Irate kindlers 1star carpet bomb Michael Connelly's new book

[Hellmark]

I dunno about you, but I really never go off the rating without reading the reviews. You could have someone hacked off about some stupid issue, and giving it a low rating needlessly. If you don't read the reviews, you'll never know that. You could end up disagreeing with the reviews and still want to get it (I've actually had this happen before).

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Catlady

The review system at Amazon might be the BEST thing about Amazon, because it is free and open. It is hardly being destroyed.

First, the Amazon review system isn't any more free and open than any other system I've seen online. Basically, the only requirement is that you be a registered Amazon user. This seems par for the course to me. And in fact, I have seen censored reviews on Amazon. They'll censor a review, as someone else said, if you mention a price, and they'll also censor it if you mention somewhere else to get the product.

Originally Posted by Catlady

In relation to the paper price. This matters.

That's only the reason of some reviewers in this case. You're just as likely to find complaints when a book is priced > $9.99. It's really the same thing: People are complaining because the book costs more than they think it should, without reference to the content.

Originally Posted by Catlady

What's the proof that any reviewer actually read the book? Should the reviewer sign an affidavit? Submit to pre-review testing on the contents of the book? After all, we must keep out the charlatans and the "vandals"!

The proof that a person has read the book is at least some reference to the book's content. If you want to get really picky, I'd concede that a review by someone who didn't read the entire book (e.g., "I read the first chapter, but it sucked so badly I had to put it in a trash can and ritually burn it."), but they should at least reference the content in some way.

Originally Posted by Catlady

They are comparing the price of one version of the book to the price of the other version of the book. That's relevant.

Not when they haven't read either version.

Originally Posted by Catlady

Even if this were a good idea, which it isn't, they only know who bought the book from them (and they do indicate that with the "verified buyer" tag). They don't know who actually read it, of course, and they certainly don't know who bought it elsewhere, got it at the library, got it for a gift, borrowed it, etc. Why can't those people express their opinions?

Because people who haven't read the book are spoiling the system for the rest of us, that's why. Letting only verified buyers post reviews post reviews isn't a perfect system (because, as you said, that eliminates people who bought the book from other sources) but at least it puts some credibility back into the reviews.

Originally Posted by Catlady

Sometimes the pre-reviews are valid, sometimes not. That's why I'd READ them, not just look at the stars. I've seen plenty of pre-reviews at Amazon for DVDs--the reviewers are waxing poetic about, say, an old TV show that's coming out on DVD, talking about the show itself, not about the quality of the DVD transfer. Seems valid to me.

Granted, pre-reviews for DVDs can be valuable, but it's a lot less valid for electronics. Over the years, I've seen a lot of reviews for PDAs, smartphones, etc., that haven't been released yet, but because a review is posted on a tech site (e.g., they get a pre-release version that's going to be coming out in a few months) people pile on with "reviews" about how "this thing sucks" or "this thing is the best thing since sliced bread".

[DiapDealer]

You could have someone hacked off about some stupid issue, and giving it a low rating needlessly.

That's exactly what we're discussing.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

I dunno about you, but I really never go off the rating without reading the reviews. You could have someone hacked off about some stupid issue, and giving it a low rating needlessly. If you don't read the reviews, you'll never know that. You could end up disagreeing with the reviews and still want to get it (I've actually had this happen before).

I might not necessarily exclude a book based on the average review, if it's an author I'm already familiar with. But if I see in the rating distribution that the book has 25 5-star ratings, 75 1-star ratings, and only a smattering in between, I'm probably going to pass it by. For a relatively unknown author, if the book attracts bad ratings solely on price, the ratings can easily get overwhelmed by people just wanting to pile on.

[lunixer]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

As others have noted, ratings are permanent. This means that even if an e-book's price goes from $16 to 99 cents, the one-star review stays. So that punishes an author permanently for a problem that a) wasn't their decision, and b) wasn't permanent.

Secondly, because the reviews are overall reviews, rather than segmented into different aspects of the book, a reader looking at the reviews comes to the conclusion, "Hey, this book must suck", rather than "This book must be priced too high". So aside from being unfair, it's inaccurate to post a one-star review on a book when you're only analyzing one aspect of the product.

Reviewers should at least be required to divide their reviews into price and content. That would give an accurate reflection of the work.

Ratings are not permanent. They can be removed and/or edited.

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by Catlady

So who's acting all entitled now? Your main issue seems to be that when you are searching for a book, you might have to take a few extra moments to read a review rather than just count the number of stars. Gee, what a hardship.

How can you presume to know what other protests/boycotts people engage in? Talk about snarky!

I was being a bit snarky, and aggressive. It was benevolent, but such tone can get out of hand on forums. I don't doubt that the people protesting (at least the ones in this thread), are sincere and decent folks who express their concerns for various worthwhile issues. I hope they do.

Sometimes when looking at a book, I'll scroll through the "other people bought such and such" list, looking for new stuff. All I see is a book cover and a rating. I don't always check out every single one and I only have so much money to spend, so yes, books with high star ratings are more likely to catch my eye. Not exclusively, but more likely.

Customers can see the price; the review, especially the star rating that shows up in search results, is intended to enlighten them via your experience with the book of things not evident that you feel may affect their enjoyment. imo. I feel that using it as a pulpit for preaching about price creates a distortion of the rating's spirit. If the star rating could be opted out of, I would say post away. Post in all caps. Use exclamation marks. Call the publishers fat. Have at it.

When the price dropped, how many people went back and changed their rating? If their rating was based on the price, a 20% improvement would be worth an extra star, aye? If price is enough to give a good book a 1 star rating, would you give 4-5 stars to book you thought was bad, because it's cheap? Hence, the problem with price-based "review" of books. Just my humble opinion.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

I might not necessarily exclude a book based on the average review, if it's an author I'm already familiar with. But if I see in the rating distribution that the book has 25 5-star ratings, 75 1-star ratings, and only a smattering in between, I'm probably going to pass it by. For a relatively unknown author, if the book attracts bad ratings solely on price, the ratings can easily get overwhelmed by people just wanting to pile on.

thats a case when I would especially want to see. Why the polarized reviews? Usually reviews clump at one part of the scale, not at both ends.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by lunixer

Ratings are not permanent. They can be removed and/or edited.

Okay. Honestly, I never noticed that before. I just went back to my Amazon profile and noticed that you could edit or delete the review. But that brings up two questions:

1) Will any of the people who gave the one-star reviews based on price edit their reviews later, or remove them if the price changes?

2) Will Amazon edit or remove these reviews if the price changes?

If the answer to both of these questions is "No", and I think it is, then they're still effectively permanent ratings.

[anamardoll]

I would like to add to this that the 1-star Kindle bombs also adversely affect NEGATIVE reviews.

I've seen books get 700+ negative reviews where 100 of the negative reviews were valid, thoughtful criticisms that I would like to read when considering the book for purchase, and the other 600 were Kindle bomb reviews that pretty much buried the thoughtful criticisms.

The problem here being, of course, that if the first 200 1-star reviews you read are Kindle bombs, it's easy to assume that the next 500 will be as well, and you may end up missing a very valid review that may well convince you NOT to buy the book.

In short: Kindle bombs are, in my opinion, very bad for readers. As someone else said, they introduce a high degree of noise into the system.

I would be equally concerned with Kindle...um..Hugs?...where Kindle users gave hundreds or thousands of 5-star reviews based on the low price of a book. The review system is meant to help the consumer decide whether or not to purchase, and the price - by Amazon's own admission until their recent backpedaling - is not part of that simply because the bare fact of the price is right there at the top of the page.

The *value* is important, but the value of a book is subjective and does, I'm afraid, require more knowledge of the contents of the book than just the price.

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

1) Will any of the people who gave the one-star reviews based on price edit their reviews later, or remove them if the price changes?

I think some will. There are reasonable people out there. Most won't imo.

2) Will Amazon edit or remove these reviews if the price changes?

I doubt it. I suspect Amazon doesn't care or even benefits from the pressure being put on publishers. High ebook prices aren't great for Kindle sales, and that's not speculation; it's an issue Amazon has openly expressed concern about in the past. Though I think Amazon may be justified in removing them in this case, that's something they may be hesitant to do, to their credit. Slippery slope, n' all.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

I think some will. There are reasonable people out there. Most won't imo.

I agree that some might. But it's not just a question of being reasonable. If I reviewed a book a month ago, or six months ago, I'm not very likely to know that the price of the book changed since then. I'm even less likely to go back and re-review the book. And I'm even less likely than that to do it if my initial review was based not on how I liked the book, but on anger over the price.

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

I doubt it. I suspect Amazon doesn't care or even benefits from the pressure being put on publishers. High ebook prices aren't great for Kindle sales, and that's not speculation; it's an issue Amazon has openly expressed concern about in the past. Though I think Amazon may be justified in removing them in this case, that's something they may be hesitant to do, to their credit. Slippery slope, n' all.

Amazon absolutely benefits from the pressure being put on publishers, and that, from a ratings integrity standpoint, is part of the problem, IMO. The only thing that makes me somewhat hesitant to doubt that Amazon would alter/remove these reviews is that prices that fall within their sweet spot benefit them, so they might be less likely to keep a low rating based on price on a book once the price actually came down to levels they like more.

But I suspect you're right that it would also be opening up a can of worms for them.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

First, the Amazon review system isn't any more free and open than any other system I've seen online. Basically, the only requirement is that you be a registered Amazon user. This seems par for the course to me. And in fact, I have seen censored reviews on Amazon. They'll censor a review, as someone else said, if you mention a price, and they'll also censor it if you mention somewhere else to get the product.

Yes, it is. I've submitted reviews elsewhere (product reviews) that net me a form letter saying I didn't meet their standards, leaving me to wonder exactly what I said that offended them. Go over to one of the shopping channel forums and read the comments about inconsistent application of the guidelines for product reviews.

I imagine Amazon censors certain language, but little else.

The proof that a person has read the book is at least some reference to the book's content. If you want to get really picky, I'd concede that a review by someone who didn't read the entire book (e.g., "I read the first chapter, but it sucked so badly I had to put it in a trash can and ritually burn it."), but they should at least reference the content in some way.

And you only know this if you actually READ the review. You have no assurance whatsover that the star ratings are legit, even if there's no protest movement involved. The star ratings are always, always to be taken with a grain of salt.

Because people who haven't read the book are spoiling the system for the rest of us, that's why. Letting only verified buyers post reviews post reviews isn't a perfect system (because, as you said, that eliminates people who bought the book from other sources) but at least it puts some credibility back into the reviews.

Again, all you need to do is READ the review. Problem solved. What it all comes down to is that you don't want to actually read the comments.

Granted, pre-reviews for DVDs can be valuable, but it's a lot less valid for electronics. Over the years, I've seen a lot of reviews for PDAs, smartphones, etc., that haven't been released yet, but because a review is posted on a tech site (e.g., they get a pre-release version that's going to be coming out in a few months) people pile on with "reviews" about how "this thing sucks" or "this thing is the best thing since sliced bread".

If the company making the device is one that has made schlock in the past, it's legit to say that even in a pre-review. If it's a great company, I want to know that too.

I'm outa here. The reviews are subjective, and that means they can use any criteria they want, whether you think those criteria are legitimate or not. If people want to use them as a form of protest, more power to them. Frankly, I'm glad to know they're annoying people and possibly hindering purchases, because that could perhaps get publishers to pay attention.

Hasta la vista.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Yes, it is. I've submitted reviews elsewhere (product reviews) that net me a form letter saying I didn't meet their standards, leaving me to wonder exactly what I said that offended them. Go over to one of the shopping channel forums and read the comments about inconsistent application of the guidelines for product reviews.

I haven't frequented those kinds of sites, but okay, that's fair.

Originally Posted by Catlady

I imagine Amazon censors certain language, but little else.

Aside from language, references to other places to buy the products, and prices, I think you're probably right.

Originally Posted by Catlady

And you only know this if you actually READ the review. You have no assurance whatsover that the star ratings are legit, even if there's no protest movement involved. The star ratings are always, always to be taken with a grain of salt.

And that's because....wait for it...anyone can write a review, whether they've used product or not. If they used verified purchases, you'd at least know that the people involved used the product/read the book, etc.

Originally Posted by Catlady

Again, all you need to do is READ the review. Problem solved. What it all comes down to is that you don't want to actually read the comments.

1) Letting people put reviews up when they haven't read the book makes me much less likely to read the reviews. If a substantial number of the people who put reviews up (particularly in one of these campaigns) has no valid basis for their review, why in God's name would I bother? In a situation like that, it's much more sensible to look at the average star rating, or the distribution of stars, because you don't have to wade through piles of rubbish. That's what I'm talking about with the non-review-reviews making the reviews themselves less valuable. No one with an IQ above freezing is going to bother to wade through reviews if 50% of them might as well say "Purple monkey dishwasher".

Originally Posted by Catlady

If the company making the device is one that has made schlock in the past, it's legit to say that even in a pre-review. If it's a great company, I want to know that too.

That's a possibility, but there's also a possibility that either a) they turned things around and are doing better, or b) they used to make good stuff, and now it's crap.

[CallOfCth'reader]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

And that's because....wait for it...anyone can write a review, whether they've used product or not. If they used verified purchases, you'd at least know that the people involved used the product/read the book, etc.

No you wouldn't. You'd only know that they bought it, not if they'd used/read it.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by CallOfCth'reader

No you wouldn't. You'd only know that they bought it, not if they'd used/read it.

Okay, fair enough, but the odds of someone using the product if they bought it is a hell of a lot higher than if they didn't buy it at all. The people involved would at least have some financial investment in it.