Oh, Dear, the Case of the Fake Book Reviews
After reading Rachel Abbott’s eye-opening post “The Ongoing Saga of the Dodgy Review,” I wanted to leave the following comment but WordPress would not accept my gravatar login:
Rachel –
I am in shock after reading this post of yours. First, though, I am NOT in shock that people write fake reviews for themselves (I did not know the term sock puppets) because I have seen that advised in at least one ebook I bought on Kindle. (Please note that in my brand-new ebook TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO PUBLISH YOUR BOOK IN THE AGE OF KINDLE I warn against doing this!)
What I am in shock about is authors writing bad reviews for books they perceive as their COMPETITORS! I cannot get my mind around this because authors in the same genre should look at other good authors as collaborators.
In fact, Bonnie B. Latino, Kathleen M. Rodgers, and I have just formed what we call a triad to promote our three experience-based fiction about military spouses — see https://www.millermosaicllc.com/triad-us-military-war-novels/
Our premise is that, if someone reads one of our books and enjoys it, the person might be interested in reading the two other books in the same vein.
Okay, enough shock. I do have to share this recent criticism I got for my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT in an otherwise good 4-star review — “One thing I missed in this novel was a separation from thought to thought, story to story etc by *********** or other device. Other than that, layed out very well.”
Putting aside the misspelling of “laid,” each chapter of the novel is entirely from one of the four POVs. And each chapter title includes the name of which of the four women the chapter’s POV is from. Therefore, no *** are needed!As I said to another author, if we aren’t willing to get negative reviews, we shouldn’t publish our books. But for authors to write mean reviews about other authors’ books! That is beyond my understanding.
I decided to publish my response here on my own blog because I want to help spread the word about this issue to other authors, including the expression “sock puppets,” which I admit I had not heard.
As if being an author does not have enough hurdles, now we have more to be concerned about!
If you have an opinion about this issue, do leave a comment below.
© 2012 Miller Mosaic LLC
Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. A new nonfiction ebook of hers is TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO MARKET YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON AND FACEBOOK and her newest fiction ebook is the thriller CIA FALL GUY.
Click here to visit her Amazon author page at amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller
She also has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the online marketing company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com
Phyllis, I am appalled that that this mischief is going on. As an honest reviewer, I feel that the legitimacy of my work has been decreased. I will not write a bad review. If the writing doesn’t come up to my standards, I do not write a review. I email the author privately why I cannot write the review and what can be done to turn his/her book into an acceptable piece of writing. I feel that refusing to write a review for a poor piece of writing is enough to get the message across. writing a mean-spirited review for what one sees as a competitor is the lowest of lows.
Ruth Ann —
Thanks so much for sharing on this post, and I admire your personal review policy. It is so nice of you to privately tell an author your recommendations for how he/she can improve a book.
I sometimes feel that people who review on Amazon are grinding their own ax rather than reviewing a specific book.
And as an author who appreciates sincere reviewers, I want to thank you for being one!
As a professional book reviewer for a large Sunday newspaper in the Deep South for the past eight years, I am in total agreement with Ruth Ann Hixson. As a novelist, I know how difficult it is to complete a book. I simply won’t review a book that is not up to my standards.
Since I only review books I really enjoy, I suppose that makes my Amazon average for books I’ve reviewed suspect.
How ironic that, in some minds, I might be lumped in with those who think it’s acceptable to buy book reviews.
As always, Phyllis, another excellent blog.
Bonnie — Thanks for leaving this comment and you bring up an important point. Why should reviewers with only good reviews be suspect? Reviewers have the right to decide what books they review. If they only want to write reviews for the books they enjoy, so be it!
Still, this reviewer “mess” complicates things for everybody.
Hi Phyllis,
As an author and avid reader, I totally agree with Ruth. If I come across problems that I feel someone’s writing possesses, I message them privately to let them know why I cannot do a review for their book and/or point out the issues that I feel are in the book. If I haven’t been asked to do a review, then I simply don’t leave one. I have bought, read and enjoyed all kinds of genres besides my own, so hopefully I would not get accused of being biased. :)
There are millions of readers out there and enough pieces of the pie for everyone. There simply is no need to write a mean-spirited review because one author views another as competition.
Excellent blog, by the way!
Darla — Thanks so much for leaving this comment — and I’m so glad you like the blog!
I especially like this part of your comment:
“There are millions of readers out there and enough pieces of the pie for everyone.”
Yes, and to the extent that we authors encourage our readers to read the books of other authors, we are expanding the pie for everyone.