Week 5 Prompt

How does a lack of professional reviews affect eBook only books – especially in the romance genre?

A lack of professional reviews, or being forced to rely on a small number of professional reviews that can be difficult to locate (or only for specific genres) can make it challenging for title selectors at libraries to make properly informed decisions when purchasing items to add to their library’s collection. A professional review may include elements left out by an amateur reviewer or reader.

How reliable are the Amazon and Blog reviews for the eBook only romantic suspense novel? Do they follow the guidelines Erin talked about in her presentation? How likely would you be to buy this book for your library?

Personally, I don’t feel that the Amazon user review and Blog review are as reliable as professional reviews, but I do strongly feel that a selector (and conscientious reader) must take advantage of some type of review prior to reading or purchasing a title. I felt that the Amazon.com review made overarching generalizations about the book from the first sentence: “…Kelly Wallace confirms her reputation as a novelist of great distinction.” Really? Because this is an eBook author that I’ve never heard of, and this reviewer’s idea of a novel of ‘great distinction’ might be completely different than mine! The quality of the language of the review on Amazon is higher than that of the one found on the blog.

One thing that I found interesting about the Amazon review is that it was written by ‘Professor Emeritus’ Dr. Leonard Rosmarin. What, pray, is Dr. Rosmarin a professor of? This reviewer could have a specialty in Anthropology, for all we know! I took it upon myself to Google the professor to find out more about his background. It turns out that he is a professor of French Literature, and he has written ten books. This makes me feel more confident about his review of the eBook in question.

I went back and reread the guidelines from Erin’s presentation, which actually come form author John Updike:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's ouevre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

I tried to look for each individual element at a time as I read each review. I found that neither review included an actual quotation from the book itself, let alone an extended passage. In this aspect, neither reviewer followed Updike’s guidelines, but at the same time, neither reviewer revealed the ending of the book, which is a plus.

I really don’t know how if I would purchase this book for my library or not. Our eBook collection is fuelled by patron interest, reviews and what publishers and vendors predict will popular. We try to base eBook selections on what people are actually checking out. Romantic novels are very popular at my library in eBook format. I believe that this is due to the anonymity of their check out – women don’t need to be seen browsing the romance area of the library or checking out paperbacks with covers of half naked men of them if they don’t want to – they can enjoy shirtless men on horseback from the privacy of their own homes. If this book were available for purchase, if the cost was not too high, and there was patron interest, I might purchase it for the collection at my library.

How do the Angela’s Ashes reviews make you feel about the possibility of adding Angela’s Ashes to your collection?

The reviews of Angela’s Ashes would make me more inclined to add this title to my library’s collection than not having reviews. For example, The review by Malcolm  Jones from Newsweek states that the title is a ‘splendid memoir,’ and that ‘it is only the best storyteller who can so beguile his readers that he leaves them wanting more when he’s done.’ This title has been immensely popular at my library since its publication as a hot title for book discussion groups, and fans of Joyce have tended to show an interest in Frank McCourt’s work.

Do you think it’s fair that one type of book is reviewed to death and other types of books get little to no coverage? How does this affect a library’s collection? And how do you feel about review sources that won’t print negative content? Do you think that’s appropriate?

I really don’t think it’s fair that one type of book is reviewed many times over while other types getting minimal (or no) coverage whatsoever. I don’t think that this is genre specific, however. If a selector relies heavily on reviews for acquisitions, a lack of reviews for a title could negatively affect the collection if a title that would have been of interest to patrons or added value to the collection was not selected due to a lack of reviews of any kind. Furthermore, titles with numerous reviews (especially positive ones) could make a selector more inclined to choose a title, when it might not be appropriate for the collection.

I follow author Anne Rice on Facebook, and she recently posted an article about how negative reviews can affect authors (she specifically spoke about Amazon user reviews.) You can read this interesting take from a popular author here: http://sumikosaulson.com/2012/08/18/anne-rice-regarding-the-amazon-review/

One of the quotes form Rice that struck me from this article was that ‘authors have told me [Rice] they will not go on Amazon at all. They’ve been so devastated by the savage reviews there that they simply can’t.’ One of my close friends self-publishes in eBooks only format on Amazon, and he has told me that despite feeling like a part of himself is being ripped out and stomped on whenever he reads a negative or scathing review, he is often able to use it as a reflection tool to build upon and better his work.

I also found this Facebook post from Rice regarding negative reviews to be of interest:

Guys, I am always open to publishing negative reviews of my work for consideration, to balance the many positive reviews to which I link. But the negative reviewer must bring the review here and request it. When I've linked to negative reviews for discussion, some of the reviewers in question have felt that they were unfairly targeted; and they have objected to some of the comments made on their reviews. It just doesn't work. So I no longer volunteer any negative review, no matter how well written, for discussion. Again, reviewers are welcome to bring their reviews to the page, and post links and offer them for discussion. Same with blog posts. I might not repost every single one; but I'm happy to see them posted on the page and to read them and consider them for reposting. – Anne Rice, Facebook, January 2^nd, 2014

I don’t feel that it’s appropriate at all for a resource to not allow negative reviews. However, I do think that a negative review should be published simultaneously with a positive review (if one is to be found.)

If you buy for your library, how often do you use reviews to make your decisions? If not, how do you feel about reviews for personal reading, and what are some of your favorite review sources?

Unfortunately (and thankfully?) I am not a title selector at my library, but I was able to interview a reference librarian (in charge of a large Dewey selection of the collection) and a children’s librarian. Both librarians informed me that they take into account both professional reviews (Kirkus, Book Review, etc) and user reviews, but that user reviews have been making more of an impact on them with the advent of Amazon and GoodReads reviews.

Personally, I use GoodReads and Amazon reviews for locating reviews for titles. However, I’ve found that I need to take many reviews with a grain of salt, just as I do with restaurant reviews on Yelp or UrbanSpoon. Some restaurants that I absolutely love are only rated 3 stars, and I don’t understand why the reviewers can rate them so low – and the same goes with some of my favorite authors and series. For example, I enjoyed the last Sookie Stackhouse book from Charlaine Harris. However, SO many readers gave such an overwhelmingly negative response on Amazon that Harris herself ended up posting on Facebook a response to the criticism. I think that user reviews can help guide you to a book you might otherwise be questioning (reader RA), but you can’t always trust the judgment of other readers.