Quote:
Originally Posted by Fbone
Amazon has a better "Customers Who Bought This ..." set-up than B&N. Faster with more choices. So Jan's customers probably searched for other titles and Amazon linked his book with their purchase.
Comparing the 2 sites. On Amazon Jan has more reviews and most positive with 20 other recommendations. B&N has only 7 anonymous reviews with no text just a rating and only 1 other recommendation. He's rating is slightly lower on B&N.
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I'm probably one of the few readers who really hate the "Customers Who Bought This. . ." or "Recommended for You . . ." setups. I never look at them and if I could turn them off, I would. Largely because the few times in the past when I have looked, they weren't even close to anything that would interest me (that's on both Amazon and B&N). I may have bought a book but neither Amazon nor B&N has any idea whether I liked it. If I hated it or was neutral about it, I certainly wouldn't want books like it. Plus, because the account is in my name, I buy books for my wife. Do I want to be inundated with books based on what I bought for her?
As regards reviews, this is a serious problem at B&N and I wonder if many book buyers are like me -- they simply do not write reviews. B&N is constantly asking me to review books that I have purchased; I just ignore the requests. And I do so for several reasons. First, I have 500+ books in my TBR pile, so it is likely that the book I bought 2 weeks (or even 2 months) ago has yet to be read.
Second, writing a review takes valuable time and effort. Consequently, a book has to be really outstanding -- outstandingly good or bad -- before I will be motivated to write a review. For the average 3 or 4 star book, I see no point in writing a review. i didn't like it that much nor did I dislike it that much.
Third, it is quite likely that the book is one of those that I started, discovered was poorly written or simply uninteresting, and then deleted unfinished. Yet it was not so bad as to be a shining excample of what should not be published.
So the lack of reviews at B&N are partly my fault (I don't buy at Amazon so I wouldn't review books there) -- I just do not write reviews. Yet with all the reviews at Amazon, I wonder if it isn't a cottage industry there.