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Reviews - how useful are they?
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looked at dispassionately from the writer's point of view, reviews are nice, but useless if the potential reader never finds the Amazon page with the book on.A brilliant review on a page with no hits is useless
Jim wrote: "looked at dispassionately from the writer's point of view, reviews are nice, but useless if the potential reader never finds the Amazon page with the book on.A brilliant review on a page with no h..."
Spot on
Jim wrote: "looked at dispassionately from the writer's point of view, reviews are nice, but useless if the potential reader never finds the Amazon page with the book on.A brilliant review on a page with no h..."
What's the answer to that then, Jim?
If I knew that I'd be too busy spending by obscenely large earnings to write :-(I suspect interacting on blogs and forums is the first step
If you've got a 'real' book in paper, then you can probably try interacting in the real world as well
I'm testing the theory that you need a catalogue of books to your name.I've seen one blogger this morning suggest that a novice author is one with less than 10 books to their name
I've heard that argument many times Will, and I do think a writer with a catalogue is going to have more joy than one with a single book with a dozen great reviews...Or so says Andrew "1 book, 12 reviews" Lawston, anyway.
Will wrote: "I'm testing the theory that you need a catalogue of books to your name.I've seen one blogger this morning suggest that a novice author is one with less than 10 books to their name"
About a year and half ago (perhaps longer) I reviewed a book (fantasy). I was his only review for ages.
I asked him if he was doing any marketing and he said he said he wouldn't start any until he had finished at least 4/5 books. (Two series in different genres)
Book 2,3,4,5 came out and up till then I was his only (or one of very few) review on the first few books.
Then he started getting the word out and I (and others) recommended it. He built up a network of other authors on Twitter( a few at first then more), each of them passing/recommending/tweeting to each other and their readers.
I picked up books he recommended and the cycle continued.
Meanwhile he is still writing books in two genres and has started in a third. (Must be about 13/14 books by now)
Now don't get me wrong I have seen mass equals crap.
Each book is of high standard. (edits, betas, covers ect).
There seems to some method to his madness because he is doing really well.
Now that might just be the right book, right time and place in combination with a few other factors.
i write reviews for myself so i dont really care if they are useful to anyone else (obviously if i write a good review i am thankful that i am giving a good book praise and a good rating to bump it up though)
I think it depends WHY a review is written and who it is aimed at. As a writer I am selling more now I have a second book and a couple of anthology stories, plus networking etc. Some people love and are influenced by reviews, others aren't - I suspect if I ran the poll again with a different audience the result would be different.
As a regional journalist, I rarely wrote reviews: always wishing to stay on the fence of personal opinion if the book was awful. If the book was really good, however, and the writer one of quality, then I was happy to give my opinion.Even though I want my debut novel to receive favourable reviews, I don't want people to lie for my sake.
Many authors take part in a kind of review 'tour' where a group of people get together and say nice things about the others' works and give them five stars on Amazon and Goodreads, whether they mean it or not.
That means that some poor reader will come along, see a load of five stars against a book and buy it, only to discover that they've spent their money unwisely.
From what I've been told, few shoppers read the reviews, they just glance at the number of stars against the title which helps to persuade them to part with their cash.
Looking at consumer trends, when someone has a good or bad experience, they tell another nine people - that's how the market works - so any publicity is good publicity whether its positive or negative.
I think that people who are willing to spend time and effort on reading books and writing reviews are very important to the success of most new authors and the key players in this digital age of publishing.
I have been persuaded to purchase books unknown to me by their reviews on occasion and have yet to be disappointed.
I do read reviews before buying but, like most people I think, I've learnt to be cautious. If an author has a lot of 5 star reviews from people who have never reviewed anything else apart from an electric egg whisk then I would think they were probably friends of the author and would be more sceptical.A bad review doesn't necessarily put me off - the reviewer might dislike something that isn't an issue for me (eg strong language, period detail).
You might be right Jacquelynn. I've seen quite a few reviews that just say the customer hasn't read/used the product so can't review it but then the ratings that go along with that range from 1-5 stars. I ignore all Amazon emails asking for feedback as they've just become too annoying.
I have obviously ticked some box somewhere so I don't get emails to ask me to review so I don't know what it says, but from some of the comments it must be quite a bossy one.As this one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/RDHSKX...
As a reader I'll go by recomendations from people I know, but I always read a sample to see if the writing captures my attention.
I might glance at the reviews, but all they are is that person's opinion of the piece.
As a writer reviews mean I've touched the reader in such a way that compells them to respond. Which in my mind means I've accomplished my job whether the review is good or bad.
I might glance at the reviews, but all they are is that person's opinion of the piece.
As a writer reviews mean I've touched the reader in such a way that compells them to respond. Which in my mind means I've accomplished my job whether the review is good or bad.
How influential are reviews? One poll I ran says not as much as you would think... however the one currently running on on my blog is shaping up with another answer. Get your voting sticks out!