I ask people to review my stuff on Amazon, but I never think about how people may view those (or GoodReads, or whatever) reviews and stars. When you’re an indie author, you can live or die on these reviews, but, as Anne R. Allen says, not everyone understands how this works. There could be a generation gap, or someone new to online shopping (they exist), or someone who looks at book reviews like movie reviews.
They assume they’re like TV Guide movie ratings. A Sandra Bullock rom-com always gets 2 stars, right? 3 stars are for something deep and moving, or a spectacle like Avatar; and 4 stars are reserved for Oscar winners.
Of course, authors know that two stars is death for a book.
Anything less than 4 stars means “NOT RECOMMENDED.” Don’t expect an author to be pleased with 2 or 3 stars, no matter how much you rave in the text. Those stars are the primary way a book is judged. Without a 4 or 5 star rating, a book doesn’t get picked up in the Amazon algorithms for things like “also bought” suggestions. Giving 1 or 2 stars to a book that doesn’t have many reviews is taking money out of the author’s pocket, so don’t do it unless you really think the author should take up a new line of work.
(She does make it clear that she’s not saying don’t give bad reviews, just know what your bad reviews mean to the author and the book itself. It’s a heavier hammer than you may have intended it to be.)
I ran up against this with a friend, who said she had been interviewed on someone’s blog about her book, and then the person gave her two stars on Amazon. We were baffled – if the book was good enough to warrant an author interview, why diss it online? – and my only advice was, “Don’t watch your reviews and count your stars, therein lies madness.”
So if you know anyone who wants to help you with your marketing, tell them that they should leave an Amazon or Goodreads review, and then maybe suggest they read this awesome blog post: Amazon Reader Reviews: 12 Things Everybody and His Grandmother Needs to Know
(And, uh, if you would like to give some Goodreads or Amazon love to my books, please feel free…)
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6 Responses to A Guide to Amazon Reviews
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You are my new BFF! Thank you, thank you for posting this–and for understanding what I was trying to say–Amazon reviews give readers enormous power. But if you want to leave a positive review: be careful. Amazon is full of minefields, so your message may not get across.
But I didn’t know from minefields until yesterday, when I got a cyber attack from professional book reviewers who all thought I was trying to tell them how to do their job.
Very, very angry book reviewers. All in a frenzy self-righteous high dudgeon.
Who vow never to review one of my books or books by any of my followers again. I think that’s a plus, since my books are humorous and these people seemed to be seriously humor-challenged. But for my followers, I think it’s a bit unfair.
Thanks!
Wow, seriously? Getting annoyed at the post, even pissed that they think you’re telling them they’re doing their job poorly, sure, I can see someone getting mad about that. But “I’ll never review your or anyone else’s books again!” is just childish.
Thanks so much for this post. I blog with Anne and saw the frenzy of misunderstanding that ensued from her post. I am almost at the point of wondering if the whole review system is broken. Between trolls, 5 star reviews from Mom and well-meaning readers lost in the Amazon, it’s being undermined. Every day I hear commercials on the radio from a company called something like “Reputation Repair.” If your restaurant or whatever gets trashed on Yelp or some other site, you can hire them to “fix” the problem, adding more doubt to the entire system.
Most readers “get” the difference between a troll & an honest review but not always & it’s not always easy. The question is: what to do?
God, really?! This kind of drama is why I don’t write reviews on Amazon. (Er, that and already having a webspace for this under my own control.)
Seanan McGuire had an interesting post on numeric review systems the other week: http://seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com/405502.html It did prompt me to write a writeup of what my own star rating system equates to– in my world, three stars equals an “it’s okay or I have mixed feelings about it or it’s okay but not for me” rather than “NOT RECOMMENDED.” More like “recommended but with a few reservations.” Had no idea it was THAT traumatizing. I probably wouldn’t even bother with stars except that TypePad’s book list has them on sidebars.
Hm, I should probably clarify the first bit about not writing reviews on Amazon: if my options are REALLY supposed to be “give it an unqualified RAVE, four stars!” or don’t review it at all, then bugger that, I’d rather stay off Amazon.
Thanks again. I see here there’s some rumor that I was interviewed by somebody who gave me two stars. That never happened. Nobody who’s interviewed me has reviewed my books. I got two stars from an elderly friend who loved the book, but thought rom-coms only got two stars and anything over 3 was reserved for Shakespeare and the Bible. She’s the one who asked me to write the post.
And again, I never told anybody not to give negative reviews. I said if you want to give a rave, two or three stars won’t convey that message. Amazing how people twist things around. I’ve read that self-righteous rage generates the same brain endorphins as cocaine. I guess there was one happy buzz going around Cyberia this week.
As for the three-star review thing: that’s Amazon’s algorithms. They don’t pick up a book for “also boughts” if they have less than four stars. Also, many review sites like Pixel of Ink won’t look at your book unless you have 10-20 5-star reviews. I didn’t make that happen. I’m the messenger. It’s just that Amazon itself seems to have inflated its ratings.
So, thanks again for being helpful with a little truth-telling.
This has been so insane. I’ve actually had death threats. Never, ever run afoul of the Amazon Taliban, even by mistake!