earlemerson.com

Recently in a forum for writers I read a post from somebody bemoaning the fact that her British sales had plummeted to nothing. She attributed this to the one review the book received in Britain, an on-line review from a purported reader. In the review the critic admitted they hadn’t  read the book. That didn’t stop them from rating it with one star. And that one-star brought UK sales to a halt.

It is my understanding that Amazon has taken measures to make sure authors don’t blitz their own books with favorable reviews by checking out the IP address of review writers and blocking more than one review from the same IP listing. They are protecting the readers from unscrupulous authors but who’s protecting the authors from unscrupulous or just unthinking readers?

For my part I’ve received more than one on-line review  from readers who admitted they hadn’t read the book. One woman gave one of my books a one-star review based on the price, something I had no power over since it was decided by my New York publisher’s marketing department. It seemed to her that an electronic book should be a little less expensive. She hadn’t read the book. She hadn’t even bought it. She said as much in her review. Later, she posted a note, a comment on her own review, saying she finally read the book in question and loved it. The one-star rating still stands. Another “critic” wrote he liked all my other books, a lot, but didn’t care for the particular one he was reviewing. It was the only novel of mine he didn’t like and the only one he bothered to review. Gee, thanks.

If you want to do a favor for an author, if you want to see more work from an author, write a favorable review after reading one of their tomes. This doesn’t have to take a lot of time. Just a few minutes.  If you review one of my books, I will definitely read it. If you want an answer from this author, include a copy of the review in an e-mail to me and I’d be glad to correspond. I answer all of my e-mail within a week, sometimes within the hour. Cheers.