on Just Publishing Advice:
They are infuriating, annoying, and often stupid. They are unfair, depressing, and disheartening.
But bad book reviews are one of the harsh realities of being a published author today.
If you’re a seasoned author, you know what I’m talking about.
If you are a new author who is about to publish your first book, you will come to know soon enough.
In This Article
Customer reviews
A book review asks; does the book work for me?
A customer review is different
The worst of the worst
Free ebooks can attract negative reviews
Here we go again!
It’s only a review
Conclusion
Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog 
I jumped across & read the piece – sound advice. Reviews by readers are, indeed, customer comment and not discursive review essays. I write the latter myself, professionally. Although I have to say even the professional reviews have long been weaponised – here in New Zealand, books are often given to another expert in the field to review, and because that expert is also likely to be a competing author, their agenda frequently comes out – all clad in the usual passive-aggressive worth denial mechanisms of the academy, of course. Sigh.
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When I’m buying something I look at three-star and two-star reviews more than the 5-star ones.
Shortly “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains” came out in 2003 a local Antismoker saw a story about it in the local paper on a Tuesday. Well, gee, Wednesday afternoon one of my earliest reviews showed up on Amazon:
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Reviewer: Marion Sales
1 Star
Review: “The paper on this vanity press production is soft and absorbent, but despite repeated applications, this never leaves me feeling completely clean “down there.” ”
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Heh, I actually kind of LIKED it because it was so creative, and it served as a very nice contrast the for four other all-5-star reviews at the time. The “Reviewer’s” name btw was the name of a local used car dealership… not a person.
Oddly enough, after it sat there for about five years Amazon removed it without my asking!
– MJM, who’s run into a couple of weird super negatives with his TobakkoNacht! book ten years later as well.
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I always think just lots of 5 star reviews looks rather suspicious anyway!
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