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Unread 12-17-2019, 06:59 PM
Susan McLean Susan McLean is offline
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Location: Iowa City, IA, USA
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Default Review of Jehanne Dubrow's Dots & Dashes

I have written another mini-review of a good poetry book. I was shocked to learn that Amazon now does not allow people to write reviews of Amazon products unless they have ordered at least $50 of merchandise from Amazon in the past year. When I first went to post the review, I could not, but later I ordered more things and was given permission to post reviews again. I am flabbergasted at this new twist, because I think writing a review actually is helpful to Amazon, as well as to the book in question. Perhaps they are trying to weed out fake reviews, but if so, this method is no guarantee that the reviewer is legitimate. Here is the link to my review:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-r...SIN=080933609X

Susan
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Unread 12-20-2019, 06:13 PM
Vera Ignatowitsch Vera Ignatowitsch is offline
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Very informative review, Susan. Thank you for the link.

The info about writing Amazon reviews is shocking. More and more online content is offered based on 'pay to play' but reviews on Amazon are often helpful to others. They are forever soliciting reviews from customers, which is fine for most merchandise, but it does not make sense to apply it to books. An erudite and articulate review is helpful to shoppers, whether the reviewer read the book through the local library, received it as a gift, etc. They do answer the phone, act on problems, and invite feedback (in my experience,) so perhaps we should all express that view to them.

I suppose that requiring some history does guard against people opening new fake accounts in order to post something, but equating that requirement with minimum shopping dollars does not seem right. There are people who do not have the means to do much online shopping. In Canada shipping might cost more than the item being purchased, whereas it might be available locally for less. This is no longer the case with most books though. However pleasant it is to hear occasionally of a few indie bookstore revivals, finding exactly the book(s) one wants likely requires specifically asking a bookstore to order it and then returning when it is in. Unless you do that frequently, the bookstore is also likely to neglect notifying you.

As a shut in, that option is not open to me. I try to bookshop Amazon.ca when possible because of shipping costs, but more than half the poetry books I want aren't stocked here.

Enough of that. Your review (together with your poem) put the book on my (always too long) wishlist.

Best,
Vera
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Unread 12-21-2019, 12:52 PM
Susan McLean Susan McLean is offline
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Vera, thanks for the news about getting good responses from Amazon by calling. I had not done so yet, not being optimistic about seeing results, but I think I will give it a try. I confess that because I have access to a very large and well-stocked university library, I read many poetry books from that collection. However, the University of Iowa Library does not tend to order formalist poetry, so I find that I have to buy many of the books that I most want to read, and most of those are also not carried in the local bookstores. I buy a large selection of books when I attend poetry conferences (such as West Chester and Poetry by the Sea), but still wind up getting some books through Amazon.

For poetry reviews, I am always disappointed by the short "I liked this" sort of review one often gets on Amazon. I always want to know why someone liked it and even to get some idea of the kind of poems that the collection contains. I am trying to write the sort of short but informative review that I want to read.

Susan
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