Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I doubt that, myself. I never base my book-buying decisions on other peoples' views of a book, because I have no way of knowing whether or not their likes and dislikes in any way coincide with my own.
The only sort of review that would stop me from buying a book would be a report that it was poorly produced - ie, full of errors.
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I'm with Harry on this one with some exception. I do rely on reviews in the
New York Review of Books (and in the past on the
London Review of Books) and a couple of other sources -- but not the
New York Times Book Review, whose reviews are much too superficial to be of value these days -- because these review avenues, over many years, have earned my trust. Under no circumstance do I buy or not buy a book based on "reader" reviews at, for example, Smashwords (unless I happen to know the reviewer) or Amazon.
It just so happens, for those interested, that this is the topic of discussion at my blog today (
Book Reviews & Reviewers: Deciding Which Reviews to Trust) and last week (
The Missing Ingredient: Quality Control in Indie eBooks).