The Daily Mail looks at a pair of authors who are trying to fight back against what appears to be a concerted effort to deluge books on Amazon with negative reviews. Rosie Alison is the author of The Very Thought of You, a novel that, to put it charitably, did not burn up the sales charts:
By yesterday it had attracted 119 reviews on Amazon — 50 per cent more than the book which won the [Orange] prize, The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver.
While many praised its qualities, 16 reviewers give the book the minimum one star.
One compares Miss Alison’s writing to Mills and Boon novels, while another claims she ‘has no feel for fiction at all, no sense of what makes a plot tick along, no flair for language’.
Another implies that the author’s success is connected to her marriage to Tim Waterstone, founder of the chain of High Street bookshops.
Miss Alison, 46, is said to be in dispute with Amazon about the hostile reviews and has approached Kwikchex, a company which specialises in protecting online reputations, run by Chris Emmins.
The reporter also talks to a PR firm that writes positive Amazon reviews for a price. This is getting silly. Authors either need to accept the fact that negative customer reviews—as part of a concerted effort or not—are a part of being an author, or they need to stop reading customer reviews entirely.
The same could be said for certain unpaid interns
Yes, negative reviews are a part of being an author, but orchestrated smear campaigns by competing publishers are appalling and should not be tolerated. These people are criminals, and so is that company that charges £5k for seven fake Amazon customers to do your reviews.
Even worse are the Chinese military factories that steal authors works and publish them for sale worldwide without a dime going to the author.
… oh, wait, we’re not supposed to admit that?
I used to run the part of Amazon that handled customer-submitted reviews back in 96-97. It continues to surprise me how little has changed. Back then, though, authors were flummoxed about the Internet (what the hell is this), individuals have opinions that they could share broadly online, and why a bookstore might dare to show negative reviews about a book they were selling.
@3: Eh?
Let me get this straight: Factories that are usually used to make weapons, are used to make fakes of mass market novels on the side. Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?
If it gets more terrible authors to stop writing books, then it’s fine by me.
@5, Will has a weird inverted variant of Munchausen Syndrome or something, that causes him to deliberately destroy his own credibility and reputation. Why? Nobody knows. But there it is. It’s the same thing that motivates his posts about his special “Nintendo-branded 3D iPad beta”.
It could be worse, I guess. He could be out in the street chopping his own legs off or something.
@7, King Arthur and the Black Knight all in one, then:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9…
sorry, I don’t agree. I think paid or “campaign” good or bad reviews keep me from knowing what people really think about the book after reading it.
I think they should find a way to root out the paid-for or campaign reviews.
More than anything, I’m surprised that Amazon would allow reviews to be posted by PR firms. Doesn’t that go against the entire reason to have customer reviews?
The negative reviews of Rosie Alison’s book all seem pretty fair to me. I read the book and the complaints in the one and two star reviews, even the three star ones, reflect exactly what I thought of the book:mediocre at best, and not up to scratch for the Orange Prize. Probably it was that nomination that drew in so many bad reviews; the book just does not compare with other shortlisted books. On the reviews site goodreads.com the reviews are even worse: is she going to wage war against that site too? The most professional way to deal with bad reviews is for an author to simply ignore them.
Why should authors tolerate some of the vile and inaccurate 1 star negative reviews left by customers who live misserable lives. I’ve seen amazon customers lie about a books content intentionally to hurt the books sales. Customers leaving negative reviews for books they have not read. I’ve also seen customers who leave nothing but 1 star reviews for everything they purchase. Authors have everyright to fight back against these vile retarded people.