Authors-a review or a recommendation?

[Jim]

I must admit that until I had a book to sell I didn't really read reviews.
I knew the book I wanted (I'd seen or heard it mentioned),looked for it in google, it had come up on Amazon, I clicked, bought and if I looked at anything else on the web page it would be the bit which says 'buyers who bought this book also bought'

Now Reviews are of great importance and life seems to centre around them ;-)

33 is an awful lot of books in a series, it makes Poldark or the Forsyth saga seem like something you write to fill in a few empty winter evenings!

[Jacquie]

Hi Ellie I'm also a fan of Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. Do you read the Bill Slider series as well as the Morland series?

[Ellie]

No Jacquie, I didn't. I tried to read her Kirov series but couldn't get into it. Would you recommend the Bill Slider series? I am not a huge fan of blood and guts but I enjoy some mysteries.

[Jacquie]

I only read a condensed version of Anna and did not want to try the rest of the Kirov trilogy. I love the Bill Slider series and can't wait until the new book is released in Kindle format. You could try a sample of the first one Orchestrated Death A Mystery Introducing Inspector Bill Slider.

[Ellie]

Thanks Jacquie I will :-)

[Simon (Highwayman)]

But in your case @Ellie if you have read 32 of her books nothing was going.to stop you reading number 33. In the other hand if.you post a bad review of 33 I wonder what will happen when 34 comes out. Hmmm, a conumdrum there.

[Ellie]

Thats true Simon :-) although I personally wont't be rushing out to read number 34 if she ever writes it (the original series was commissioned to last up til WW2 I believe but I dont think anyone thought it would turn into so many books). Pity really as I was in such a rush to buy her other ones they were still hot from the printing press lol

[Anne]

Ideally both (going back to the original question), but if pushed I'd say the review as that's up there for as long as your book is available for anyone and everyone to see. A personal recommendation - unless it's by Richard & Judy - might only reach a few people. I got my first 5* review a few days ago and it's a great feeling!

[Terry]

I would have to say recommendations. I'll usually read what's recommended by people I know here on Goodreads, from my friends, facebook, twitter or from blogs.

[Andrew]

I'm immensely grateful for every single one of my seven 5 star reviews, but the fact is that there's tons of stuff with seven 5 star reviews on Amazon. Good reviews can put a book in contention for a given reader, but a positive recommendation is far more likely to actually lead to a sale.

[Will]

Especially on Amazon now, the reviews are being disregarded by many.

How about this? I spoke to someone in a bookshop yesterday. Sh'e bought 50 Shades on line, seen it had loads of reviews. Until she actually bought it, she hadn't seen that the reviews weren't very good or favourable....

[Tim]

I've had that from several people as well: "It's got lots of reviews so it must be good". What those reviews were seems to be irrelevant - quantity over quality.

There was a book in the GR Sponsored links section the other day. It caught my eye because it was "my favourite genre" (space opera) and looked to be right my street. When I checked it out on Amazon it had exactly two reviews after several months on sale. One was 5 stars and praised it to the skies, the other was 1 star and said it was the worst thing ever written. Add to that the blurb was naff, so I didn't buy it.

I've never pressed the 'recommend' button on GR, since that's tantamount to spam in my mind, and I sort of resent it. Maybe it's an age thing?

I only ever bought one book based on the title alone, It was any years ago, an it was by a new author (at the time) called Terry something. The book was The Colour of Magic. And the only reason I bought it was because "Colour" was spelled right. I went on to buy every book that man ever wrote!

From me though, a good review gets 4 stars, and an okay review gets 3. 5 is pretty much reserved for 'this person is god and can do no wrong, heaven and earth just moved': I try not to give too many of those, cos the earth moving plays havoc with the furniture.

[Will]

You need heavier furniture, then...

[Jason]

Katie wrote: "If authors can't take bad reviews, they're in the wrong business."

I agree. I used to be nervous as hell about getting reviews. I'm blessed to have gotten more good reviews than bad... but you know, the bad I've gotten I've looked at as a chance for me to be a better author/writer. Change something that I might otherwise overlooked. Or... look at it and say "Nope, I just don't agree with what that reviewer is saying".

All in all, an author needs to take everything with a grain of salt and do what they feel is right in their heart. After all, in the end, it's still their name on the book and their feelings, aspirations and dreams that are contained within the pages. The biggest thing... is don't get offended, stand back and look at it.

[Patti (baconater)]

I came across what I found to be a rather interesting situation last evening as I was idly surfing amazon.

Unfortunately I didn't save the link...

Anyway, amazon reccied a book to me.it was the second in a series. I'd certainly not downloaded the first.

The cover and blurb were both shockingly bad.

It had well over 200 reviews, most five star, only a handful less than glowing.

When I looked closer, all of the five stars were verified purchases and all of the reviews had been written on either the 4th or 5th of December.

Make of that what you will.

[David]

I heard - somewhere - that books will sell more if they have a mixture of reviews, rather than all 5* reviews.

I don't seem to get many reviews, but from my own experience as a reader I'd say recommendations carry more weight than reviews.

It is that word of mouth thing, again.

When I was a groovy young hipster I used to read the music paper reviews and then go and buy the albums they recommended.

I bought an awful lot of bad albums.

I used to read book reviews in the posh papers too.

I read an awful lot of bad books by people who - just by accident - went to university with the reviewer.

[Will]

'Log Rolling' on reviews is an old literacy tradition.