Quote:
Originally Posted by astra
Absolutely true.
Noone is buying books by looking for 5 star rating books on amazon. People hear about a book from other people, magazins, forums, newspapers, then come to amazon to read reviews, not just look at star rating. Anyone who does otherwise is plain stupid and should not read books (and they don't).
I think only some books are being sold like that to people who cannot think for themselves. How to loose 20 kg in 20 seconds etc. These people are not readers. Just a herd of easily manipulated consumers who follow the crowd and TV shops.
People who buy fiction or serious non-fiction, whose habbit of reading is their hobby, they would never buy a book based on how many stars it got on amazon without digging deeper.
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I mentioned earlier that I use the aggregate ratings quite a bit. If I see a book with many reviews and a low rating I immediately remove it from my Amazon Recommendations. I don't even consider it because I don't have time to be reading dozens of reviews for a book which I probably won't buy anyway.
When I am considering a textbook I will usually narrow the selection down to half a dozen books with 4 or 5 star ratings on Amazon and then read some of the reviews to get a feel for the books.
I take offence at being called "stupid" and being told "not to read". My system may not be perfect (I'm sure there are plenty of good books I've missed) but it allows me to spend more time reading quality books than wading through book reviews.