Trusting Book Reviews

A few months ago I did a post on Fake Reviews on Amazon, which has actually become my most popular ever. So, I decided it was time for a follow-up post.

In the book world, you hear about reviews all too often. After all, they’re vital to most readers. And for that very reason, authors try to game the system, hence fake reviews. Spotting fake reviews is relatively simple. If a book has only not-so-detailed four and five star reviews, each by reviewers with only the one review and obvious pseudonyms, it’s probably faked by the author or author’s friend. Or both. So, that’s it. End of post, right?

Wrong.

Actually, fake reviews are not the only reviews you can’t trust. Most people don’t understand this, though. So here’s my solution: Go to Amazon. Look up any popular book. Read a few of the reviews, and you’ll see. The average (Well, okay, maybe “average reviewer” is an overstatement because I know plenty of amazing Amazon reviewers, but some are just… clueless.) Amazon reviewer does not know much about books, and seems to think that when a book has three adverbs per sentence it’s ”well-written,” or doesn’t understand that characterization is important, or the reviewer can’t even get past one particular thing in a book and gives it one star because he or she “dislikes the main character’s religion.” Unfortunately, this is not a lie. People write bad reviews for reasons like this. I’m talking one sentence reviews that say something along the lines of: “I didn’t like this book because I don’t like YA and the plot was weird.” Needless to say, why in the world would the reviewer read this book in the first place?

But those types of reviews are obviously bad–you don’t need to even consider them when deciding on a book. Or, at least, I hope you don’t. However, the reviews that convince some readers are the overly-ecstatic five star reviews. So, a reviewer loves a book. That’s wonderful! Must be a great book, in that case! Then you read some of their other reviews. And they loved every single book. And they’ve written eighty reviews in total. By then, you can tell that either this reviewer is an extremely positive person or doesn’t want to give a poor review. In any case, all of their reviews come into question. Or take the flip-side. All of a reviewer’s reviews are extremely negative. Right away, you know that either this is a very hateful person or someone who’s trying to gain attention by hating on every book they see. Or both. Again, ignore the reviews.  

The same applies for book bloggers. Unfortunately, many book bloggers feel compelled to post only positive reviews to get attention, keep publishers sending review copies, and because they don’t want to disappoint the hopeful authors who send them their books. When you read a blog that posts short, blurb-like and consistently positive reviews (I’m thinking of one right now), the excitement gets old relatively quickly.

So, here’s my advice:

- Look for a variety of ratings from reviewers on review sites. This includes 1 star, 2 star, 3 star, 4 star and 5 star reviews. Also, seek out the detailed reviews that tell you specifically why or why not a reviewer liked the book. Some reviewers are so busy saying “This is a great book! READ IT!” that they fail to state why they liked the book.

- Find a book blogger you can trust. It isn’t hard to root out book bloggers who love every. Single. Book. They. Read. And then they write short reviews, not much different than the blurb itself, saying you should read this book. Which would be great if they also disliked a decent amount of books as well and stated why they felt this way. Try Dear Author. Even though I don’t like romance (what they review), their reviews are always well thought out, intelligent, and honest.

- Goodreads is awesome. Really, it is. I love how people there aren’t afraid to express their opinions. Most users post a variety of reviews, from good to bad, and are completely honest about their thoughts. Plus, they know what they’re talking about. USE GOODREADS. It’s fun, funny, and it’s a great tool for readers.   

- Find reviewers with similar tastes as you. If you love YA and are considering purchasing the latest YA debut, don’t let the opinion of a reviewer who normally reviews erotica sway you, even if they give clear reasons for disliking a book. If you love YA, they aren’t like you; their tastes are different, and your opinions probably won’t match up. However, if you’re an erotica reader trying to break into reading the YA genre then you should pay more attention to this reviewer’s thoughts because they’re relevant to you. It is all subjective. Let me repeat: It is all subjective.

…I think I was going to say more, but I forgot what. Oh well.

Happy reading!

Why I Won’t Read Your Book

Warning: This post might get cynical, snarky, and annoying, but it is intended to be helpful.

As you know, I talk a lot about self-published books on this blog, and I have a very interesting self-publisher guest coming soon to talk a little more about it, given that you can handle the self-publishing overload. But, as we know, self-publishing is revolutionizing the industry at the moment, so it’s hard not to talk about it. Although trade publishing is still “the thing”, self-publishing is becoming a more and more viable option for those authors whose books don’t sell to publishers. In fact, one author, Dawn Rae Miller, self-published her novel with the help of her agent when the book didn’t sell to publishers. It got a lot of publisher interest, but no buyers. As a result, she self-published it, keeping her agent for foreign rights sales and help with finding editors, cover artists, etc. With two foreign rights sales under her belt in only five months, not to mention a lot of US and UK interest, it seems to have worked out extremely well for her. Anyway, I have a point. Somewhere. At least, I think so. Oh, yes; with all of this self-publishing success, many talentless “authors” are also trying out self-publishing their unedited, incoherent novels in hopes of one day becoming famous from it. Um, no. As readers, we don’t want to miss out on some of the insanely awesome self-published books, but then how to find the good ones? I did a post on finding good ones a few weeks ago, actually, and now I’ll do a post on why I won’t read a book. Although this applies to every author, it is mostly geared at self-published and indie authors because they tend to be culprits of the below.

Without further ado, the reasons why I won’t read your book:

1) A bad cover: Please, please, please don’t publish a book with an awful cover. I understand that you’re low on money and can’t pay for a cover design, but you should know that if you publish a novel that you spent years laboring on with a horrible cover, you won’t make any money. The cover will turn every single reader off. You know, some awesome cover artists charge only $50 bucks for a kick-ass cover design. They aren’t hard to find, either. I don’t mean to be a cynic because I can completely understand a tough financial situation, but putting in the $50 is definitely worth it. If you happen to be a skilled graphic designer, then make it yourself. That’s awesome! However, if you lack graphic design skills like I do and try to make your cover on your own, it’ll probably turn out like this:

(I made this, by the way, with my own non-talent. Like it’s awfulness?) As shallow as it may seem, I would never bother looking for more information on a book with that kind of cover. It could be the best book in the world, but the cover reads “amateur” and I mentally categorize the book as “No thanks.”

2) Poor blurbs: I always cringe when I read a blurb that lacks voice, barely describes the plot, and is way too long. I will not read a book with that kind of blurb. The point of a blurb is to give us a feel for the plot and characters; if all you say is “Alex Tanner is a 15 year old who is also nice but kind of annoying and he has to overcome huge odds to save his own life. Will he?” [The dumb mistakes and awkward wording was on purposing, by the way.], and then ramble on about Alex’s life for paragraph after paragraph, why would I even want to read your book? Don’t tell us about the characters in the blurb. Show us. Also, as far as review snippets are concerned, if you try to suck me in with a review snippet in your blurb that says: “Good book” ~ Chad, then please don’t bother; if this ambiguous “Chad” is the main review snippet for your book, it doesn’t instill much confidence in a reader. Again, I shelve your book in the “No thanks” category of my brain. However, if Publisher’s Weekly or Booklist liked your book, then definitely include it in the blurb! That right there will hook me.

3) Bad samples: I’m talking baaaad samples. Like, completely unedited and almost impossible to understand. Unfortunately, I’ve read a number of samples where “there” and “their” are mixed up several times in the first few pages. I’m not a cynical reader; if it happens once, I’ll forgive you and hope it’s just a typo. But if it happens more than once in a matter of a few pages? It makes me think you don’t know the English language too well. Sorry, but it does. This means another “No thanks” shelving. Also, if you start your book out with “One dark and stormy night” I’m moving on immediately. I’ve read this in the beginning of a book (seriously, I did), and all I thought was: Next. So please, please, please make sure your samples are well edited and actually hook the reader.

4) Spamming: This is what really gets me. Spamming. But, you know, I get it. I really do. You just self-published your first book and want it to sell a million copies, then when it doesn’t after 24 hours, you feel the need to get someone to read it. So, as a result, you spam. I’ll admit; I did this a little bit when this blog was first starting out back in August because I was so discouraged that no one was reading my posts. Plus, I was clueless at the time. I’m not proud of it and thankfully, I learned not to spam, but some authors just don’t learn. Ever. If I follow you on Twitter or read your posts on Facebook or even follow your blog, I’m fine with you posting about your book once in a while. Please don’t get me started with 100% automated Twitter feeds; they drive me CRAZY! But if I don’t know you and you visit my Facebook page and simply drop a link to your book saying “I’m sure you’ll love this,” I’m definitely not going to read your book. Authors: It’s annoying, rude and gets you nowhere. If you spam me like that, I’m guaranteed never to read your book. That’s how I operate. Sorry. And no, you won’t be shelved in “No thanks.” Instead, you’ll be mentally shelved in “Not in a million years.”

5) Bad reviews: This is pretty much a given, but I’m mentioning it anyway. Just so you don’t get confused, I’m fine with one star reviews. In fact, I’m fine with plenty of one star reviews. Naturally, I can’t expect everyone to like your book. However, if I see almost every review being negative, I’ll probably skip the book. Or, if your one star reviews outnumber your five star reviews, I’m going to hesitate about the quality of the book. = another “No thanks.”

Anyway, that’s all for today. I hope I didn’t come across as too snarky and cynical because I really do intend to help. This is just what I’ve been noticing and I want to broadcast to authors how to vet their books for problems.

So, as readers or authors, have you come across any similar problems with books? Any reasons that I listed above which you disagree with? I’d love to hear what you think!

Self-Published Authors Who Go Commercial… And What Happens To Them

     (self) vs. (Big 6) 

Lately, there have been plenty of stories of self-published authors “hitting it big” and ending up signing with large commercial publishers, mostly the Big Six. And then they suddenly go off the map. Think of it like this. Amanda Hocking dominated the book-related media for months, especially when she signed with St. Martin’s for her “Trylle” trilogy. And now we’re hearing very little from her. Or, for the sake of more comparison, what about John Locke and his deal with Simon & Schuster? Nothing. So why is this, you ask? I’ve wondered about it myself for some time, but have never bothered to search especially in-depth. Then, the other day, I came across this post. Essentially, it talks about thriller writer, Boyd Morrison, who went from self-publishing to commercial publishing, then when her third book in a four book series was suddenly rejected (for no given) by her publisher, Simon & Schuster, she returned to self-publishing the series (in the U.S.).

The point being, commercial publishing didn’t work for her. Just five short years ago, commercial publishing was the only option and a sudden termination like this would mark the end of her publication in the US.

Not anymore.

There’s always self-publishing now. It isn’t even looked down upon anymore, at least not from many people’s points of view. For example, you may have heard of the latest self-publishing sensation entitled On The Island by Tracey Garvis-Graves, which has recently hit the New York Times, USA Today, and Kindle Bestseller’s lists. (On an unrelated note, she’s also going to guest post on this blog in the future!). Literally, with the push of a button–a button, people, that says “click to publish”–many authors who self-publish their books are becoming huge successes. And then those who do become such huge successes, when they go with a Big Six house, often end up doing worse than by themselves with self-publishing. In the linked blog post (above), it correctly asserted that Amanda Hocking’s marketing with St. Martin’s was poor at best, and the covers were barely better than the self-published versions. It’s true; Big Six publishing doesn’t seem to have worked out very well for Hocking. She’s still selling, but her sales rank (going from the Amazon top 10 to the top 2,000) has certainly plummeted.

Please don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that self-publishing is better. Yes, for some, it is. But for others, it isn’t. It’s as simple as that. See, the lesson of these stories is that self-publishing works for some people while Big Six publishing doesn’t. For others, Big Six publishing works for them while self-publishing doesn’t. It depends on the author. Let me repeat: It depends on the author. Please, no more arguments that one method of publishing is better. Self-publishing is amazing for you? That’s great, but please don’t tell me it’s the better option for every author in the world. It might be for you, but for someone else–say, Suzanne Collins–it isn’t. In Collins’s case, it looks like big house publishing has worked out well for her.

In conclusion, it’s interesting to watch these self-publishers go commercial. I don’t think any of them have succeeded as much as they did with self-publishing; it’s probably because a) the process was rushed and somewhat ignored because the books already have found its audience and should therefore go on the market ASAP and b) these authors just weren’t built for commercial publication. Their books weren’t, either, which is probably why they didn’t go that route (for whatever reason) in the first place.

Happy reading!