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Thread: People don't read before they review


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Permlink Replies: 24 - Pages: 2 [ Previous | 1 2 ] - Last Post: Jun 22, 2012 3:32 PM Last Post By: therrimouse
kodaiokuda7

Posts: 191
Registered: 10/30/11
Re: People don't read before they review
Posted: Jun 22, 2012 2:54 AM   in response to: philcyberia in response to: philcyberia
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Thanks - my only concern was that it has only
recently been put on GR and therefore only has two
reviews, one of which is a 4 star and one being the 1
star. Still, it has all 4 and 5 stars on Amazon,
which is good news (unless the reviewer decides to
put it on Amazon as well...)

Thanks for the words of reassurance, much appreciated
:-)


You are most welcome.
I just got a one star tonight from somone who added my book yesterday, and rated it today.
My book is 361,119 words.
That is one hell of a reader to finish 723 pages in less than 24 hours.
Amazing. ;)

The reality is they didn't read it.
My personal feeling is that if some one doesn't read a book, and they rate it/review it, I consider their rating/review invalid and not worth weighing such a review/rating in when I choose to buy a book.
Many others feel the same way, thought some do not.

Like I said, don't sweat it.
We all get bad reviews, it comes with the territory of being an author.

-Kodai

Message was edited by: kodaiokuda7
philcyberia

Posts: 393
Registered: 01/15/12
Re: People don't read before they review
Posted: Jun 22, 2012 3:19 AM   in response to: kodaiokuda7 in response to: kodaiokuda7
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[i]I just got a one star tonight from somone who added my book yesterday, and rated it today. My book is 361,119 words. That is one hell of a reader to finish 723 pages in less than 24 hours.[/i]

Wow - that is either some very impressive speed reading or, like you said, they've just rated it without reading it. Well, I'm just going to forget about it and move on - if I had all bad reviews for the story, I would be concerned but the odd one is just down to personal taste and something that comes with the territory, as you said :-)
daysoldier

Posts: 778
Registered: 04/03/12
Re: People don't read before they review
Posted: Jun 22, 2012 4:15 AM   in response to: kodaiokuda7 in response to: kodaiokuda7
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You are most welcome.
I just got a one star tonight from somone who added
my book yesterday, and rated it today.
My book is 361,119 words.
That is one hell of a reader to finish 723 pages in
less than 24 hours.
Amazing. ;)

The reality is they didn't read it.
My personal feeling is that if some one doesn't read
a book, and they rate it/review it, I consider their
rating/review invalid and not worth weighing such a
review/rating in when I choose to buy a book.
Many others feel the same way, thought some do not.


It could be that they got your book a long time ago and didn't bother to add it to GR until they were ready to rate it. Just a thought.
diamondlifestyle

Posts: 4,193
Registered: 07/02/11
Re: People don't read before they review
Posted: Jun 22, 2012 4:30 AM   in response to: daysoldier in response to: daysoldier
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exactly. I consider myself more anal than most but even I'm not anal enough to have every book in my tbr pile on goodreads. there's a lot I only add after I've read them.
stuatyris

Posts: 269
Registered: 01/10/12
Re: People don't read before they review
Posted: Jun 22, 2012 5:23 AM   in response to: kodaiokuda7 in response to: kodaiokuda7
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Interesting response you have written to your reviewer!

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12452869-the-stygian-conspiracy
diamondlifestyle

Posts: 4,193
Registered: 07/02/11
Re: People don't read before they review
Posted: Jun 22, 2012 6:06 AM   in response to: kodaiokuda7 in response to: kodaiokuda7
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you got lucky.

[i]J4n3, if you can't finish it I understand.
However, I do not appreciate, nor respect, a rating by someone who doesn't finish the book.
I know many reviewers do not think it matters, but I do.
I would have prefered no rating at all.[/i]

[i]You claim to have only gotten 4% through, that's page 28-29 of 730 pages. You haven't even left the first chapter yet and thus have no clue what the story is about.
I know that may sound harsh, but it is true.[/i]

[i]The book (the Stygian Conspiracy) was edited and conforms to the Chicago Manual of Style and Hodges Harbrace Handbook for spelling, punctuation, grammar, and structure.
I emailed this review to my editor and she has confirmed that you are in error with regard to the comma use.
Perhaps it is because English is not your first language (by your own admission).[/i]

Nine in ten reviewers would have eaten you alive for that. Rights and wrongs of the review aside, you're damn lucky that person didn't take off on you, because it would have been [b]you[/b] it backfired on, not the reviewer.

Google Wendydarling's review of The Selection and see what happened there - another review left, BTW, when the book was a DNF. There's some links here http://goodreadsfollies.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/reviewer-wendy-darling-joins-fray.html

It's now one of the most 'liked' reviews on GR
kodaiokuda7

Posts: 191
Registered: 10/30/11
Re: People don't read before they review
Posted: Jun 22, 2012 9:22 AM   in response to: diamondlifestyle in response to: diamondlifestyle
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Luck had nothing to do with it.
Being professional and not being intimidated in the response did.
Notice that I completely ignored anyone who was trolling/flaming and addressed only the reviewer.

Why did I politely address the reviewer?
Because this reviewer was flat out wrong in portions of her review and she later amended it.
I respected her criticism and took what she had to say that was accurate into consideration.

Had she simply left it or had she flipped out like some posters in the Wendydarling review (which is 35 pages long), I would have ignored her completely.
WendyDarling read over half that book, and like she said, she gave it a "fair" shot.
I would not have commented had I been that author since Wendy backed up what she said.
Nor would I have done what the author did in that case, and gone to the reviewer's blog as "anonymous" and confronted her, and I certainly would not have called a reviewer a "bitch" or any other slur.
That is a NO, NO.
http://www.themidnightgarden.net/2012/01/review-selection.html
I don't care if a blogger calls my book a POS, their blog is their personal domain, and I would never intrude upon that in the manner that author did.

In other words, if you are going to talk to a reviewer, do so politely, but professionally, and only when necessary to correct an error they are making. Do not judge their opinion, they are entitled to that, what they are not entitled to do is post inaccuracies.

Like most authors, my general rule is not to bother making any comments on any reviews period.

However, I will make exceptions if I wish to get a better idea of what a reviewer found wrong, and/or to correct any flat out errors of their review.
In the case of the GR reviewer, she herself stated she was unsure how to rate it, which told me she wasn't confident as to whether should have even left a rating.

However, we had a pleasant conversation and as the last poster stated: [i]"It's great to see such honest discourse and an author taking the feedback constructively :)"[/i]

Thank you for the link to the WendyDarling review BTW diamondlifestyle.
It was long, but a very interesting read.
That review is another example of what is in my opinion the break-down of the review system used by many websites.

I don't know about most people, but I find myself ignoring reviews when I go to buy a book these days.
Being a voracious reader, I find that more often than not I use the sample of the book to determine whether or not to make a purchase.
The main reason for this is because I see so many amateur reviews that I just don't trust them anymore.
Add in the "like" or "was this review helpful, Yes/No" tags into the fray and the whole thing becomes a quagmire.

If the review situation has come to the point where authors are no longer "allowed" to address factual errors or in some cases, complete lies about a book, then IMO the amateur review system is essentially worthless and counterproductive.

-Kodai
petaward

Posts: 2,458
Registered: 01/25/11
Re: People don't read before they review
Posted: Jun 22, 2012 9:52 AM   in response to: c_har2u in response to: c_har2u
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Reviews are interesting. If I ever leave a bad review I go into great detail about what I thought was wrong with it and give examples.

My crime novel has a few bad reviews. One complained that my main character was depressing and another said she was nasty. Well she is a serial killer so she's not going to be a sweetie, is she? My blurb says she's a serial killer so why people are put off confuses me. If you don't want to read about a serial killer, don't buy the book.
williamcostner

Posts: 9
Registered: 02/20/12
Re: People don't read before they review
Posted: Jun 22, 2012 10:20 AM   in response to: petaward in response to: petaward
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Reviews are interesting. If I ever leave a bad review
I go into great detail about what I thought was wrong
with it and give examples.

My crime novel has a few bad reviews. One complained
that my main character was depressing and another
said she was nasty. Well she is a serial killer so
she's not going to be a sweetie, is she? My blurb
says she's a serial killer so why people are put off
confuses me. If you don't want to read about a serial
killer, don't buy the book.


They have watched too much Dexter on TV and expect every character to be like that. Just like every "hardcore" vampire and werewolf fanatic expects twilight instead of something closer to Dracula or The Wolf Man. People today are ruined by what has become overly popular and don't want to read about something that goes against that. Wait a few years until something else becomes popular and the idea of a "realistic" serial killer will probably be more acceptable. As for me, I would hate to read about a happy-go-lucky serial killer... it just doesn't fit right.
therrimouse

Posts: 1,542
Registered: 08/11/08
Re: People don't read before they review
Posted: Jun 22, 2012 3:32 PM   in response to: philcyberia in response to: philcyberia
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This is why I don't deal with Goodreads anymore. You can't tell what is true there and what is not, if the review is deliberately obtuse or some other bugaboo. I don't participate on sites where one is more likely than not to become a target for some troll with nothing better to do. I tend to join sites where the dialogue is more reasoned and politely intellectual. I vette all my books and edit them ad infinitum, so if someone finds and issue with me it will be technical.

By the way, I have been reading posts from authors which need a bit more instruction on grammar:

The [u]plural[/u] of any objective noun does [b]not[/b] contain an apostrophe. There are special cases in which any noun with an se on the end has its own plural designation (i.e. mouse => mice) or the plural remains the same (moose => moose).

The possessive case of a noun[b] does[/b] contain an apostrophe.

Please check that before you go online and post about writing and editing. Thank you.
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