UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
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Amazon refuse to remove spiteful review
message 101:
by
Elizabeth
(new)
May 07, 2012 02:59AM
I review most of the books I read, and I read a lot. I got into the habit when I joined peer review writing sites (Authonomy and YouWriteOn) years before I actually published a book of my own. Over those years, I read and reviewed at least the opening chapters of well over 1500 books, beta-read several full-length novels and helped other writers with editing and proofreading, just as many other writers helped me. I read for pleasure and as my reading time is limited, I choose books I think I will enjoy, so there's a good chance I will award 4 or 5 stars to something I really enjoy a lot!
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My issue is not with 5 star reviews per se, but I am suspicious of books that have nearly all 5 star reviews. Of course said books might be fantastic but with such a diverse class of reader I find it hard to believe any book appeals to everyone. Then if I find most of the reviews are the only one the reviewer has written ... But if the reviewer has written lots of reviews, even if they are all 5 star I presume they are legit. I guess I just have trust issues.
I tend to believe the 5 star reviews too Shaun... but I have real trust issues - I believe just about anything I am told. I don't tend to understand why people can be bothered to lie to me.On Amazon products I read the one star reviews that usually consist of people who didn't read the product description, complain about delivery or think it is a different colour of orange to what they thought it would be. The 5 star reviews have me heading for my payment details....
I think if you write in a particularly specific genre -for example, forensic thrillers, you are going to get the same type of readers and while they will be diverse, they will not be as diverse as those who choose to read cross-genre books, or what is sometimes called general fiction. Like most writers, I would love to build a fan-base and in a very small way I am achieving that - whatever I write, a few people will want to read it. If they then review it, I'm thrilled. But I see from Shaun's post it could look dodgy!
But then not everyone thinks like me, Elizabeth. At the end of the day nobody knows why one person will like something that someone else doesn't. Other people might like to see lots of 5 star reviews and will only purchase based on them. It's good that we can all discuss this though without resorting to animosity. I guess there is no black or white answer. Only shades of grey.
Rosen, I think you have started a really interesting discussion. It does seem to have moved away from the responsability of Amazon to the different aproaches people have in reading and writing reviews. On the whole Rosen, as frustrating as it may be to have people write completely unspecific reviews I dont think much attention will be paid to it. The star rating, well, I'm not sure thats as important as the comments but the other ratings you get when more reviews come in should help balance it out. :)
Simon (Highwayman) wrote: "I have to admit I am more interested in the 2 or 3 star reviews. I don't agree with the analysis that people who give a low rating to classics or award winning books are too stupid to understand th..."To be brutally honest Simon, if I ever encountered an author who was so arrogant and condescending as to give the impression that they think people are too stupid to appreciate their book, I'd certainly not waste my time on it.
The truly great books work on many levels which is why they educate. Animal farm. I read that when I was seven and devouring every book I could get my hands on. I was quite shocked when I was older and had to read it again.
As I can only speak for myself, when I really like a book and enjoy it it gets 5 stars, whether its a short story, humour or a serious novel. For me the 5 stars are how much that piece of writing affected me and I don't compare that book/story to others or I'd never be able to rate anything. I can happily give Rosen's short stories 5 stars but a long classic which I found boring would get less.I also now look at the review to see if it is an Amazon verified purchase as we know that reviews can be posted from anyone, not necessarily a reader of the work. Free books downloaded count as verified purchases as well.
PS Where's the porn - there wasn't any in my copy ;0)
I can't verify my purchases though. I buy on my husband's account to we can both read them. :(
But you are a top reviewer aren't you ignite?
Top 1,000. At about 795/800 currently. You wobble up and down by a few each day.
Ignite wrote: "wobble up and down by a few each day."Tell me about it. hic.
Look at it - not quite 5.00 p.m. Mind you, it's so cloudy here you can't see the yard-arm!
Ignite wrote: "I can't verify my purchases though. I buy on my husband's account to we can both read them. :("I didn't think about joint accounts that's a good point.
I have to get all my kindle books from the US site so they are Verified there but not on the UK site.
Himself sometimes read my books. I never read his!
When I got my first five star review I didn't think for one moment it would be a negative. Tollesbury Time Forever now has 52 five star reviews from a total of 62 yet the sales seem to be nowhere near as good as other books with far less. Perhaps the cynism about good reviews is more widespread than we think. Which is a shame.
You have to really love someone to.share your kindle account!I wonder if daisyduck has considered that in the prenupts.
Rosen wrote: "It amuses me when reviewers make the mistake their complaining about. "It was badly profread.""Actually from my review on 'Room' I feel quite strongly on this. Readers can pick up on bad grammar and spelling yet not be great themselves, but for the most case they are only readers so it doesn't matter. It's an attitude like this from others that puts a lot of people off reviewing I think. It might seem hypocritical but they don't have to be correct but an author does.
Lindsay - I review the same way. I list bad and good points (generally in a numbered list because hell I am not a writer and it's the way that works for me) and sum it up at the end.
I don't think anyone will be surprised to find out I don't have issues with confidence.
If I read your book, I don't care if you are my best friend, a prize winner or my annoying neighbour I will give you a rating that reflects my true opinion on your book and if I hated it, it will get a 1 star. I don't frankly care about hurting the authors feeling if I truly did not like the book. Not to say I won't try to find something positive and I won't do it in a mean way but I'm not going to not review it because I might discourage someone else. I'm not reviewing it for them, I'm doing it for me.
I have also given low ratings to books for the purpose that they might of 'went over my head' but if you write a damn pretentious book that only the educated will understand, it's your own fault.
Lol, I imagine the eyes of the sollicitor when asked to put a clause about sharing the contents of the kindle on the contract lol !
My Amazon account now has 4 people (inc. me) on it.Just spent about 5minutes editing that flipping comment above. Clearly the weather is making me loose more brain cells than normal.
Louise-Lesley (Elle) wrote: "My Amazon account now has 4 people (inc. me) on it.Just spent about 5minutes editing that flipping comment above. Clearly the weather is making me loose more brain cells than normal."
You can't beat a good Bank Holiday rant! And that was a great one!!!
Nice post Elle. I think you are right. The internet has blown the whole review thing Sparta (apart) though as in the old days you could write a letter to the author and that is about it. I wonder how some of the great authors would have got on with internet reviews?
Ha, that was indeed quite lovely to get off my chest! :DI just feel that some reviewers are in the mindset that certain books need to be given high ratings because of things that have nothing to do with the enjoyment of reading it. It could be one of the best written books on earth (good grammar, i haz it) and if it sucked, I'd still give it a bad rating.
All stars are not created equal, but I'd suggest that quantity does make a difference. Most indie authors here on GR or elsewhere haven't garnered a substantial number of ratings yet, so it's all relative, but something like Stuart's 52/62 certainly attracted my notice. Once you get up into the hundreds or thousands or more, you definitely get a clearer picture, which is the aggregate opinion, the book's popularity, which in the end is what defines "good" in this world.
I think the problem with the ratings is just being given the option of 1-5. I honestly think a score out of a hundred would be much better. Surely easy to implement and would give a book an average percentage - a format we're all used to. That way any reviews that give a book 100 will be equally as questionable as those that give a rating of 0. Just an idea!
Tom wrote: "All stars are not created equal, but I'd suggest that quantity does make a difference. Most indie authors here on GR or elsewhere haven't garnered a substantial number of ratings yet, so it's all r..."I do agree Tom. In these modern days of quick wins etc it's easy to forget that the life of a book is long indeed. Only this morning I wrote a review for Frankenstein - and that was written almost 200 years ago. Certainly pays to have some perspective!
I think more than five points on the scale would be useful, but 100 would make it too subjective. I hated it / I didn't like it / It's ok etc, is pretty objective, as subjective measures go.
Stuart wrote: "I think the problem with the ratings is just being given the option of 1-5. I honestly think a score out of a hundred would be much better. Surely easy to implement and would give a book an average..."Lol ! I can't make it between 1 and 5 Stu, I struggle doing surveys because I can't mark something out of ten. I like or I don't. There's no in-between really. The only difference I make is that the 4 will be enjoyable while the 5 will have that little bit extra that made me think, laugh, cry, coo or whatever else.
On another note, I don't think every single book is made for me to read. If I don't like a book, there is a strong element of personal taste involved. I cannot inflict a bad review on something that I thought would be a book for me but found out it wasn't. If I give up because I don't like a book, it's not the writer's fault. I don't think when a writer sets to write they have in mind that the book must please "me" or must be written in a way that must comply with "my" educational level. If I happen to choose the wrong book, then I think I am responsible for it, and don't think it's fair that the writer should be told "I picked up your book because I thought I liked vampires and in the end I decided I didn't like them so I'll give you a 1 star because your book is crap".
NB I am not taking anything into account other than whether I like a story or not, as you all know as per previous message, I don't think about anything other than how the book made me feel when I do my reviews. Maybe that's why in my case I can't leave bad reviews. If a writer read a bad review from me they'd probably think "Oh well can't please everyone" so there's no point in driving the average down is there?
The GR almighty has already totally refused to implement more than a 5 point scale as Netflix (I think it was Netflix) did a poll and some science stuff and found people way LESS likely to rate a book if they had more options as it was too confusing.
Lorraine - Huggybear wrote: "Stuart wrote: "I think the problem with the ratings is just being given the option of 1-5. I honestly think a score out of a hundred would be much better. Surely easy to implement and would give a ..."RE: Your last point. If I didn't like a book and didn't review it and everyone like me didn't review it then it would have a high average yes? But does it really deserve it if half the people didn't like it but just didn't bother rating it?
Edit to add: Reviews are meant to be personal to your taste in my opinion. It's definitely not my fault that I picked a book I didn't like nor is it the writers fault for writing a book for a different target audience than me but if I give it a bad review it's not a personal attack, it's just my opinion on a book.
It depends whether you see reviews as a measure of how good the book is, or of how enjoyable it is to the masses.It does annoy me when people buy books and then moan about things that were apparent from the blurb and sometimes even the title of the book.
In that case it is definitely their fault.If they buy a book that is about vampires and is warned to contain adult scenes, then complain it's not good for their children or contains violence then kindly shut up -.-
I must say the people from the UK have been awesome- the most supportive. thoughtful people I have met on GR- it's shocking how they go out of their way to help- another man from London went out of his way to help without even asking- seems like all the people I have met from other Countries but especially UK have been awesome- it's so unlike people in the US- sure there are some great people but not like outside the US- so refreshing to work together and assist one another- I brought this up thinking about new writers, reviews and just how people are working together-
Just taking a break from my OU essay to throw my couple of pence in . . .Not sure if it's been debated on this thread yet, but I think there is a little confusion between a 'review' and an 'opinion'. For me, a review is something that looks at a book from a critical standpoint - structure, vocabularly, plot, characterisation, etc. An opinion is, well, something like 'I loved it' or something like that.
Since AWM has been released, it seems to me the vast majority of Amazon or Goodreads reviews are 'opinions' rather than 'reviews'. And everyone is entitled to an opinion, whether it is contrary to what the author's 'opinion' of their own work is or not.
Once you write something and put it out for all the world to see, quite frankly, you open up a whole world of trouble if you haven't got a thick skin.
As for 'reviews', I see those as coming from specialist review sites or from websites on which reviews are the main focus.
Just an opinion . . . obviously . . . ;)
I think you've summed it up nicely, Ian.The term 'review' is a misnomer for our purposes. I quite agree.
Thanks for making things a lot clearer Ian.I shall from now on put a disclaimer saying I am sharing my opinion and not writing a review.
M.L. wrote: "I must say the people from the UK have been awesome- the most supportive. thoughtful people I have met on GR- it's shocking how they go out of their way to help- another man from London went out..."Yes, ML, you'll find that most of us want to give back to 'our' authors in our small way by being supportive in return for the hours of enjoyment we receive from them.
The group has just sort of evolved that way. Certainly wasn't intentional.
Ian wrote: "Just taking a break from my OU essay to throw my couple of pence in . . .Not sure if it's been debated on this thread yet, but I think there is a little confusion between a 'review' and an 'opini..."
That is very well put Ian and I totally agree. I would not be comfortable giving a 'review' of a book as such (am so not qualified for that job) but am definitely comfortable giving my opinion of one!!
I've just come across something which really annoys me. We all know that we don't enjoy the same things - but if you haven't enjoyed a book and others have, don't accuse those reviewers of being an inside job!
I follow Linda Gillard on facebook and she posted about this. Someone has writen a two star reveiew and accused the 37 five star and 16 four star reviews of being an inside job!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/HOUSE-OF-SILE...
I follow Linda Gillard on facebook and she posted about this. Someone has writen a two star reveiew and accused the 37 five star and 16 four star reviews of being an inside job!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/HOUSE-OF-SILE...
Cheeky biddy! I must have read this before I began reviewing but I know I commended it on the Amazon forum. I'm in good company evidently.Imagine being so arrogant that you can't conceive of anyone disagreeing with you unless it's a conspiracy!
I wonder if in this particular case, Amazon might remove the review, as it is (arguably?) libelous?(Although oddly, I actually agree with one of the criticisms - there were quite a lot of similar characters, and the nicknames REALLY didn't help.)
(PS - I still liked it though - gave it 4* on GR!)
Karen (Kew) wrote: "I've just come across something which really annoys me. We all know that we don't enjoy the same things - but if you haven't enjoyed a book and others have, don't accuse those reviewers of being an..."Wow, that's some friends and family she's got. The first one even went to the trouble of doing 257 other reviews so that she wouldn't be found out!
Katie wrote: "Wow, that's some friends and family she's got. The first one even went to the trouble of doing 257 other reviews so that she wouldn't be found out! "
Ha ha! That made me laugh. I think that first reviewer even joined amazon vine to cover their tracks...
;0)
Ha ha! That made me laugh. I think that first reviewer even joined amazon vine to cover their tracks...
;0)
They interviewed an amazon spoof reviewer on radio.4 today. Apparently they do it because they get offered free things. They implied that amazon didn't care. Which I suppose all evidence suggests is true.
Simon (Highwayman) wrote: "They interviewed an amazon spoof reviewer on radio.4 today. Apparently they do it because they get offered free things. They implied that amazon didn't care. Which I suppose all evidence suggests i..."Where do I sign up? I want free stuff.
Simon (Highwayman) wrote: "They interviewed an amazon spoof reviewer on radio.4 today. Apparently they do it because they get offered free things. They implied that amazon didn't care. Which I suppose all evidence suggests i..."
That sounds like amazon vine - but they are supposed to be genuine reviews. Damaskat was explaining how it works on the zoo a few weeks ago. I don't think you can apply - you get invited but I don't know how they select who to ask.
:0)
That sounds like amazon vine - but they are supposed to be genuine reviews. Damaskat was explaining how it works on the zoo a few weeks ago. I don't think you can apply - you get invited but I don't know how they select who to ask.
:0)
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