Buying Five Star Book Reviews – is it a smart marketing strategy?

As I discussed in yesterday’s blog post, some companies have discovered that when it comes to online reviews, buying fake positives is not such a terrific idea. For trade publishers, paying for reviews is nothing new. Of course, they will probably insist they only buy honest reviews. 

The only time I have come close to buying a review was in a Goodreads group, where I gave away eBooks in exchange for an honest review. It was all very public - a Goodreads group designed for this specific purpose. My goal was not to rack up hundreds of reviews – just ten so I could advertise on a few sites that require a minimum number of book reviews before they will consider taking my ad.

I personally don’t believe buying hundreds of positive reviews will help book sales. I know of several authors who do very well, yet have relatively few reviews.  It doesn’t take an Internet wizard to look at an author’s ranking on Amazon to get an idea of what he or she does. 

Personally, the reviews I most covet are unsolicited ones from strangers – people I have never met before. I especially liked a recent three star review I received on Goodreads for While Snowbound. The reviewer said some very positive things about the book, and the only negative she wrote was “However, some things in the story tend to be a bit predictable.”

I was totally okay with that comment, for one thing, she was right. While Snowbound is from my Sensual Romance Series and I tell my readers books from that series are love stories with sexual tension and happy ending.  So, in that respect they are predictable.

I also received a one star review over at Amazon, on After Sundown, which didn’t bother me. The reviewer wrote: “The writing style could not make up for such an unlikeable character.” I rather took it as a backhanded compliment. She slammed my character, not my writing.

She was also right, the male protagonist was a bit heavy handed and jerky in the beginning of the story, and had she stuck around (she didn’t finish the book) she would have witnessed his transformation. But I totally get not finishing a book if you find one of the main characters unlikable; I have done that myself.

The only reviews I dislike are fake ones – good or bad. I received an odd five star, where I wondered if the reviewer was just making up stuff to build up his number of reviews. In that case, I am just relieved he didn’t choose mine as a one star.

Crack down on rave reviews…what about fake one stars?

CNN recently ran an article about the crackdown of fake business reviews. While I’m all for protecting the consumer, what about protecting the business from fake slam reviews written by competitors or someone with a grudge?

One of my friends recently told me about one of his friends who had to go after a customer for bounced checks. The customer retaliated by bombing the business with fake negative reviews.

Amazon has its own crackdown on suspicious five star reviews, which they remove. But what about the suspicious one stars? Some bloggers, obsessed with ridding the world of potentially false five star reviews, believe reviews by anyone the author knows is suspect.  In some ways Amazon believes that too, because they have been known to remove five star reviews if they suspect the author and reviewer have a connection.

Of course, that is not necessarily true for negative reviews left by a person who has a connection to the author. Case in point – one of my author friends belongs to a writing group and one of her “friends” from the group left a review – but not a very nice one. I suspect that reviewer a personal issue with the author, because what type of reviewer leave his friend a bad review? 

If I read a friend’s book and I don’t like it, I simply don’t review it. While I might tell the author in private what I thought the problem was with the book, I would not do it on a public forum. In my opinion, a friend does not do that. Yet, don’t misunderstand me – I would not leave a friend a fake good review.  That helps no one, and if someone happens to follow my reviews, how would he be able to trust me if handed out careless five stars.

But what do I think about authors buying reviews? Ask me that question tomorrow.

Indies at War

Over the weekend one of my writer friends posted a link to a blog where the blogger listed 30 plus authors who had supposedly purchased fake reviews. My friend’s name was on the list – and since he had never paid for a review, he was pissed. There were some big names on that list. Of course, the blogger did not disclose his/her name nor did he offer up any evidence to support his damning claim.

This all came about around the same time as Goodreads announcing its cleanup, by removing nasty rhetoric aimed at authors or reviewers. Goodreads reminds us: Play nice kids, and stick to reviewing the book.

I won’t post a link to the blogger’s page, because frankly, I have no desire to spread lies about my fellow authors. Those on the list have publically denied purchasing reviews, and some are joining forces to wage a legal war against the blogger.

Yet, even if the authors had paid for a review, who really gives a crap? I mean really, you don’t think the big publishing houses haven’t paid for reviews? Grow up kids.

As a reader, I make my purchases by reading the blurb, preview and can be influenced by the cover. Even recommendations by my friends don’t significantly impact my choices, because I understand we all have different tastes.  Reviews, in my opinion are simply additional entertainment - especially those wacky one star reviews where the reviewer spends so much time searching for cutesy animated gifs to dress up their petty rants.

I wondered, why does someone like this blogger do this - even if they honestly believe an author has purchased a review? But, then I remembered when I went to see Woody Allan’s Annie Hall. The only reason we went to see it was because it walked away with four Oscars, which included best picture. We figured it had to be a great movie.  

My husband and I thought Annie Hall sucked. How could it have possibly won all those awards? After taking a closer look at the selection process, we discovered it was just a big ol’ popularity contest between their peers. We felt robbed! Not only our time, but the price of our tickets, and all the unnecessary calories we consumed in theatre popcorn and candy!

For a brief moment we considered going online and bringing attention to this atrocity.  We didn’t care how ridiculous we might look to the world; we were determined to bring down those Hollywood swindlers. But then we remembered….the modern Internet highway hadn’t yet been built.

In other words nasty bloggers….get a fricking life; would ya.

Fake One Star Reviews? (Part 4 of 5 Posts)

For the first post in this series, click here.

One great thing about the KDP forum, we can search for words and find them in old posts. I did a search for Batarang and found one where the user, an author the with the forum name 60shward was letting another writer in the forum know he’d left him a good review. (That review, by the way, seems to have been taken down.)

I’ve captured the screenshot, because our malicious tagger could easily go into his old post and delete that message, something that he hasn’t done as of July 2, 2013 – when I took the above screen shot.

At this point I now understood he was a malicious tagger – because it was 60shward who I apparently offended by my fateful post.

From that point, KDP regulars knew who the poster was – we even knew his real name, which I won’t post at this time, but might in the future if he continues to be a pain in the butt. The forum was in an uproar, considering he’d played nice on the forum with some authors, while leaving nasty tags on their books behind their backs. In a flash he “unpublished his book” and then disappeared.

But he didn’t disappear forever….more tomorrow.

Fake One Star Reviews? (Part 1 of 5 Posts)

We all hear about those fake five-star reviews, where authors write or get friends or family to write positive reviews. Readers are naturally skeptical of five star reviews, taking what they say about the book with a hefty dose of salt.

But what about nasty one star reviews? Are readers as skeptical about those? If you aren’t, you should be.  I have a nasty one star review on The Senator’s Secret. I know who wrote the review. I know he didn’t read the book. I know he is a he, in spite of the fact the review appears to be written by a woman. I also know I pissed him off in the KDP publisher forum – where he was shamefully promoting his book, aka spamming. Yes, he is another author.

I used to regularly post in Amazon’s KDP forum. It is a place to share information on self-publishing - not a place to pitch your book. Unfortunately, lots of folks troll the boards hawking their wares.

The post that got me in trouble – and earned me my one star review was:

We all understand your excitement at publishing your book. Yet, I think you have a misunderstanding of the KDP forum.  We are your fellow indies. While some of us might someday buy your book, this forum is not comprised of your customer base. This forum is a great resource for Indies – a place where we can share information, learn from others, and connect with others who self-publish. There are thousands of us. Can you imagine how useless this forum would be if everyone continually spammed threads about their books? 

I’ll tell you tomorrow a little more on how I know the writer I directed this post to is the same one who wrote the one star review.
(Click here for part 2)