Yes, there are a lot of bad things that happen on Amazon, but Amazon reflects the real world. No surprise there, given its massive customer base. So it is that the bad stuff grabs the headlines, just as it does in real life. But the vast majority of Amazon reviewers say what they truly think even if (as in my case) they mostly stick with what they enjoy. Some people complain bitterly about people like me, implying that I am somehow dishonest by not posting many critical reviews. The reality is that I post such reviews when I need to, but I’m not being paid to to review so I certainly won’t go looking for stuff to review critically. I turn down most of the free stuff that I’m offered on the basis that it’s not my kind of thing. I get it wrong sometimes, as with one very opinionated book to which I gave two stars (and nearly gave it just one), The publisher and author weren’t best pleased and I haven’t heard from them again. Perhaps they thought that I hand out 5 stars easily, but the reality is that I choose what I review. I got it wrong when accepting that freebie, which if anything makes me even more careful about future choices. But I’ll continue to write critical reviews as the need arises.

So the cynics will continue to complain about Amazon’s system, but it is VERY rare for me to get complaints from people who bought a dud product on the basis of one of my reviews. So the people who look for my reviews are clearly satisfied. It is the others – those who simply look on my statistics and what I post on forums but who have no interest in the actual products I review – that complain to or about me.

The Amazon system is far from perfect and there’s room for improvements, but the fundamental issue of whether reviews can be trusted is always subjective. People will believe whatever they want to believe. If their minds are set, neither I nor anybody else can change that.

If Amazon Reviews are Meaningless, Why Are Authors Paying to Have Them Written?
by Richard curits, lit agent nyc

About two years ago we asked Do Amazon Reviews Count? and wondered why we saw so few of them quoted by respectable publishers. “We live in an age when peer review is meaningful if not significant,” I noted, thinking about the fabulously successful Zagat restaurant review model utilizing the opinions of our very own next-door neighbors.

If the same group-sourcing dynamic could be applied to books, we could see a revolution in the way books are reviewed to match the way they are digitally delivered. If Amazon could assemble a cadre of reviewers to replace the publishing establishment’s phalanx of critics, endorsers and other brand-bestowing literary Gatekeepers, the 21st century’s paradigm shift would be that much closer to total.

But it all depends on the integrity of Amazon’s reviewers, just as our assessment of a restaurant’s ambiance, service and food depend on the integrity of the men and women who write it up for Zagat. So, it was with no small measure of concern that I read a blog by Scott MacDonald in Quill & Quire calling our attention to a website called readerspoils.com that arranges for authors to pay for reviews on Amazon. “Yes, that’s right,” MacDonald writes, “for just $15 U.S. you can get a completely ‘honest’ review of your book posted to Amazon in mere days!” In fact, he adds, while $15 is the base price, the site “is apparently selling reviews only in bulk quantities: 100 reviews for $1,400 and 500 reviews for a mere $6,500.”

The site’s owner is a self-published promoter named Clark Covington (pictured left) who describes himself as “a book writing fool. I’ve written several nonfiction books, and have a fiction novel in the works.” For many agents the redundant phrase “fiction novel” instantly identifies the author as a writing fool, but we’ll let that pass. Because when it comes to P. T. Barnum pitch, Covington is nobody’s fool. Here it is:

“Up until now the publishing industry kept a tight lock on their book reviewers, paying them large sums of money and giving them many freebies to urge them to review books for well known authors. The time has finally come where you, the self published author, can get quality, real life book reviews for the price of a couple of tickets to the movies…”
You are then instructed to select how many reviews you want, prepay for them, and enter information about your book, whereupon “You receive an email from us when all of your reviews are posted on Amazon, usually within a week of your purchase.” In case you’re still on the fence, Covington furnishes sample Amazon reviews including video testimonials.”I admit it, this sounds unbelievable,” Covington adds, beating us to the punch. “This sounds too remarkable to be true, this is the type of thing that makes you want to call your local attorney general and tell them a scam is brewing.” Covington claims to have access to 5,000 reviewers. How does he line them up?

“With a few strokes of luck and a hearty bribe, that’s how,” he boasts. Readers interested in reviewing can register on the site, and apparently there is some sort of consideration. I came across one complaint by a reviewer who claims to have gotten stiffed.

This operation is so patently humbug that it would be falling-down-funny if it were not for the stain it casts on the potential honesty and integrity of Amazon’s review system. Yes, it is true that the imperfect old review system is also subject to manipulation and even corruption. But Amazon represents an opportunity to get it right, to hear the recommendations of intelligent peers and neighbors about books that interest us. If we lose our trust in their honesty – the Quill & Quire article is called One more reason not to trust reader reviews – we also lose our literary value system.

Many of us grew up in a world where there were legitimate books and there were vanity books and everyone knew which ones to take seriously thanks to the tastemakers and gatekeepers. If they were biased, if their judgment was flawed, if they sometimes exalted the worthless and trashed the sublime, we lived with it because it was the only system we had. But now there is another way, and as we move into a socially networked future most of us are willing to give it a chance – unless we suspect the game is rigged.

Richard Curtis

snailpaper

(n.) – the print edition of the daily newspaper which arrives in the morning on your doorstep with news that is already old and stale by at least 12 hours
“I am sick and tired of reading the snailpaper edition of the New York Times! By the time it arrives, the front page is already old news. I much prefer reading the Times online website with the up-dated news as it happens.”

– overheard at a bar in the East Village in Manhattan, November 15, 2009

I would agree to go private with my issues, but since Q&Q published the post publicly without contacting me for comment prior to releasing it, I felt compelled to come out in our defense publicly. I take their silence as indication they know the research wasn’t done on this post, nor was I ever given a chance prior to its publication to respond to their allegations as I would in most journalistic settings. Then again, blogs might not really be journalism as much as they are sensationalized attempts at garnering more traffic to a website. I use my blog as a journal more than I do as a news source, so I can understand the different uses. I just wish they’d given us a fair shake to begin with.

Matthew W,

I agree 100%, if you have someone that’s read your book and likes it, ask them to review it. Family and friends are fantastic if they’ll do it.

I also agree, the industry as a whole is really grounded in a good ole boy system that gets friends of friends to endorse books in all ways, including but not limited to on the back of books, on Amazon reader reviews, in ad copy, and even in interviews. Show me a major publishing house and I’ll show you coerced reviews, I know because we have worked with some before. I deliberately choose to focus on self published authors, prior to that we were doing reviews for houses as big as they get for authors that weren’t given big marketing budgets.

What our company does is level the playing field by actively promoting the reading and analysis of self published books, are the reviewers literary critics? No. Do they take pride in their work? Yes, most of the time they sincerely do. Again, is it worth a cup of coffee to spend hours reading a book? Of course not, so there must be some other motivation, and the fact that over ten thousand people signed up to review books shows this, people love books, they love being involved in something like this, and they enjoy having a chance to share their input.

Scott… let’s face it the friends/family/paid-reviewer/staff-reviewer/publisher/enemy/nemesis/jealous-unpublished-author clusterf*** that is Amazon’s ‘Reader’ review is near worthless for most titles. It seems a shame to single out Clark’s company when they’re just one more body on the bandwagon.

I think if you reply with some links to the Amazon posted reviews that your guys have done we can have a concrete discussion about review quality. Right now we are just discussing the abstract, which leads nowhere in particular. I’m in favor of anything that challenges the oligarchy of the Big Five (Library Journal, Publishers Weakly (sic.), Kirkus, etc.).
Podcasts at http:/www.AuthorsAccess.com

I’m a polite guy, I often use please and thank you when speaking to others. If you deem my politeness as weak-kneed or idicitive that we are up to something indecent that’s your perogative. I’ve also felt being transparent, and responsive to crtics of what our company does is the best way to help people see both sides of the coin.

Victor,

I didn’t want to question Scott’s journalistic abilities, but it is evident after spending a few minutes on the site that we sell individual reviews. It also clearly states on our homepage the following-

“The reason they are so popular is that experienced authors know you have to get the people’s attention in some fashion, and with our unique system we offer an incentive to the readers to enjoy and review your book as honestly as possible, giving you as much buzz as the bestsellers on Amazon today, all for as little as $15.”

The operative word in this quote being honestly, they are encouraged to honestly review the books. This is on the main page for authors to read, how Scott missed this when he was researching our company is beyond my understanding.

Seeing the headline to his post with such a negative connotation, and seeing several comments on this blog repurposing the same information on their own sites is a troubling sign that not enough research was done independently about our service. Thus is why it’s a good idea to not believe everything you read on blogs, just as Scott has urged people not to believe what was written on my site.

Finally, when you look for book reviewers on the net nearly all of them charge a fee, Kirkus charges $399 for a single book review. The only difference is we charge much less, $15 to be exact, and thus red flags are waved. For what it’s worth, Scott insinuated that Amazon would be upset by our service by wondering in his piece about what they’d think about our service, while Amazon themselves promote a $399 book review service that can be found here-

https://www.createspace.com/Services/KirkusDiscoveriesReview.jsp

The company offering it is owned by Amazon.

In the end I’m afraid this blog post was tossed together with little research, fueled by the common notion that services on the web that sound too good to be true usually are. The only difference with Reader Spoils is that we’ve worked extremely hard to make this a legitimate service for those that need it most, self published authors with small marketing budgets. Spending a mere five minutes browsing the site, and our sister websites makes it more than apparent we are a reason to trust reader reviews, rather than to doubt them.

Clark