Quote:
Originally Posted by ficbot
I have emailed Fictionwise many times about allowing reader reviews, and they are not interested. This is why I started my own blog...
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That's interesting--I bought a short story from Fictionwise (I know they have a rating system). I went there specifically for the story because I had read the author before (Jim C. Hines.) Of COURSE, I had to look around; it's a bookstore! But the lack of reviews pretty much shut the door for me. I don't like mysterious "ratings" because that doesn't tell me very much. I know that Fictionwise only publishes pre-published books and stories, but you know how it is. You kind of need a bit more info--what is the story about, does it dead-end, and so on.
I find I tend to spend more time at/on sites that have reviews. I found it interesting when my books went up on B&N and I started trolling some of my favorite books--hardly any reviews at all. I'm guessing that might change if they draw more of the ebook crowd since a lot of us e-bookers are online all the time anyway. (I'm not sure that B&N draws a lot of people to their site--rather they do most of the current business through stores--just a guess not a scientific poll.)
I was pretty happy that Smashwords had a review features and samples as does Kindle. Neil is right--for any book those are pretty important tools.