review stats on Amazon, or people are cheap enough to read samples of books instead of purchasing them. To take the time to give a poor star rating and review of a book you hadn’t read is shameful. Amazon shouldn’t even be allowing such reviews. Reviews are important for all products, especially for Indie Authors who are trying to build an audience.

Have you heard about this new trend? Would you report an Amazon review if you saw it was based off a sample?

Opportunity and Robbery,
Bea

8 comments:

  1. As a regular goodreads & amazon review-reader, I'm glad to learn about this possibility. I hadn't heard about it before your post. The whole review system is interesting and flawed anyway. I enjoy them (and seek them out), but it's also easy to spot a mean-spirited review or one that has an agenda. I'll have to see if I find anything that supports the one-star-based-on-a-sample debacle!

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    1. I agree that the whole review system is flawed, but system isn't. I just had to post this because I think it's unbelievable that people would waste their time to hurt another person's reputation.

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  2. I'm not surprised that this is happening. I've never noticed it myself, but if I did, I probably would feel motivated to report it. However, readers can star books on GoodReads without even writing anything about them. That really irks me, especially since I had a miffed author retaliate and give all three of my titles one-star. After stating my case for professionalism, the person did remove the reviews. Needles to say, it made me even more wary of the books I agree to review.

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    1. I don't like the only ratings on Goodreads either. I had no idea another author retaliated against you. It does make you think twice about reviewing other author's book.

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  3. Is it sad that I find I am not as amazed by this as I might once have been? Am I jaded by humanity?

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    1. Actually, it's not sad. I'm becoming a bit cynical myself.

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  4. Actually, it's funny you mention that, because Alex Cavanaugh was talking about that with us the other day. It's happened to him a lot. I certainly can't confirm that any of our reviews were done that way, but we do have a few one star troll reviews (I'm sure you remember the post we did recently) that were not verified purchases. Meaning they most likely just read the sample, didn't like it/didn't understand it, and posted a troll review.

    Which, frankly, is BS. It's like watching the first 5 minutes of a movie and giving it a terrible review. Even making your way a third way through the book and stopping because you can't stand it is understandable, but the first 10% is not nearly enough to judge whether it's "good" or not.

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    1. I did read your post about your troll reviews. See that's terrible that you guys have to be subjected to such crap when Amazon can easily disregard these reviews.

      Some people might disregard those reviews, but they still affect the overall rating.

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