This is a question I'd really like to ask some of the other authors out there, where do you buy your reviews?
Because I know what a professional review looks like, and I know when I see one written, but that reviewer has never reviewed anyone else, that it's a bought and paid for review.
Now that doesn't mean the book is bad, I've seen some with a lot of other reviews, and decent sales, so obviously the story is good, but the first batch of reviews, the ones that got people to actually give the story a chance, were obviously bought and paid for.
I'd love to know where they went and got their reviews, because to be honest, as everyone is doing it, and Amazon really doesn't do anything about it (except for the occasional thing every few years) I'm very tempted to do it myself. To date, I've never paid for a review, and for the few people I've given review copies to, I've always told them to note that the got the copy for free, for review purposes. I've always worked hard to be as upfront and ethical (and honest) as possible.
But ethics and honest doesn't sell books. And while I'm going okay, I sometimes wonder if I could be doing better. If I should cheat like the others are.
Good question. You could always ask Lev Grossman, of the Magician series. He got caught red handed buying reviews in mass, and he got a sweet TV deal out of it. It was no where near as good as the reviews made it out to be, and I never bothered to read the final book.
ReplyDeleteOn a separate note, many authors have a cult following and/or a beta reading group, like P.S. Powers. Where they have the ability to down vote 3 and below star reviews and up vote 4 and 5 star reviews, and auto generate reviews nearly at will.
Others find forums and other social media sites where their reader-base/potential reader-base hangs out and throw references and links to said books out daily. Even allowing their own book 1 of a series to be "Pirated" on some of the sketchier forums, just for a few days.
Most heavy readers can spot the fake reviews, mainly by only judging a book on its 3 star and below reviews. I often place my one star reviews under the 5 star label as a 'negative 5 star review' then listing the many many things wrong with it. Because the 4&5 star review has become worthless.
Well as I see it, if you are a good writer, or even a decent writer, the fake reviews in the beginning will help draw people in, and get them to read your book. If your story can live up to the fake reviews, you'll get more positive reviews and things will go well and everyone will be happy.
ReplyDeleteHowever if you can't, well people will complain and Amazon may get involved. I've noticed that Amazon does nothing to the people who were using fake reviews, but still sold a lot of books. Basically it's the old: If it succeeds we'll look the other way, but if it fails, we'll hang you. From time immemorial.
That being said, everyone go buy my book and give me 5 and 4 star reviews! :-)
(Oh how I wish I had a huge cult following! Or even just a huge mundane following!!)
And as for people up voting the good and down voting the bad, well there are groups out there that do the exact opposite to authors that they don't like (usually for non-writing reasons) and I've seen it done, more than once. Getting Amazon to deal with those kinds of issues is a lot harder to do.