The notion of posting online customer reviews of products and
\nservices \u2014 such as is done on Angie\u2019s List and Amazon \u2014 has some
\ntroubling flaws.<\/p>\n
I will focus here on Amazon since I have never used Angie\u2019s
\nlist \u2026 and as an author, I have a lot of exposure to the reviews
\nposted on Amazon.<\/p>\n
The first problem is what book marketing guru John Kremer,
\nauthor of the classic \u201c1,001 Ways to Market Your Book,\u201d calls
\n\u201cagenda-driven reviews.\u201d<\/p>\n
One example is when I am looking at the page on Amazon for some
\nmarketing guru\u2019s new book and I see immediately two dozen
\nfive-star reviews and nothing lower.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t help notice that virtually all the reviewers are the
\nauthor\u2019s friends, associates, joint venture partners, and
\naffiliates.<\/p>\n
The reviewers\u2019 agenda is clear: to help the author hype his
\nbook. The motive? To have the author reciprocate and do the same
\nfor them.<\/p>\n
The opposite situation is when the reviewer clearly has a grudge
\neither against the author or his philosophy or ideas \u2014 and posts
\na one-star review for what any sensible person would agree is a
\nsolid, good book on the topic.<\/p>\n
The second problem with the Amazon review system is that,
\nincredibly, I have seen a number of reviews where the reviewer
\nsays she has not read the book yet but will get to it soon \u2014 and
\namazingly, Amazon has let the review stand.<\/p>\n
Can you imagine a book reviewer for the New York Times Book
\nReview writing in his review that he has not yet read the book
\nin question?<\/p>\n
The third problem, which brings up a broader issue I will
\naddress in a minute, is reviews written by reviewers who are
\nunqualified to evaluate the book in question. A related problem
\nis when the reviewer\u2019s comments are just plain stupid or
\ntrivial.<\/p>\n
I subscribe to the New York Review of books, and if they are
\nrunning a review of a new biography of Abraham Lincoln, the
\nreviewer they hire will most certainly be a historian or
\npresidential biographer or Lincoln scholar.<\/p>\n
But on Amazon, you can post a review of a book on woodworking
\neven if you have never in your life driven a nail into a 2X4.<\/p>\n
And in your Amazon review, you can blatantly say things that are
\nwrong, because Amazon doesn\u2019t seem to check it or prevent it
\nfrom being published.<\/p>\n
As for stupid or trivial comments: one of my books got a
\none-star review because the reader did not like the paper it was
\nprinted on.<\/p>\n
The reason I like traditional print media like newspapers,
\nmagazines, and published books is that the authors and their
\nwritings are vetted by editors and publishers.<\/p>\n
A columnist for PC Magazine once wisely observed: \u201cThe worst
\nthing about the Internet is that anyone and everyone can publish
\nanything to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Internet in general and social media in particular
\nencourages the belief that everyone is entitled to their
\nopinion. And it has given those people a vehicle for easily
\npublishing those views, no matter how wrong or inane.<\/p>\n
Writer Harlan Ellison correctly states: \u201cEveryone is not
\nentitled to their opinion. They are entitled to their informed
\nopinion.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cInformed opinion\u201d means you have some experience, knowledge,
\nqualifications, or credentials in the subject you are writing
\nabout.<\/p>\n
For instance, is it OK for me to write a negative review of a
\nbook on home schooling if I have never tried the author\u2019s
\nmethods or worse, never home-schooled my kids \u2014 or even worse,
\ndon\u2019t even have kids? I think not. But I can do it on Amazon all
\nday long. And so can you and everyone else reading this e-mail.<\/p>\n
If the NY Times Book Review hired me to review a book on home
\nschooling, you can bet I would have to be a parent and probably
\na pediatrician or parenting writer to get the gig.<\/p>\n
Another example: I once was hired to write a direct mail package
\nbeing mailed to engineers selling them a membership in a
\nprofessional society.<\/p>\n
The client gave it to a dozen people to review. Many of them
\nsuggested changes that made no sense to me, mainly based on the
\nfact that they did not understand some of the technical topics
\ndiscussed in the letter \u2014 for instance, why chemical engineers
\nwant to increase process yields.<\/p>\n
It turned out that none of the reviewers was an engineer. As
\nsuch, I considered their opinion as to what would or would not
\nengage engineers to be extremely uninformed.<\/p>\n
The only one involved in the creation of the DM package who was
\nin fact an engineer was the copywriter \u2014 me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The notion of posting online customer reviews of products and services \u2014 such as is done on Angie\u2019s List and Amazon \u2014 has some troubling flaws. I will focus here on Amazon since I have never used Angie\u2019s list \u2026 and as an author, I have a lot of exposure to the reviews posted on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1013"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1014,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013\/revisions\/1014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}