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Originally Posted by hrosvit
Here was your quote: "What is the difference between having a book recommended by the publisher of by an Amazon customer?" (copied and pasted - no interpretation). My response was that (again) I don't read reviews of books on Amazon. And since I don't consider the act of publishing to be a "recommendation", you are asking me to compare a concept that I don't think is valid (publishing = recommendation), with something that I don't do (reading reviews of books on Amazon). I can't do that.
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I never said that you read reviews on Amazon. You say now that you don't consider the act of publishing to be a "recommendation", but before you said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by hrosvit
I was speaking of recommendations from a social point of view.
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Which would imply that you don't disagree that publishing is a recommendation, but you don't consider it a social recommendation. I don't disagree with that, but I also don't consider Amazon reviews to be social recommendation, so I asked you what is the difference because I don't see one. Both cases are recommendations by people that I don't know, have never met, and who don't recommend the book to me specifically.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hrosvit
You asked how I discovered my favorite authors. Let me give you a couple of examples. One of my favorite authors is Stephen King. I have been reading his work for about 30 years. How did I start reading his books? He's from Maine, as is my mother; this piqued my interest. I picked up 'Salems Lot because it looked suitable creepy. The rest is history.
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Both the information on the author and the cover that made you buy it were conveniently placed at your disposal by the publisher. So you bought it based on the publisher's recommendation, even if you don't know who the publisher was.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hrosvit
Another of my favorite authors is John Sandford (John Camp). His "Prey" series is fairly popular, and when I used to frequent used bookstores more frequently, I constantly saw the first in the series (Rules of Prey). Honestly, the back of the book didn't seem all that interesting. But after coming across it hundreds of times, I finally bought the damn thing, mostly because I was tired of seeing it (Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? Now you see how my mind works.).
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You do know that the fact that a book is popular is a recommendation, right?