The free copy line is a legal requirement - if you review a product you are required to reveal if you were given the book to review.
Interestingly, on various books, I have noticed that many reviewers don’t mention this when I know it to be the case. Perhaps they forget or think they are doing a favour. I would have thought that including the disclosure would put more weight into the review than it simply being non-verified purchase review.
Sadly, a reviewer's integrity can't be taken for granted. So you really can't be naive with reviews. A portion will be fraudulent.
I know, it’s sad but true. My idea was some kind of trust network reaching into the “6 degrees of separation” (if that theory is true) as much as possible.
On top of that, unless you've compared a lot of a reviewers recommendations with things you like, there's no way of knowing how close your taste is to theirs. Heck, I've actually found bad reviews from a reviewer I know hates everything I like the most useful.
Quite true. At least a professional reviewer would say who the book is good for and not good for.
The worst reviews were from a 'free' period that my publisher offered (but so were one or two of the best ones...)
I guess that kind of thing is more likely to happen with a “free for all”. When I used a “free in exchange for honest review” service I got a competing author who was using the same service in the same category give a negative review, vague with no reasoning or explanation. Still don’t know whether to do anything about it as over all I got more good than bad.
I checked your book. I think the subject matter of BDSM is always going to get polarized views.
I think Amazon are hoping people will place more weight on purchases - that's why they have that little verified purchase thing - but I suspect most people glance at the star rating distribution and skim the first few. Whether it was bought there, or whether it was an ARC, isn't going to factor into most people's shopping habits.
Interesting thanks. You're not the first I’ve seen saying that customers don’t seem to have that much discretion. I suppose it fits in with the whole convenience ethos (which is Amazons mission). If you have anything to expand on that I’d be interested.
I think Amazon brought the “verified purchase” out at a time of controversy and publicity (disappointingly, I feel that it’s an extra tool for the fakers to make it look like their reviews are genuine). I might wonder why Amazon didn’t do this in the first place anyway?
Here’s something hypothetical to ponder in terms of incentive by the retailer:
2 different retail sites of different names are otherwise exactly the same for products, prices, delivery times and level of customer service. One’s entire products has an average of 3.5 stars, the other has 4 stars.
Which one makes the most money?
The reason I’m asking is because customers don’t post reviews anywhere near as often as the internet makes it look like they do. Free copies in exchange for reviews are at least one thing that an author can actually do something about.
