Fake Amazon Reviews

[BWFoster78]

To me, the purpose of a review is to find out whether or not I will like the book. In order to do that, there has to be some substance.

If a reviewer says: this book is great! 5 Stars!!! That doesn't help me in the least, and I skip over it.

If the review says: This is what the book is about, this is what the author did right, and this is what the author did wrong. I will pay attention to it.

I guess the shill reviews are more about getting quantity than anything else, right? In that case, it doesn't really bother me that much.

 

[Philip Overby]

I never buy a book if it has all 5 star reviews from Amazon. Never. Especially if the book only has 2 or 3 reviews. A good example of a book I'd buy would be this one:

Customer Reviews
4.3 out of 5 stars
(2,563)
4.3 out of 5 stars

5 star
1,754

4 star
362

3 star
131

2 star
134

1 star
182

This is an extreme example of course, but this particular book has loads of 5 star reviews, but has enough of the others to balance it out. That means the book has been read my a multitude of people and I need to decide which side of the fence I'm on. (The book in question is A Game of Thrones, by the way).

This poses a conundrum with small press or self-published books. I very rarely buy a small press or self-published book unless it's someone I know or if I've heard enough good things from people I trust. Meaning I would never buy one of these books sight unseen just browsing about Amazon. If someone I know wrote it or I've heard a lot of good things word of mouth, then yes, I'll buy a small press or self-published book. I just don't trust random people in small numbers. Random people in bigger numbers? Sure. Bottom line is that I rather spend 9.99 on a book that I know I'll more than likely love than 1.99 on a book that only has 5 star shill reviews.

 

[Steerpike]

I tend to ignore reviews and base my decision on the sample.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

This poses a conundrum with small press or self-published books. I very rarely buy a small press or self-published book unless it's someone I know or if I've heard enough good things from people I trust. Meaning I would never buy one of these books sight unseen just browsing about Amazon. If someone I know wrote it or I've heard a lot of good things word of mouth, then yes, I'll buy a small press or self-published book. I just don't trust random people in small numbers. Random people in bigger numbers? Sure. Bottom line is that I rather spend 9.99 on a book that I know I'll more than likely love than 1.99 on a book that only has 5 star shill reviews.

I tend to be the same Phil & this is exactly why I believe that posting these shill reviews hurt self-pubbers more than anyone. When reviews are dishonest in nature, people tend to avoid that entire group in order to protect themselves.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I tend to ignore reviews and base my decision on the sample.

A great feature indeed... I use it for anything I think about reading. That's one of the beautiful features of an e-book.

 

[BWFoster78]

Bottom line is that I rather spend 9.99 on a book that I know I'll more than likely love than 1.99 on a book that only has 5 star shill reviews.

Why would anyone buy a book based solely on reviews anyway? It's so easy now to download the sample chapters.

If the synopsis and reviews pique your interest, read a chapter. If the writing sounds good, buy it.

I tend to ignore reviews and base my decision on the sample

Exactly.

If I'm on the fence, I'll try to find a review that gives the pluses and minuses, but I'll never buy anything based on just reviews.

 

[Philip Overby]

I thought we were just talking about reviews. In that case, reviews do influence me some, but I must have like 80 samples on my Kindle now. Most will never be bought. But downloading that sample could be influenced by reviews. Even if it's free, I don't want books that I'm not going to read clogging up my Kindle.

This is the order I go in:

1. Recommendation by an author I like or someone I trust
2. Look at reviews
3. If they look good, I download a sample
4. If I like the sample, I buy it

 

[The Dark One]

Can't see the point of shill reviews. I've never bought a book on the basis of a review except for reviews in major media.

I was once put in the embarrassing position (when my first novel came out in 2010) of having to go onto a forum and fess up that a handful of my friends had decided it would be a really good idea to go onto that forum and start raving about my book. It was pretty obvious when three or four new forumites who've never posted before all start raving about something. Regulars soon twigged and started making jokes about it. My publisher (FFS) rang me and said I'd better get on and start the damage control.

A related story - and I wonder whether anyone has had a similar experience - there is a particular review site (I won't name) where you can submit your book for review. I sent my new book to them and after the initial 40 days (or whatever it was) I received an email saying that none of their reviewers had wanted to read it, so it was being taken down. I could, however, opt for one of their guaranteed reviews for approx $40. Possibly against my better judgment I paid the $40 - mainly because my publisher was not terribly proactive in the review and marketing dept and I craved professional feedback.

Two weeks later I got the review notice and was delighted to get 5 stars and their special big thumbs up...but when I read the review, I was gobsmacked. The reviewer, while raving about the book, did not engage with any of the book's major themes and made several factual errors. Immediately I thought, this is just a money making exercise. I'll bet no-one gets a free review and they just prey on the poor saps stupid enough (like me) to fork out the $40. Then they read every tenth page and cobble together something that vaguely resembles a review and give it 5 stars. I read through a number of their reviews, for interest sake, and didn't find a single one that wasn't 5 stars.

So I had a bit of a laugh at my own stupidity and vowed never to make that mistake again.

Any similar tales of woe?

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

Can't see the point of shill reviews. I've never bought a book on the basis of a review except for reviews in major media.

You haven't, but there exist plenty of people who look over the general reviews for something and say "Hm, lots of 4- and 5- star reviews... and this is subject matter I like... okay, it's probably worth a read," and then buy it.

I've bought other things (not fiction) based on user reviews alone. Mostly computer products at Newegg. I would likely do the same thing with books on Amazon if I didn't already have a colossal backlog of things to read. (But then, I'm talking about things with dozens of reviews, not one or two.)

 

[Steerpike]

I'll buy stuff at Newegg based on reviews, particularly if there are a great number of positive reviews. I figure the reviews aren't likely to be from the mom of the person who put the ASUS motherboard together in China. With books, it seems more likely that friends and family are involved.

 

[Amanita]

I think doing this is kind of pathetic. And if it's too obvious, it'll do more harm than good as The Dark One mentioned above.
Most of the time, I read the reviews on side like Amazon after having read the book because I'm curious about other people's opinions and how they see the stuff. (Usually, I don't find anyone who wants to do this, at least for books other than Harry Potter.) Most of the time, I'm picking out reviews with less than five stars because I want to read about things people disliked as well.
If I do read the reviews before buying, I'm specifically searching them for infos on stuff I like or hate no matter what they think about it.

Other potential readers probably go about this differently but I really doubt that many will buy a book because there are generic reviews telling them how great it's supposed to be.

 

[Penpilot]

Most of the time, I read the reviews on side like Amazon after having read the book because I'm curious about other people's opinions and how they see the stuff.

I read reviews for movies and books after the fact too for exactly the same reasons. I think it's a good exercise in comparing your personal tastes with others and seeing where disagreements are. I won't buy a book based only on a review, but on occasion, after seeing the cover, I'll pick something up based on general feel of the blurb, reviews, and my personal likes. I used it as an exercise in spot the BS.

 

[robertbevan]

Can't see the point of shill reviews. I've never bought a book on the basis of a review except for reviews in major media.

I was once put in the embarrassing position (when my first novel came out in 2010) of having to go onto a forum and fess up that a handful of my friends had decided it would be a really good idea to go onto that forum and start raving about my book. It was pretty obvious when three or four new forumites who've never posted before all start raving about something. Regulars soon twigged and started making jokes about it. My publisher (FFS) rang me and said I'd better get on and start the damage control.

A related story - and I wonder whether anyone has had a similar experience - there is a particular review site (I won't name) where you can submit your book for review. I sent my new book to them and after the initial 40 days (or whatever it was) I received an email saying that none of their reviewers had wanted to read it, so it was being taken down. I could, however, opt for one of their guaranteed reviews for approx $40. Possibly against my better judgment I paid the $40 - mainly because my publisher was not terribly proactive in the review and marketing dept and I craved professional feedback.

Two weeks later I got the review notice and was delighted to get 5 stars and their special big thumbs up...but when I read the review, I was gobsmacked. The reviewer, while raving about the book, did not engage with any of the book's major themes and made several factual errors. Immediately I thought, this is just a money making exercise. I'll bet no-one gets a free review and they just prey on the poor saps stupid enough (like me) to fork out the $40. Then they read every tenth page and cobble together something that vaguely resembles a review and give it 5 stars. I read through a number of their reviews, for interest sake, and didn't find a single one that wasn't 5 stars.

So I had a bit of a laugh at my own stupidity and vowed never to make that mistake again.

Any similar tales of woe?

this is the most honest and entertaining thing i've read all day. thanks so much for sharing this.

 

[gavintonks]

Their are warehouse of people in India paid to surf the net for information and /or paid to post information they get US$0.50 for 10 posts so it is huge income for traffic generators

 

[Devor]

1. I do not know of any way to stop it without shutting down the review system entirely.

Yelp does reviews with fewer of these kinds of problems. All of your reviews are logged and saved, but they don't appear until you're qualified. The qualifications system is "buried," and you won't know how to become qualified until you've been active for a while and it happens.

At least, that's how it was the last I looked.

((edit)) Not to confuse anyone, you review businesses on Yelp, rather than books. I only meant that a better reviewing system can be done.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Gonna check that out....

 

[ALB2012]

I have seen a few dodgy 5 star posts but then again I have seen some evil 1 star ones. I tend to draw my own conclusions. I don't often review on Amazon now.

I gave a 3 star review to a book via GR recently, the story was excellent but the editing was awful, the author actually switched character names in the whole of a chapter and their were lots of silly typos. However I saw it had a 5 star review of which I was sceptical, but maybe the reviewer isn't as picky as me. I don't mind if friends leave me a review so long as it is genuine. I would never pay for a review though. i think that is rather underhand.

Excuse typos today. I have Carpal Tunnel syndrome and trying to type wearing wrist splints.

 

[gavintonks]

there are over 1 million slush pile stories out there with many wealthy people with a firm belief thy are the author we are all waiting for. However they are prepared to pay between US$ and anything to US$8 000.00 to get some sort of leg up in the food chain [you notice leg up, not help to be better writers] so their is a vast array of - for a small fee we will x many thousands who say I do x help to get your story, noticed, published on-line etc etc etc

 

[Endymion]

It's pretty low, isn't it? Aragorn wouldn't do that...