First, before we get to the topic at hand, my client Jennifer Hubbard is hosting an awesome blog event around the Internet: lots of participating blogs are making per-comment donations to local libraries and all you have to do is stop by and leave a comment. The master list of participants is on Jennifer’s blog – it’s a great way to generate money for a great cause!
Meanwhile, you may have heard that Michael Lewis, author of The Blind Side and Moneyball, just published a new book on the financial crisis called The Big Short. The book has received good reviews, but a funny thing started happening on Amazon: lots and lots of 1 star reviews, leading to an overall ranking of 2 and 1/2 stars. Why? People leaving 1 star reviews solely because there is no Kindle edition available.
The actions of these consumers prompted TechCrunch to write a rather direct article on the controversy: Amazon: You Need to Change Your Idiotic Customer Reviews Policy Right Now. But TechCrunch, tell us how you really feel!
Noting that these one star non-reviews mainly just hurt the author, who by the way doesn’t have control over the publisher’s publication plans, Paul Carr’s suggestion is that reviews should be limited to people who have actually bought the book from Amazon – this way people with an outside agenda can’t drag down a book’s rating without even having read it, whether their beef be political or gender-related or Kindle-centric.
What do you think of this controversy? Are the Amazon reviewers just flexing consumer muscle or are they out of line? Do companies have an obligation to address libelous/spurious/treasonous/blank-ous reviews?
Does anyone actually pay any attention to the star ratings and customer reviews at Amazon? I know I don't. The spectrum of views represented is so broad that any overall rating is meaningless.
I heard about this on St. Patrick's Day. My reaction took three forms.
1) I posted this on Twitter: "Have u read Michael Lewis' THE BIG SHORT? Rate it on Amazon to offset tantrum by some fellow #kindle fans. https://bit.ly/bvf0EJ"
2) I used my Kindle to buy Lewis' original Wall Street book, "Liar's Poker." Finished it today. Liked it a lot, but not quite as much as my all-time favorite from Lewis, "Losers."
3) I took "The Big Short" out of the library and plan to start it tomorrow.
*********************
Nathan, you asked, "If companies really gave consumers everything they wanted wouldn't everything be free?"
I think we can learn all we need to know about this from Chris. Not Chris Anderson in 2009's "Free." No. Chris Rock in 1988's "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNQRqAoT-2c
For those who don't like laughing or have some other reason for not watching the clip, let me sum up the lessons of the scene. When you charge $2.50 for five ribs and your customer offers to buy one rib for 50 cents, you oblige. But when the same customer wants soda and says "why don't you let me get a sip for 15 cents?", you are entitled to snarl "my cups cost more than 15 cents."
People like me, who admire Michael Lewis and want to read his new book on our Kindles, are not asking to pay 15 cents for a sip of soda. We're not even asking to pay 50 cents for just one rib. We want all five ribs. We want to pay a fair price for them. All we're asking is that the cook put the ribs on a plate we brought from home. Norton is free to look at the plate we brought in, shrug, and charge us the same price as everyone else. We can then decide to buy or not to buy. But to refuse to put the ribs on our plates no matter what we're willing to pay is just pointlessly stubborn.
My poor metaphor is now exhausted. Time to let it rest.
The problem with restricting comments to those who bought the book through Amazon is that readers who got their book from an Indie shop or an author copy or a copy from any other source (library, friends etc) can't leave their comment. That will hurt the author just as much.
I do entirely agree that it is very damaging if ONLY AMazon purchasers can leave reviews. I would not pay so much attention to these reviews either. I like to see a bix.
I think one solution may be for Amazon to drop its handy star rating alongside the title. Just a couple of 2 star reviews can drag an "average" right down. It is so easy for an enemy or rival to trash the ratings.
However, it's easy to click on the reviews and see the most helpful positive and negative reviews, and then read down them all. This will give a good idea if the reviews are "planted" or posted by people too stupid to understand what star ratings are for.
One issue that I think is getting the short shrift here is that, by posting a 1-star review, the customer IS speaking. The customer wants to buy your book in his/her preferred format, but can't. You're losing sales. i would think that authors – and their publishers – would be concerned about that.
This is capitalism. This is publishing. "Not fair to authors?" Readers don't owe authors a damn thing – especially if they want to buy your book but can't.
They talk about this quite a bit on the Amazon Forums that I frequent. First, I would never use a book review as a means of protest. I'm an author and I certainly hope it never happens to me! And do I think it's right? No. The problem, as SOME Kindle forum participants see it, is that there is no other mechanism that they feel they can protest and get the publisher's attention–where they will genuinely be heard. They see this as the most effective means.
Amazon can and does moderate reviews–well, some reviews. I personally think the answer might be as simple as adding a second area to air grievances. A Festivus box, if you will. Let them air their grievances somewhere at the bottom of the page and send those to the publisher in the same manner that they'd do it if someone clicks that little box at the top indicating they'd like to see the book in a Kindle version.
Or even add an email address at the bottom of the book indicating, if you have any problems with the publisher, please send your grievances to this email address. I dunno. The point, from their perspective, is just to be heard. I think they have a right to be heard, but I don't think they should ruin a book's rating in protest. That only hurts the author.
I wish that Amazon had a separate place for people who are discontent with the formats available to leave their comments that wouldn't affect the ratings of the story or content, which is what the rating should be used for, rather than to gripe about format. If, for example, they were to have a check box next to a title that says "I'll only buy this in X format and it's not available – please look into resolving this," that would be great and would provide real numbers for publishers and Amazon to play with. Right now, it seems like stars are the only way to do give feedback, which is more the fault of setup rather than reviewers.
As an initial point, I'd suggest that we stop calling every "comment" about a book on the Internet a review.
The word "review" implies literary analysis, not personal reaction or axe-grinding.
That said, I have heard from a number of author pals over the years that they've been personally targeted this way. Not so much by competitors, though that does happen, but rather ex-husbands, their mother's "best" friend who's tired of her bragging, feuding neighbors–"Let me plant those carrots on the property line, or I'll give you a one-star review." Sigh.
Big hugs to this generation of authors.
There is some trouble with the review process ANYWAY–agendas, whether an author's mother gets her whole congregation to give five stars or a person has sour grapes and gives a bunch of negatives, but what I'd like to see to solve it is maybe a layer of complexity:
A rating for format that is separate (very good idea) and then
"Have you read this book?"
and calculate 2 ratings (only using people who HAVE read the book) one of ALL yes readers, and one of people who actually leave a COMMENT. That way the spammers who convince the world to rate them lose power, and the mean people giving all other authors one star lose power.
I think people should read my reviews only. 🙂
Anonymous 5:14 said:
"Readers don't owe authors a damn thing – especially if they want to buy your book but can't."
There is a big difference between "can't" (because they are immobilized, lack money, are imprisoned…) and "won't" (because they bought an expensive device and are too self-centered to realize that just because THEY have one, THE MARKET as it stands now does not bear making EVERYTHING available on it).
Edited for accuracy, your statement should read: "Readers don't owe authors a damn thing – especially if they want to buy your book but won't." Which doesn't sound so clever.
It's called patience. It's called maturity. It's called perspective.
I agree that there should be two separate feedback areas – one addressing the actual content of a book, and the other addressing the packaging/kindle vs paper/etc. This type of feedback is valuable for the author, the publisher, and people who are deciding whether they want to read the book. There should be a separate feedback form for people to comment on things like shipping, which is Amazon's concern. Something like a "How did we do?" feedback page.
Nathan,
Thank you for letting us know about the Library Loving Blog Challenge! I was a little late in getting mine up so I urge people to check Jennifer's blog for updates.
Michael Crichton’s Recommended Reading – Library Promo
Nathan,
We recently did a show on this very topic. I interviewed a woman who writes for TeleRead.org. She had contributed a post called, "Maybe We Should Be Hurting the Authors," which suggested getting authors riled up enough to put pressure on their publishers.
You can find the show notes and the audio at https://www.writingshow.com/podcasts/2010/02282010.html.
— Paula B., The Writing Show
ABSOLUTELY, there is a fly in the ointment when it comes to reviews on Amazon. I don't know that limiting the reviews to only buyers on Amazon is the answer. But I would certainly like to see more control over the content of what is reviewed. Someone should be overseeing those reviews and deleting those that are irrelevant to having read the book. I've had reviews for my own work that were nothing more than someone trying to be cute, leaving a remark that had nothing to do with a review of any kind. And Amazon refused to remove it. It's time for an overhaul.
I don't put much stock into the reviews just like I don't pay attention to the movie critics. I don't know how many times the critics have slammed a movie and it turned out to be one I really liked. I think as an author though it would be depressing to get one star reviews…buy you just have to take them with a grain of salt.
The book is listed today as a USA Today number 5 best seller. It doesn't appear the one star reviews have hurt the book much.
-Steve
ridiculous. if you restrict reviews to people who only buy books from amazon, then what about the people who cannot afford to buy books? because they can't buy books from amazon, their opinions and expertise are discounted? or you ban people who checked out the book from their library from offering an opinion, too. anyone with any sense knows to read the high and the low star reviews on amazon in order to make up their own mind about whether the book is something they want to read or own.
Hmm, as an author, I can understand why so many commenters here are blasting the reviewers, but personally I don't see a problem with it. That's the nature of freedom of expression. Wasting energy decrying people for using the tools available to them to express whatever viewpoints they want is pointless. I'd go further to say that authors having no control over how it's published is. . .crap. Authors and agents may choose not not exercise that control in negotiating a contract, but that's different. One could argue that it's the way big publishing works so authors have no choice – so get a small publisher where you have more control. Tradeoff? Sure, but everything in life is a tradeoff. Authors aren't at the mercy of anyone unless they choose to be.
That said, I think Amazon doing something about the reviews is in Amazon's best interest. But I think they could solve it really simply – by default only show reviews and star ratings for people who have bought the book on Amazon, but have a button readers can click to show all the reviews. 90% of people (or more) are either ignoring the reviews anyway or will not click that link. And most of those who do click the link will understand they are getting something different.
Do I read Amazon reviews before I buy? Sometimes. Do I consider the Star Ratings? Not really. I want to find out WHY the reader liked the book…and why not. Comments are everything. Before I buy, I want to read that first page. Explore the author's hook, their voice.
Let me ask this: Do the people who write Kirkus Reviews and Publisher's Weekly Reviews BUY their copies from Amazon? I'd venture to say a big "No"…yet any serious reader WILL take those reviews into account. Why? Because these reviewers probably know a little more about what makes a good read and what doesn't. Same goes for an established author's review. If we repect and value that author and his/her work, we respect that review.
My neighbor might like plot-driven reads, for me, I go for the characters, yet we can recommend the same book to another person.
The reviews on my own book were written by friends, based upon the copies I gave them. Now, if Amazon chooses to remove those reviews, then they're only shooting themselves in the foot. Because those reviews MIGHT help one of Amazon's window shoppers buy it from them.
Seems to me the only criteria to a book review is: Did you actually Read the thing? How you acquired the book shouldn't matter. And it shouldn't matter to Amazon.
A lot of this falls into Amazon's lap. They're sticking to their $9.99 pricing model like glue and using anyone and everyone to help pressure things. You notice that they haven't taken the non-reviews down or really given people a place to discuss these kinds of issues.
To Michael Lewis' credit, he did a lot of great pre-release PR. Then you had a bunch of people who were excited to read the book who went looking for it and couldn't get it for Kindle. Not that you could pay more and get it on Kindle–it just wasn't available at any price. They took it as the publisher trying to pressure them into buying the hardcover.
I'm not sure why they can't just agree to flex pricing. If a book comes out and I want the hardcover, I expect to pay a hardcover price. If I don't want to pay it, I wait for the paperback. Not sure why Amazon can't get on board with this. I would have paid exactly what they were charging for the hardcover ($15.17 or some such) to get this on Kindle now. But non-availability means I have to consider not just desire to read, but space on my shelves (There isn't any). So I'm waiting patiently for the kindle version.
I've found this problem annoying even as a consumer–when clicking through to see book reviews (the good, bad, and ugly) only to come upon a review the likes of "cover of book was bent on arrival."
Those reviewers that are hammering the book because of the lack of a kindle edition are clearly out of line.
But, it is nonsense to say that Amazon should only run reviews of books that are purchased through Amazon. People like me who receive ARCs from publishers and authors and use the heck out of our local libraries would be disqualified under such a stupid policy. What Amazon should do is better police the reviews that appear on their site.
It also might help deal with the folks who claim they don't read Amazon reviews and yet have opinions on Amazon reviews. lol
Kevin R. Tipple
kevinrtipple.com
Scary, isn't it? And a shame.
Now I see why writers and other artist types really do hate the US and the free market. They simply cannot stand to be criticized by someone who lives in Arkansas or North Dakota.
I'm having a similar issue with Amazon. I wrote a book a few years ago and someone holding a grudge or whatever against me, wrote a very negative review. Then he/she or someone clicked over 350 times that they "found the review helpful."
…which brings that horrific review to the very top of the pile. Being that it's the first one visitors to the site read, it affects sales and my reputation.
I've tried to get Amazon to at least rotate the customer reviews so that the same negative one doesn't always stay on the top, but they refuse.
Very unfair, Amazon!
Terry Matlen, ACSW
Author, "Survival Tips for Women with ADHD"
One thing that would similarly help is to simply remove reviews that others mark as unhelpful. I don't get why there's even an option to mark them as unhelpful if poorly received reviews are allowed to remain.
[{sigh} Yes, I know that helpful/unhelpful raises a reviews profile. Duh!]
Well, what about someone saying you are mentally ill becauase your teen book expressed a ecological point and the reviewer was a conservative? How about someone saying your book wasn't appropriate for a nine year old when it is clearly a picture book for a five year old, not to mention Amazon listing picture books as books for 9-12 year olds–all you get from Amazon is that the review is within its guidelines same with goodreads—who cares if the review is libelous per se. The one stars stand—and I had a book destroyed by a stalker who would not give up and I could not get rid of her no matter what I did. Saes went from 100 books a month to zero. (And this was a text book used by BYU at one point.)
The problem Amazon is not addressing are the malicious reviewers (mostly competitors) who try to ruin the sales of popular books with 1-star reviews. I've been the victim of this (it's very obvious that the reviewers haven't even read the books). This takes money not only out of my pocket, but out of Amazon's as well.
I have had legitimate positive reviews removed from my book page–the Amazon police state has declared them illegitimate without trial or evidence. They do, however, refuse to remove clearly malicious reviews from people who clearly haven't read the book or who are competition.
Amazon should restore all reviews at once.
I've gotten two 1-star reviews on two of my books that are on Amazon. Prior to these poor reviews, everyone had given my books 5 stars and glowing reviews. Although these reviews clearly indicated that the reviewers had some mental problems, I feel that both of these hurt my sales significantly. One of those books still hasn't recovered from that poor review–even though since then it's gotten a couple of 5 star reviews. I feel that Amazon should provide authors with some protection from vindictive, jealous, or just downright nasty people who just give authors a bad review because they can't stand to see others do well.
I don't know why Amazon do that most of people follow their reviews but if they this with such a great book is really disgrace for an author
How To Get Amazon Reviews