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Smashwords: Review Farms?
Smashwords is having its July Summer/Winter Sale, and thousands of books are available for free or discounted. (Another week! Stock up now!) I ran across one that looked interesting (Tribes, by Carmen Webster Buxton, which I'm buying after trying the sample… if I'm engaged enough to care what happens next after four pages of real text, that's enough for me to spend $1.50 on a book), and decided to look at the rest of the sale.
I've looked at the freebies and 100%-off coupon-codes a while ago, and picked up some of those; now I was willing to look at the ones that weren't free. But where to start? Smashwords lists in publication order, which is useless for finding The Good Stuff. Aha! Maybe it's time to look at the "highest rated" sort option that I've never figured out!
I made an interesting discovery.
Top book listed under the July Sale, Highest Rated, is called "The Alien Artifact 2," which seems weird. However, the second-highest is "The Alien Artifact" by V Bertolaccini, with an average of 5 stars and 43 reviews. It's sci-fi. I like sci-fi, so that's worth taking a look at.
Huh. Lots of one-line reviews delivered long after purchase. (Smashwords indicates how long it was between purchase & review.) Hm. Maybe the author ran a promo thing on his blog, saying "if you downloaded my free book last year, please go drop a review at Smashwords." They seem a bit… bland, I guess, so I clicked on a few of the review authors to see what else they liked, and how they talked about other books. I picked a few male-sounding names and a few female-sounding names.
WHOA.
Meg Sharp said, "I enjoyed this. Whilst the story progressed it improved, and became more courageous, whilst adventurous."
Problem is, she said THAT EXACT SAME THING about four different books, none of which were written by the two authors she favorited.
M Spellman said, "Great story, and enchanting book. Recommended!" He also said that about Dating a Cougar (which is an accurate enough statement, IMHO), and he said two other books are "Excellent novel! Highly recommended!" And for two others, he says "A perfect adventure and action thriller that explores the theme of the world’s position on terrorism getting out of hand, and a classic of the genre."
Daniel Sarkoszy said, "A skilfully constructed story with an artistic edge. Parts made me laugh. I love it." For another book, he said, "Totally captivating. Skilfully constructed story with a artistic edge. Parts made me laugh. I loved it." And a third: "Skilfully constructed story with a artistic edge. Parts made me laugh. I loved it."
Karen Wulwik thinks several books have good concepts behind them, and they deliver the goods.
Julia Franklin says that she thoroughly enjoys books with writing that is elegant but somehow sparse, which means not a single word is superfluous—and has found five different books that fit that description. (She also likes books that are "adventurous and great," and has found a handful of those, as well.)
Rodney Blake thinks several stories are "powerful, adventurous and astrological."
Roxy B wants people to know she's a sci fi fan, and she also likes several other genres.
Brenda Wisdom had 26 words to share: "The story, with a mind-blowing start, leads to gripping and fascinating astral discoveries. Its foundation in reality makes the characters and the situations they encounter incredible." She, at least, has favorited several of the authors she's reviewed. And all of her reviews are different, if short.
Hers was the longest review for "The Alien Artifact." ALL of the reviews are five stars. All the reviewers I looked at, only gave five-star reviews to everything they reviewed.
Is there some sign-up-reviewers service going on somewhere? "Give coupon for free ebook; receiver promises to leave a five-star review on your ebook?" I knew about pay-for-comments jobs, where people pay 10¢ or so per comment on a blog or forum, in order to drive up SEO, but hadn't thought that was really possible on a site like SW, where you have to purchase the book (well, author could give you a code for that), and the reviewers would wind up with a copy of the book, which can be bootlegged.
I'd run across hints of this before—clusters of reviews on books I didn't think had caught that much attention, while awesome books languished—but this was the first time I noticed swarms of fake reviews.
(Okay, maybe technically they're not "fake." Maybe all those reviewers really are so unimaginative that they can't think of a different way to describe two different books they liked. We all know how rare a diverse vocabulary and active imagination are among sci-fi readers, right?)
I suppose I should figure out how to write Mark Coker an email about this. I'm not sure what it could say; I don't think anyone's breaking any of the rules on the site. If they got a free copy for the review, they're potentially breaking the law by not admitting that—but "got a free review copy" is so common in book industries that I can't bring myself to think of it as unethical.
Getting a free copy to leave a one-line five-star review, is unethical. And review farms kill the whole point of having a "highest rated" board, and make it hard to find the ebooks that really are well-liked. But I can't think of any way to even phrase a rule about "you can't just give a five-star review because the author wants that from you."
I know that, in the future, I'll be ignoring short, bland reviews when I'm considering buying at Smashwords. If the reviewer doesn't say something that convinces me they actually read the book, I won't consider it relevant. If there are no reviews that hint at anything negative in the book, I'll be convinced that the author has no real sales, or at least, no sales to anyone who enjoyed the book enough to want to help other readers decide if they'd like it. (Negative can include, "this is for people who like fast-paced adventure" which implies that those who like slow-building romances might seek elsewhere for their reading entertainment.) And I'll poke through the TOS to find out if there's anything reportable going on here.
I've looked at the freebies and 100%-off coupon-codes a while ago, and picked up some of those; now I was willing to look at the ones that weren't free. But where to start? Smashwords lists in publication order, which is useless for finding The Good Stuff. Aha! Maybe it's time to look at the "highest rated" sort option that I've never figured out!
I made an interesting discovery.
Top book listed under the July Sale, Highest Rated, is called "The Alien Artifact 2," which seems weird. However, the second-highest is "The Alien Artifact" by V Bertolaccini, with an average of 5 stars and 43 reviews. It's sci-fi. I like sci-fi, so that's worth taking a look at.
Huh. Lots of one-line reviews delivered long after purchase. (Smashwords indicates how long it was between purchase & review.) Hm. Maybe the author ran a promo thing on his blog, saying "if you downloaded my free book last year, please go drop a review at Smashwords." They seem a bit… bland, I guess, so I clicked on a few of the review authors to see what else they liked, and how they talked about other books. I picked a few male-sounding names and a few female-sounding names.
WHOA.
Meg Sharp said, "I enjoyed this. Whilst the story progressed it improved, and became more courageous, whilst adventurous."
Problem is, she said THAT EXACT SAME THING about four different books, none of which were written by the two authors she favorited.
M Spellman said, "Great story, and enchanting book. Recommended!" He also said that about Dating a Cougar (which is an accurate enough statement, IMHO), and he said two other books are "Excellent novel! Highly recommended!" And for two others, he says "A perfect adventure and action thriller that explores the theme of the world’s position on terrorism getting out of hand, and a classic of the genre."
Daniel Sarkoszy said, "A skilfully constructed story with an artistic edge. Parts made me laugh. I love it." For another book, he said, "Totally captivating. Skilfully constructed story with a artistic edge. Parts made me laugh. I loved it." And a third: "Skilfully constructed story with a artistic edge. Parts made me laugh. I loved it."
Karen Wulwik thinks several books have good concepts behind them, and they deliver the goods.
Julia Franklin says that she thoroughly enjoys books with writing that is elegant but somehow sparse, which means not a single word is superfluous—and has found five different books that fit that description. (She also likes books that are "adventurous and great," and has found a handful of those, as well.)
Rodney Blake thinks several stories are "powerful, adventurous and astrological."
Roxy B wants people to know she's a sci fi fan, and she also likes several other genres.
Brenda Wisdom had 26 words to share: "The story, with a mind-blowing start, leads to gripping and fascinating astral discoveries. Its foundation in reality makes the characters and the situations they encounter incredible." She, at least, has favorited several of the authors she's reviewed. And all of her reviews are different, if short.
Hers was the longest review for "The Alien Artifact." ALL of the reviews are five stars. All the reviewers I looked at, only gave five-star reviews to everything they reviewed.
Is there some sign-up-reviewers service going on somewhere? "Give coupon for free ebook; receiver promises to leave a five-star review on your ebook?" I knew about pay-for-comments jobs, where people pay 10¢ or so per comment on a blog or forum, in order to drive up SEO, but hadn't thought that was really possible on a site like SW, where you have to purchase the book (well, author could give you a code for that), and the reviewers would wind up with a copy of the book, which can be bootlegged.
I'd run across hints of this before—clusters of reviews on books I didn't think had caught that much attention, while awesome books languished—but this was the first time I noticed swarms of fake reviews.
(Okay, maybe technically they're not "fake." Maybe all those reviewers really are so unimaginative that they can't think of a different way to describe two different books they liked. We all know how rare a diverse vocabulary and active imagination are among sci-fi readers, right?)
I suppose I should figure out how to write Mark Coker an email about this. I'm not sure what it could say; I don't think anyone's breaking any of the rules on the site. If they got a free copy for the review, they're potentially breaking the law by not admitting that—but "got a free review copy" is so common in book industries that I can't bring myself to think of it as unethical.
Getting a free copy to leave a one-line five-star review, is unethical. And review farms kill the whole point of having a "highest rated" board, and make it hard to find the ebooks that really are well-liked. But I can't think of any way to even phrase a rule about "you can't just give a five-star review because the author wants that from you."
I know that, in the future, I'll be ignoring short, bland reviews when I'm considering buying at Smashwords. If the reviewer doesn't say something that convinces me they actually read the book, I won't consider it relevant. If there are no reviews that hint at anything negative in the book, I'll be convinced that the author has no real sales, or at least, no sales to anyone who enjoyed the book enough to want to help other readers decide if they'd like it. (Negative can include, "this is for people who like fast-paced adventure" which implies that those who like slow-building romances might seek elsewhere for their reading entertainment.) And I'll poke through the TOS to find out if there's anything reportable going on here.
no subject
Edited to add I just came across this next on the flist: http://www.dailydot.com/news/romney-buying-twitter-followers/
no subject
I have no problem imagining a few authors doing this. The author who wrote the book this post is about, has three or four others full of comments that look the same.
What's getting me is that there are several authors/books that look like this, and I didn't think there was an 'author review forum' where authors hired reviewers for this kind of thing.
reviews and free books
Links are here (http://carmenspage.blogspot.com/p/free-ebook.html).
I also follow reviews closely (not just reviews of my own books!) and I find the number and kind of reviews someone has written are very revealing. People who have written only one review ever, tend to write the "Wow, this is a fantastic book! You should buy it right away" kind of review, with no real mention of plot or characters. To me, that just screams "Thanks so much for the review, Uncle Bernie." I also suggests Uncle Bernie never actually read the book!
Carmen Wesbter Buxton (http://carmenspage.blogspot.com/)
Re: reviews and free books
(Anonymous) 2015-04-04 09:54 pm (UTC)(link)Whenever you have a rating system you will have this problem. Their are some technical things you can apply but they too have limits. For example, if they restricted one review per I.P then others in the household couldn't review the same book. If the ISP rotates the I.P's then that is only one review from that provider.
Readers are human. It is very easy to download a free or paid Ebook. Go away and go, wow that was great. Often you will think, I will rate that when I'm on next time. Of course, next time is like looking outside at the lawns and it starts to rain...
Ratings (and reviews) lift the book from the chasm of the list. The biggest hits you will every have will be when you're on that front page and that is something that will always be something we factor in when we market.