THE JAMES MASON COMMUNITY BOOK CLUB discussion

I am sitting comfortably on my hobby-horse, and believe me, can bore for England on the subject of Amazon one and two star reviews...Grr!

Having taken early retirement several years ago, I began writing. My first book - The Great Satan was picked up and published in the mainstream. The book did well, but I decided to go it alone, and self-publish after that. I'm glad to report, with five books now published in Amazon Kindle and CreateSpace paperback, things, and sales, are generally going pretty well.

My gripe however, is with Amazon's policy concerning reviews. Like many of you Indies, I put my heart and soul, and a great deal of research and effort into my writing, and am currently blessed with an average of about four and a half stars, across all five books to date. I like to write in the action/adventure genre, but I am still experimenting on the time period which I feel most comfortable with.

What really bugs me however, is the occasional snide, destructive drive-by review, which does absolutely nothing to help me improve my production and writing's skills (such as they are). True, earlier on, I took an occasional kicking over faulty proof-reading, but have taken those criticisms on-board, made changes to manuscripts where necessary and now have that issue firmly in hand.

When someone walks into a bookshop (if they can find one nowadays), they are first drawn to the cover and title, on the shelf of their favourite genre. The prospective customer picks up the book, and usually reads the synopsis, and perhaps even the first page or two. So far, these facilities are all to hand on Amamazon.com. What is NOT available to the person in the bookshop, when making their decision to buy, are often poorly worded and badly punctuated reviews. Sadly, the very same are there for all to see on Amazon's pages.
Please don't get me wrong however. I am not on a clobbering mission. For the record, I really am a huge fan of Amazon's self-publishing, and hold Amazon in the highest regard, without a single further huff towards them, or the way they do things.
My question is this. Do we need reviews on Amazon? I suppose we do, but being exposed to the occasional, bitter and twisted, semi-literate reviewer, makes me wonder sometimes.

Anyway, my spleen is vented, so there we are!
Best to you all, and a very Happy New Year.

David B

David, here's a question that I have re: Amazon.

My first book was self-published in 2010 & got the usual 'first time' reviews, which I took to heart, so in 2012 I self-published a revised edition (& also a 2nd novel).

Yet the reviews of the original are still up even though that edition is no longer available & someone ‘just looking’ wouldn't know the difference.

Shouldn't such be acknowledged?

Just a peeve.

For a long time, the only review of my first McFarland book, KERMIT CULTURE, was one of those "drive-by" snide 2 star reviews that you discuss, David. It made me crazy, especially because the reviewer didn't seem to understand the nature of the book's whole purpose (which was to be an academic anthology written by scholars).

Lately, Amazon has been cracking down on who is allowed to review a book; apparently they are more bothered by positive reviews from people who might know you personally than they are by negative ones full of spelling errors. I haven't lost any reviews to that winnowing on any of my books, but I hate to think that the drive-bys might stay while others get removed.

There's a lot of pressure on Amazon to have reviews in order to attract customers and make the book more visible, and of course that is harder for many self-published and indie books to acquire. It's tough for smaller press works like my McFarland books, too. I agree with you that it can be frustrating, but I also agree that in general Amazon does more good for us than harm, and we just have to work that much harder to attract positive, viable reviews.

David wrote: "What really bugs me however, is the occasional snide, destructive drive-by review, which does absolutely nothing to help me improve my production and writing's skills (such as they are). "

Reviews are not for the author; they are for other readers. *Critiques* are for the author, and should happen before the book is published. They are not the same thing. I understand your frustration, believe me. Not everyone is going to "get" or love what we do as authors, no matter how much we might want them to. But please, do not expect reviews to substitute for critiques.