Can A One-Star Review Really Do That?

[M.R.]

Good morning authors and readers!

I posted an article on my blog about a situation regarding a one-star review on Amazon that I thought you might find interesting:

http://mrforbes.com/blog/2013/04/can-...

I'd post it here, but I used HTML tables to present the numbers.

Summary:
Book gets a one-star review that has nothing to do with the book, sales drop 50%. Coincidence?

Please share your thoughts, either here or there.

Thanks for reading!

[Jill]

Hi MR,

Not too long ago I did a book giveaway for my 2nd indie book. The first day was going great until 1/2 through I received this 1 star review.

1.0 out of 5 stars a joke???, March 4, 2013
By grands16 - See all my reviews
This review is from: Discovering Pride (Pride Series) (Kindle Edition)
Just downloaded this book. Found that each paragraph was missing 1 to 2 beginning sentences. Had to delete from my kindle. Was this a joke or what? Totally impossible to read.

My downloads dropped so much I didn't know what to do. I posted a help me here on Goodreads. I hit the abuse button. I tried to talk to the person offering to help them with how to download it. I messages Amazon... All with no results.

grands16 didn't want to talk, and to this day has not removed or replied to my offer of help. Leaving me to believe I was sabotaged on purpose.

Amazon won't remove my 1 star review.

Goodreads people were the most helpful. They helped me "get over it".

Downloads did pick up the next day. I think everyone who looks at the 1 star laughs at the stupidity of this person. I think most real readers would agree.

Hopefully this will help.

[Amy]

That's horrible! I'm so sorry that happened - it makes me fear that it could happen to me, too. What I do think is important is that people are still lending the book to their friends. That says A LOT about your book and I hope you won't let one person's asinine review take away from how proud you should be.

[Kelly]

I've had a fear of this happening. When I first uploaded my book, I had some things messed up with the page breaks that link you to chapters and I was so scared that someone had gotten that copy and it was going to have a cascading effect with the reader having a poor experience. Thankfully, I think I got it replaced before anyone got the bad copy, but I was a newbie and didn't really know what I was doing. Pages breaks were not my friend for a while. And then when I did my createspace version,pages numbers were definitely not my friend. Anyone else that uses Word have trouble with that?

[Elsa]

M.R. after reading the link and the review the individual posted on amazon I also posted a comment and reported the review to amazon. I hope that helps.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R6TVR38P...

[Jan]

Kelly wrote: "I've had a fear of this happening. When I first uploaded my book, I had some things messed up with the page breaks that link you to chapters and I was so scared that someone had gotten that copy an..."

Kelly, I thought I was the only one! That page number problem has plagued me so much that I'm looking into using Scrivener instead. Even the pros I hired had a tough time with incorrect page numbers, and it keeps reverting. No answer for you, but misery loves company :)

As to poor reviews, we all get them sooner or later. When you get them early on it is most damaging, but you can pull out of it. Just keep going, keep learning and writing more. As a reader, if there's a book that intrigues me, I disregard one and two star reviews anyway. The real test is reading the sample. I decide for myself, and I think most readers do, too.

[M.R.]

Wow... thanks to everyone who responded, you all are great, and I appreciate the support.

I really don't think this particular reader was trying to be malicious, but rather ran into a problem with his Kindle and blamed the book for it.

I'm in the tech industry, and I've seen users blame the symptom rather than the cause more times than I can count. At the same time, it's a shame if I, or anybody here should be penalized for it :)

Regarding formatting.. I did it myself the first time, and it took hours!
I've recently started using Scrivener, and I love it. The automatic formatting for Kindle is just a cherry on top.

[Kelly]

M.R. wrote: "Wow... thanks to everyone who responded, you all are great, and I appreciate the support.

I really don't think this particular reader was trying to be malicious, but rather ran into a problem with..."

Cool! I might have to check that out. I have been hearing a lot of about Scrivener lately. Any cons to using it?

[Rachael]

Hi! I'm new to the group. Scrivener, once you get over the weird clunkiness of it, is great. I had no trouble (after a whole DAY of swearing at my laptop) in uploading my book file to Amazon. No cons, as far as I can see!

[A.L.]

An overall 4 star rating on Amazon is hardly bad though.

[M.R.]

Alexandra - you aren't wrong... but I have found the correlation between getting that single one-star review and reduced sales intriguing (or maybe coincidental)

In any case, thanks to a commenter on the review in question, I was taught a lesson about publishing for Kindle...

That lesson is, word likes to include html color tags in the output html file. When that happens, and the user tries to switch to night mode (black background, grey text), the text stays black, and the book can't be read.

The bad news is... it cost me a one-star review. The good news is, now YOU know, so hopefully you don't make the same mistake I did.

I updated my source and republished my book, the night mode friendly version should be available in the next few hours. Unfortunately the reader didn't leave an e-mail address or anything, so there is no way for me to get in touch with him to make amends.

Live and learn.

Oh, and of course if I had just used Scrivener in the first place, this would never have happened. :)

Scrivener - my favorite features are:
Separate folders/files for chapters/scenes
Project targets (put in # words and target date, it will tell you how many words you need to write per day to reach it - it helps me feel less overwhelmed.. writing a novel is a big undertaking)
and of course export to Kindle format.

[David]

Sometimes I read one star books just for fun aha I mainly feel bad for the suthor so try to give me opinion too, but yeah star ratings still influence readers. Sales dropping 50% there has to be another reason. A one star review talking about something else couldnt effect that many people

[Melissa]

I have read and enjoyed a lot of books that had recieved a 1 star rating. Actually I like a lot of books that people didn't like and really hated a lot of the ones that people rave about so I buy my books more off of the description of the book, if that interests me then I'm buying it.

The thing that tends to put me off of books is when the description of the book is either all reviews of the book or even when the reviews are before the actual description. I hate to wade through the little blurbs by reviewers to figure out what the book is about. I think an author should always present the book description before the reviews, they should have confidence that what they wrote will pull the reader in rather than the reviews. It just always makes me think that maybe their book isn't so good if they won't tell me what it's about. This is probably just a pet peeve of mine though.

[Lex]

M.R. I read the review and was compelled to respond with a comment on amazon. I'm really surprised that they refused to pull the review as it is so obviously not about the book.

[M.R.]

I added an update to the original post on my blog:
http://mrforbes.com/blog/2013/04/can-...

Text is here, since there's no HTML involved:
-------------------------------------

Yesterday, I published this post about a one-star review I received due to what at the time I thought was user error with the Kindle. It turns out, I was wrong (and am feeling rather sheepish as a result).

Thanks to a commenter to the review on Amazon who goes by the screen name of Fate, I learned that it actually WAS the formatting that caused the reviewer’s ire. Apparently, when you output for Kindle in MS Word, it also adds html color tags to the elements, most often black. Night mode makes the background black, and text a light grey in order to keep the screen darker for bedtime reading. It is also useful if the white is just too bright and hurts your eyes, as in the case of the reviewer.

While I still would have preferred the user had contacted me directly (either through Amazon or by finding my contact info at the back of the book), the review did work to alert me to the problem, and allow me to fix it. Now you know too.

So many people jumped in with help and support in light of the review. To everyone on Amazon, Goodreads, and here on my blog who pitched in, you have my sincere thanks and appreciation.

When I was ready to publish, I used the ‘Building Your Book For Kindle’ document that Amazon provides to format my book. This morning I searched through it for night mode, or anything that may have warned me of this issue ahead of time. I may have missed it, but I didn’t see anything.

I also used the online Kindle Previewer to check my book before I published it. This previewer doesn’t offer mode switching.

Yesterday, when I corrected the book, I downloaded the actual Kindle app for Mac, and used the downloadable Kindle previewer to output the html to .mobi format. At that point I was able to review the content in night mode, although the Kindle app crashed three times in the process.

In any case, let this be a lesson:

Check your book in the different modes before you publish.

As for sales… we’ll have to wait another day or two to determine how much of an effect the poor review may have had (and now I wonder how many returns were due to the night mode issue). What I can say right now is that I sold 26 books yesterday (up from 15 after the review), with 14 of those sales coming between 9:00 pm PST and 7 am PST, after a couple of positive reviews gave me back my half star.

Coincidence? Possible, but I’m not convinced.

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I'm going to use Scrivener from now on, but I'll also remember to check the mobi in the Kindle app and switch the modes.. you should too :)

[Alan]

I wouldn't worry about a few bad reviews, or even a one star. No book works for everyone. I've just started reading A Game of Thrones, which also has a number of GR one stars. I've even seen poor reviews of A Midsummer Night's Dream.