Do you find Amazon.com book reviews are inflated?
Is it just me, or do number of stars given tend to overrate the quality of the book? If so, it is not hard to come up with possible reasons. People who enjoyed reading the book may just be more likely to review it than those who are disappointed. There could also be a bit of skulduggery going on, with authors or publishers recruiting people to give positive reviews. I now make a point of reading the negative reviews, even if there are not many of them, in order to get a more balanced view.
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I’ve been hearing a lot lately (in settings such as writers’ and editors’ groups and publications) about paid reviews. So many people have been paid to write favorable reviews and post them in various places that such reviews have largely lost their currency.
These days I tend to rely more on reviews written by fellow readers with nothing to gain, especially those whose tastes have shown themselves to be similar to mine.
I’ve written reviews on Amazon before, so I just assume that the other reviews are by regular people, rather than folks who are shills for the writer or publishing company. I tend to read several reviews to get an idea if the writers are like me, in the way they describe things, then I go from there (whether it’s positive or negative). So far, all of the books that I have purchased from Amazon that had a favorable review, by someone who sounded similar to me, have been spot on. I have avoided purchasing books (by authors that I like) when I have read a few un-favorable reviews by people that sounded like me.
So for me, it’s not so much the stars, it’s what the reviewers are actually saying and if they seem similar to me. That’s how I go about choosing movies on Netflix too.
I’m rather dubious of Amazon reviews. I look at them but I also go to Goodreads and have a look there too.
I read a news story not so long ago about an author, a very well known author although I can’t remember his name, who was caught writing phony reviews for his books on Amazon.
For me, the neutral and negative reviews are actually more informative and useful than the 5-star gushing reviews. This applies not only to book reviews but also to other merchandise on Amazon, and also to other sites such as Yelp. It’s the negative reviews that point out the potential flaws and drawbacks. This is much more useful to me. So, I usually don’t pay much attention to the positive reviews.
I agree with @2davidc8 I usually ignore the 5 star reviews and look more at the moderate/negative ones.
Word of mouth advertiser’s worst enemy when they have a crappy product. : )))
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