As part of my morning routine, I look at reviews and check my rankings in various categories on Amazon. After being out there in authorland for seven months, I had begun to think perhaps there were no more ANTICS for reviewers to get up to. I was wrong.
This morning My Familiar Stranger got a four star review from someone who downloaded A FREE COPY. I could editorialize, but have decided to simply cut and paste.
4.0 out of 5 stars Looks like a good book, January 5, 2013
This review is from: My Familiar Stranger – A Paranormal Romance (The Order of the Black Swan, BOOK ONE) (Kindle Edition)
I download a lot of books to my Kindle Fire, but since I work full time I don’t get to read as much as I would like to. Therefore I have not read this book as of yet, but am looking forward to doing so. I would not have purchased this book without reading the description of the book, so feel this will be a good one when I get around to reading it.
A 4 star review goes down a lot easier when the reviewer actually read the book and cites reasons why they are giving the rating they’re giving. When I looked at this person’s other reviews on Amazon, I found no books (other than M.F.S. – which wasn’t read) and a total of three DVD’s (2 Sons of Anarchy and 1 Vampire diaries).
Like I said, reviewers say the darndest things.
– Victoria Danann
Amen to this… I have had a reviewer leave a lengthy review on my book and not read it all the way through! Imagine what it is like reading a 2000 word hateful rant on why they didn’t finish reading the book they are giving a 1 star review on. In the time it took to WRITE the review they could have read my book. Reviewers DO INDEED say the darndest things… at least you got a 4 star… Lots of love, Emily
Yes, my dear Emily. I have been there, too. Something sort of cute happened though. The next person to leave a review had read the one before. They said (paraphrase) it isn’t fair to an author to leave a review when you don’t finish a book. Sometimes it’s good to know when to leave things unsaid.
That is by far the weirdest “non review”, that
I have ever read!!! If you would like honest reviews, please check out Bitten By Books. THEIR REVIEWS ARE JUST THAT. Reviews!
I have purchased several books that I would NOT had normally, but the reviews were phenomenal ! Good Luck!!!!
I agree. Bitten by Books hosted the Release Day party for The Witch’s Dream and asked to have us back for the release of The Summoner’s Tale.
It’s sad but I have seen this a couple times. I read a one star review yesterday that stated they only read the first three pages (of a 600+ page book) but decided never to read any of the writers other books or anything else in that genre! After 3 pages! Wow.
Yep. This is the sort of behavior that prompted me to write “The Art of the Review” – not that any of the people I would like to have read it will ever read it.
I really do personally believe in karma. It’s not particularly important to me whether it’s instant or not. The fact that your actions are circling around to either reward you or bite you in the ass is motivation enough for me to not leave a review unless it’s a five star review. And, seriously, that is my policy. It’s a variation on the old “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”.