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.
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