Reviewing on Amazon
 

I've mentioned before that I have resolved to do more reviewing on Amazon.com (or other online venues that sell books) when I have the time. I think it can be particularly helpful for poetry books, which often don't get many reviews, online or in print. I don't get much pleasure reading done when I am teaching (and if I read anything then, I don't have time to review it), but during breaks, if I happen to read a book I particularly like, I am trying to make time for writing a mini-review of it. I just posted one on Amazon for Ned Balbo's book The Trials of Edgar Poe and Other Poems. (If I sounded a bit formal in my mention of it on the thread about what people have been reading, it was because I was already in the process of writing my mini-review of it.)

So many of the famous print critics seem to take more pleasure in lambasting poets than in pointing out which ones are enjoyable to read, but I'm more interested in hearing what I might like than what I ought to avoid. If I were writing for a journal, I would feel I had to spend more time on it, and the review would most likely never get done. But I can usually write a mini-review in less than an hour. I have certainly appreciated hearing what other people on Eratosphere like. It has led me to many excellent poets that I might otherwise have missed. It is my assumption that the big online booksellers are the way to reach the largest number of readers. These online reviews can't take the place of the other, more-extensive reviews, which can send people looking for the books in the first place. But they may make a difference in terms of whether potential buyers end up buying the book they are considering. The more positive experiences people have when reading a poetry book, the more likely they are to pick up another one in the future.

Susan

Susan has never been more right. We need to speak up for the kind of work we love.

Here, here! I know how grateful I am for Susan's lovely review of Stateside on amazon. I'm certain that her kind and thoughtful words have sold copies of the book.

We do. But it will do nothing or almost nothing for sales.

Hear, hear, indeed, but although I would listen to Susan because I "know" her and respect her judgment, I don't pay any attention to the reviews on Amazon because they are mostly buddy reviews and it's easy to tell. Some are enemy reviews, of course, and those are equally easy to spot. If I want to find out more about a book, I look for reviews in places I believe to be more neutral such as literary magazines online, though not even then can one be sure.

I remember a Swedish writer once saying to me over lunch that one couldn't trust any reviews in the Stockholm papers because everyone had slept with everyone and either he/she was getting even for having been jilted or was making nice because he/she felt bad about dumping the author being reviewed.

This may or may not be true. And I am not casting aspersions on any reviewer anywhere. Stockholm excepted.

Amazon reviews of course are a mixed bag. Like Janice says, there are lots and lots of junk reviews. But there are well-considered thoughtful pieces too, like Susan’s on Ned Balbo, which makes me want to buy the book. It’s usually pretty easy to tell when the review is coming from the right place. I'm definitely swayed to buy a book at Amazon, when I am already considering it anyway, when there's an intelligent or sensitive take on it by someone who took the time to write a piece. I'm not so keen on the one-to-five stars system, though. I imagine a lot of potential buyers just glance at how many stars there are without reading much of the actual reviews.

I'm sure there is indeed a lot of log-rolling going on at Amazon, where there are no floodgates - and of course it happens in the magazines too. Someone recently asked us if we'd care to review his book, and when I agreed (the book looked interesting and came from without the usual places) he suggested that he might send it straight to a suitable reviewer himself rather than to me. I told him we don't do things like that, and have not heard from him since.

New Walk does not run reviews written by friends of an author, as far as possible; and I will probably never write for publication a review of a book by someone I know. Honest reviewers don't necessarily make many friends, and I am certain that a lot of reviewers are dishonestly nice in order to ingratiate themselves, which is lovely for everyone but the reader.

I would feel very differently about writing mini-reviews on Amazon, though, which sounds like an excellent way to toast work you admire regardless of where it has come from.

Maybe this is the place to announce Litrefs Reviews which is what I've been working on for the last 3 days. It's the blog version of the write-ups of all the books I've read in the last decade or so - sometimes a line - e.g. re Douglas Dunn - sometimes a few pages - e.g. re Don Paterson. They're often not measured reviews, though a few have been published.

So far, I have avoided writing about books by people I know well. It is hard to be objective when you know the person, and if one says nothing negative, readers are likely to assume that the review is a puff piece. I think that providing information about what is actually in the book, though, and what it does well, can help readers decide whether the book is likely to interest them. The least helpful reviews, in my opinion, are gushy ones that tell you more about the reviewer's enthusiasms than about the book itself.

Susan

Mars Needs Women

Huncke needs Amazon Reviews

Who Needs This?

All of the Above

I find product reviews very helpful when I am buying a toaster or a printer, but less so when I am looking for a book to read. There are so many crappy books out there with glowing reviews by Amazon users. Why would I be convinced by a review from someone I don't know? I don't think I've ever bought a book because of reader reviews on Amazon. And while Susan may admirably avoid reviewing books by people she knows well, I am quite certain that countless reviewers do not share her scruples. Many reviews you will find are by close friends, family members, or even the author, not to mention colleagues and friends from critique groups. At times the same friendly reviewer may review the book more than once, using different sign-ins. While it is indeed gratifying for an author to have ositive reviews accompany his listing, I'm not convinced it is an effective sales tool. Though, as usual, it should go without saying that I may be wrong.

Well...c'mon. Apparently Susan reviewed Jehanne's book. Which is great! I don't know how well Susan and Jehanne know each other, but they know each other. Their circles appear to me to be concentric. And they should review each other's books at Amazon.

My book did, in fact, get one Amazon review, a glowing review from a supportive friend who is also a poet and an editor of a journal we like and Quincy Lehr and a guy with a reputation who isn't going to just blow smoke in a public forum. I know of one sale prompted by that review. One is probably it, but that really doesn't matter as much as the review itself, which is much appreciated. It is a discussion of the work. I wish it were part of a conversation--that would be cooler than two sales.

Let's not take ourselves too seriously. An Amazon review, which is not the same thing as a review in a journal, can support a friend and a community of friends. No harm in that. And even a kind review gives a potential reader an idea of what the book is about. We all have reputations to consider, and none of us would just blow smoke in public. Further, no one expects anyone to review everything! Stellar reviews can and should be doled out with discrimination.

Personal note: I accept four star reviews.

RM

I am not questioning the integrity of Susan or Quincy, because I "know" them and trust them.

I am just talking about the general usefulness of Amazon reviews to influence me in book buying. There is also, if I remember correctly, a place on Amazon where one can post "information" about the author and I know at least one disreputable author who has written about himself in glowing terms.

Let's face it, Amazon is a commercial enterprise with a single goal, to sell as many books as possible.

They aren't good for independent bookstores, they aren't even good for books, since their business direction seems to be to replace books one can hold with kindle ebooks. From a business standpoint that is smart. No warehouse costs, no costly pulping of books that no one buys.

Many times I have looked for a book of poetry and found that a slim volume costs a thousand kronor or more, but hype messages suggest that instead I acquire Gossip Girl or someother dimwit book as an ebook for free and for nothing.

Amazon is not about literature. Amazon is about making money and that is fine by me as long as there are other businesses to provide competítion. But everybody knows what happens when a monopoly exists, when alternative markets are gone.

And everybody knows how much to trust a source that doesn't care who writes the reviews as long as someone buys the book.

Again, this is NOT a bash of Susan, Jehanne, Rick, Quincy or other honest and talented authors or reviewers.

Just saying.

But Janice, you're mixing politics with art. ~,:^)
RM

I agree with a lot of what you say, Janice, except for the swipe at e-books. I know we are all more than a little fond of holding traditional books in our hands, but I've had a Kindle now for two months and absolutely love it. The experience of reading on a Kindle is much more like reading a "real" book than reading off a computer screen, and just about everyone I know who has given the Kindle a try has agreed that it's a wonderful way to read.

Most of the time, the experience is very similar to reading a paper book, but there are benefits that paper does not offer, including (a) having up to 3,500 books and magazines available in a single 8 ounce reader wherever you go, (b) being able to bookmark and annotate what you read, (c) being able to instantly call up a dictionary definition of any word you read, (d) having instant access to countless thousands of free, public domain books, from the complete works of Shakespeare to Dickens to Wharton, and (e) being able to read the first chapter or two of just about every book, including new books, for free.

I agree with you about the limited utility of reader reviews on Amazon, but I don't see them as a problem so much as a feature that I don't care to make much use of. I'd rather have them than not, frankly. In independent bookstores, I often found books labeled as "staff picks," but I was never much influenced by the index cards in which some store clerk told me why a given book was worth my thirty dollars. Apart from not knowing the taste of the clerk, it was just as likely as it now is on Amazon that the pick was driven by sales factors or the comments were written by a friend.

One problem with the Kindle, by the way, is that poetry tends to be formatted incorrectly. So many Kindle books, including Wilbur's latest, leave out stanza breaks and have other grave errors. They claim that the Kindle format limits their options, but they are wrong. You can also put your own personal documents on Kindle, and I have done that with poetry and gotten it to be formatted correctly, so if I can do it, I can't see why Richard Wilbur's publisher can't do likewise. But for prose, Kindle is fabulous.

When I buy high-selling books from Amazon I pay close attention to the reviews. They get lots of reviews and you can mostly rely on the consensus, IMO.

Poetry books are different, of course, and you have to look closely at who says what about whom.

But, however, I thought Susan posted a very fair review of one of my books on Amazon, and she did not gush.

Best regards,

David

Oh, Amazon does suck, but take it from me, Janice, directing denizens of poetry boards to independent online booksellers who stock one's book results in zero sales. Almost every online sale of my book has been through Amazon.

There's another side to Amazon reviews, by the way, which Rick indicates--Amazon reviews can indicate interest in and engagement with a book. After all, clout from "official" sources doers not always equate with medium-term reader engagement. I'm rather gratified that my book has gotten a couple of recent positive notices in the blogosphere almost three years after its release, and that the thing continues to sell--in spite of virtually no Establishment support in the U.S.

But Rick, in England anyway, a reviewer and an author in a journal often know one another. Les Murray gives me a good review (bless him) and I certainly know him. We have drunk beer together in a hotel in Deal and eaten in a restaurant in Tonbridge. I 'know' though not well, the poetry editors at the Spectator and the Times Literary Supplement. They are both poets, and they both live in London which is only an hour away, so I would.
Probably in the States, the distances being longer, this sort of thing is less the case, but in, say, Dublin and Edinburgh it is much more so.

John,

I agree that it is completely appropriate for a reviewer to know the author she/he is reviewing. I didn’t say anything to contradict that, or mean to, when I said that an Amazon review and a journal review are different birds.

I look at it this way: When established writers publish books, The Times of New York finds it nearly impossible to come up with a “neutral reviewer” of any standing. The bigger the name, I assume, the more impossible it is to come up with someone who doesn’t know, or couldn’t gain by praising or slamming, the name.

Few of us are well known. We're poets, damn it! It's easy to get people to review us from Palookaville. But it's okay, in my book, if reviewers know the reviewed. Concentric circles, in fact, indicate a level of familiarity and understanding that is rare in Palookaville circles.

Also, I’m a trusting sort. So, when I read Susan’s review of David’s book at Amazon, I assume she is giving it to me straight. That’s just the way I am.

With a firm handshake across the Atlantic!

Rick

[No longer relevant.]

[It's all good!]

Peer review's an issue in academic science circles too. The people able to understand a specialist subject are likely to be either working with or against the paper's author. At the end of last year (in Nature, I think) it was reported that Peer reviewers got worse with age - partly complacency, perhaps, but also because people decline in general with age anyway.

What? I thought I was improving with age, like a fine wine...sigh...

But Julie, I suspect you are like fine wine: not drunk nearly often enough.

Comparing literary criticism to peer review in the sciences makes Jesus cry.

Reviews
 

Thanks, Susan, for taking the time to say a few words about Trials of Edgar Poe. If I were still actively reviewing, your kindness would prevent me from saying what I really think about The Best Disguise in print for fear of raising people's suspicions....! I admire the book a lot & hope others are stepping in to give it the critical attention it deserves.

I think the best reviews help clarify what a book is about, how it's written, what the writer's perspective is, rather than issue a summary judgment. Beyond miscellaneous pieces, I reviewed poetry regularly for Pleiades (8 years) & Antioch Review (most issues from '99-'09). I thought of myself not as someone upholding standards but as an experienced reader condensing my encounter with someone's collection into 500 or so words.

Reviewing in any forum is very important--especially when you consider all the very good collections that go unreviewed or insufficiently noticed.

I agree with what you say, though not with its inference that a review necessarily does one thing or the other. Too many reviewers are desperate to please and congratulate everything they review, and that can be nauseating, or (less often) see reviewing as a way to settle a score, which is even more nauseating.

Irrepressible optimist that I am, I love Amazon reviews. Convenience is their best selling feature: one can find onsite and links to offsite reviews right there and, if one encounters an objective, competent reviewer, one can click on the link to see other recommendations by that reviewer. I think it is a tremendous opportunity not in spite of the bogus reviews from authors themselves or their families or friends but because of these things. It's not like they've set the bar very high. The blurbers and assassins are transparent enough, often made so by the absence or ineffectiveness of examples. Frankly, I can't see that it would take long to establish one's trustworthiness in such a milieu, if one were so inclined. What I found most amusing was this:

LOL! Amazon must be the only literary venue where poor spelling and grammar enhances one's credibility!

I was a little surprised to see Amazon take so long to implement features, including reviewer assessments, which were in place years earlier on sites like Egoless and Zoetrope. No biggy, though.

Best regards,

Colin

Reviews
 

Hi, Rory, I don't mean to imply that reviews necessarily do one thing or the other. Actual reviews frequently fall into one category or the other, however: score-settling or mindless congratulation. My view reflects my own preference & practice--what I look for in a review--however imperfectly I achieve it. I've certainly read thoughtful pans that were smart and provocative--Adam Kirsch is very good at these--though I choose not to write them myself.