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Thursday, August 25, 2011

Amazon Reviews

Although I'm not comfortable reviewing another author's work, I do like reading reviews on Amazon. I typically wait until I'm done with the book before looking at the reviews. It's interesting to see how people can have such wildly different opinions of the same book--and interesting to see why people give books a low number of stars. It doesn't help anyone to downgrade a book for being a different genre than what you expected or for the cost. I seldom see comments about the writer's craft; readers tend to focus more on the characters, story, and ending.

Do you write book reviews on Amazon? Do you find them helpful?
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5 comments:

  1. Alex J. Cavanaugh8/25/2011 8:42 AM

    I'll glance at reviews, but I don't take them too seriously unless they're all bad. I've never reviewed on a book on Amazon, but I have posted a few on Goodreads.

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  2. Cherie Reich8/25/2011 9:17 AM

    I do write reviews and post them on Amazon.

    I believe they can be helpful. I sometimes read reviews before I purchase an item I'm on the fence about.

    I sometimes read the bad reviews after I'm finished with a book. I'm curious to see if they actually pertain to the book or if someone is just writing a bad review.

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  3. Briane8/25/2011 11:56 AM

    I use reviews to help me find books to read -- mostly in Entertainment Weekly; I never read reviews on Amazon to find a book.

    But the reviews are spotty -- I bat about 50/50 choosing books from reviews. I chalk that up to 50% of books being terrible.

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  4. Anonymous8/25/2011 7:03 PM

    I do post reviews on Amazon and I read a lot of other people's as well. When I see a book with lots of overly good or bad reviews I check the reviewers. I notice that lots of 1 star reviews come from people who have only written a single review. The same goes for a lot of 5 star reviews if all the reviews come from people who only have one review I disregard them.

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  5. KM Nalle8/28/2011 3:32 PM

    I've reviewed one or two on Amazon. I will use the review ratings to decide if I'm interested in reading a book. If the combined number of one, two and three star reviews outnumbers the four and five star reviews, I might take a gander at the reviews just to see what people are saying.

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