[graycyn]

Originally Posted by gmw

I find this sort of thing (people with bad experiences being more inclined to leave negative reviews to help protect others from making the same mistake) across many products, not just books. Does anyone know if this phenomenon has a name?

I don't know if it has a name, but I definitely think it is true, at least to an extent.

However, I do write reviews for other products on occasion, and some have been very positive. So it varies. It does seem that I am only likely to write a book review if I had a very negative experience, however.

I guess my feeling there is that tastes for writing vary so much that I don't feel that comfortable with it. I don't want to trash what may be perfectly appealing to someone else, unless, as I mentioned, I feel people need warning.

In fact it is so much the case that I am sometimes sceptical of negative reviews because the bad side of the bell curve is not necessarily representative of the product: most product lines produce some failures, and most books have some people that despise them for one reason or another.

Of course, if many reviews are negative then that suggests the product line is producing a high proportion of failures, or the book is upsetting many readers. But a few negative reviews are to be expected, which feeds into...

Yes, I read negative product reviews with a grain of salt. So many are left that don't even apply to the product, but are reviews of a seller or shipping or packaging or whatever. But if enough reviews are left, I do pay more attention.

All positive reviews can be a problem because many people, including me, don't trust them. It looks like all the friends and family have been in leaving reviews, or the publisher has perhaps paid for reviews. In Goodreads I regularly filter to score 3 because I find these fence sitters often offer the most balance in their reviews (I ignore those that don't leave a reasonably detailed review), but I'm probably not going to buy a book that is all 3s, either.

I look at my own fairly whimsical way of choosing books to read and I despair of ever finding a good way present books for sale.

Yeah, I've been there, where I see so many positives for a book that I just feel suspicious. Sometimes I'll try one, if it's not terribly expensive. If it is, I'll look to see if the library has it. Or see if the library has something else by the same author to try. And if it doesn't appeal after a chapter or two, no harm done, I just won't finish it.