Well, It looks like the good times are over!

[bdrosen]

I'm going to try to address a number of points, which likely means that I won't do a good job at addressing any of them.

1 Bad reviews on amazon:

As I've stated earlier in a forum post, there are a number of steps that can be taken, including having people who liked the book post a positive review (I did this), downvote the negative reviews (I did this as well) and add comments to the negative reviews refuting points that can obviously be refuted (others have done this). In some cases if the reviewer violates the Amazon Terms of Use, report abuse may also be appropriate, but that standard requires more than just a bad review.

That being said, there are some books that truly do deserve a one star review. I've personally never given one, but I have definitely read some books where a one star review would have been appropriate. For those books, a one star review is not an attack, but honest feedback to help other readers. Remember that the purpose of reviews is different for readers then it is for authors. For authors, it is primarily to drive sales and secondarily to get reader feedback on things that worked well or things that could be improved. For readers it is to help them determine if they want to purchase and read a particular book.

None of that addresses whether these particular reviews are honest unbiased opinions, or attacks by an author to sabotage sales. If they are attacks by an author, then they should be removed as I believe Amazon prohibits authors from posting reviews for this very reason. However, I'm not sure how you would be able to determine definitively if that is the case. Perhaps one way to tell is to look at other reviews by the same person to look for patterns. If they mostly are low reviews, that may be an indicator.

Dale I noticed that you posted responses to the negative reviews. I'm not sure I would recommend that, as I've seen this turn out poorly pretty much every time an author has done so before as it brings you down to their level.

2 Recent comments on the forum:

I don't see how my comments are being taken as attacks. (assuming my comments were also being included with RyanM's) My comments were basically:

a) Make a minor change to the description to call attention to the previous books which addresses most of the legitimate issues of the first negative review and providing less fodder for future potential attacks. This information is already available in other comments written by positive reviewers. Plus I think that these books are better when they are read in chronological order. That is not to say that they are bad when read as stand alones.

b) With regards to things that can be smoothed out. I don't think that this is the first time I have raised this issued as I am sure that I have mentioned some of these issues before when sending comments for pre-edit. As with those previous comments, I have always offered these comments to make the stories stronger and not to tear them down. If I didn't think the stories were good, I would not spend many extra hours and days with this process nor purchase and read every book you have published, including all of the ones that I pre-read, simply to make sure you got an extra sale. Also, as per this discussion you will notice that I basically said I think this is difficult to change and something that is common to most authors, and is really a function of readers reading so many books by an author. Finally, I stated that as it was I think this was the difference between the current 4.5 star book and a potential 5 star book, but that I wouldn't want to sacrifice the extra 5 months needed to polish up inconsequentials to get an extra half star.

c) Location of comments. All of my comments that I consider constructive and which you may consider negative were either made privately via email or in the forum. This is done deliberately as comments made on the book pages as part of reviews have more visibility and can decrease sales if negative. This goes along with the idea of praise publicly, correct privately. (The forum is semi-private) This probably means I need to be better about posting positive book reviews on amazon as a general par for the course.

3 Reactions to comments on the forum:

I obviously can't control how you feel reading these comments and I am sorry if something I said pissed you off. However, I and many others would be disappointed if you stopped writing. That being said, this is why I had said previously on the forum that being a published author required courage. Authors will get criticism (legitimate or otherwise) and need to be able to have a thick skin to deal with it. Some authors like John Scalzi even take pride in negative reviews:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/04/24/m ... tar-rific/
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/06/19/a ... redshirts/
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/07/17/b ... hould-you/
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/09/26/t ... e-reviews/

I personally think that how he handles it is one of the healthiest ways I have seen, although I doubt that I would be able to do so myself if I were him.

That being said, I do think that some of your responses here have been a bit over the top and are as much an attack, if not more so than the comments you are responding to, so that seems like you are doing the very thing you are condemning.

[PS Power]

You don't see anything that you've said as a bit off? Of course not. Also, if I'm not on any other systems (Google books, Smashwords, Applebooks, or whatever) which I'm not, then any book bought, even if returned, will show up as a verified purchase. I checked that with Amazon.com.

So, they could not have read the books they reviewed. In my book since they took drastic actions and tried to push other sales away from my work, that counts as both fake and an attack.

Really though, do you think that the work is one star quality? Unless a book harms the reader, no one should ever seek to drive readership from it. People that do that aren't good people. They aren't well meaning, helpful or trying to help others. They're pretty much trolls. At best. In this case, I think they aren't even real people. Just fake accounts, meant to be used for hit reviews.

*Okay, some people are simply thoughtless and don't understand what they are really doing. They give hard reviews, slaying a books chances for success, unthinking, based on small things. They don't know that's how it works, or don't believe it, even if they're told. They may not all be bad. Fake is always wrong, however.

[PS Power]

I know, I know. Growl, grumbple and grump. Don't take this personally. I wouldn't have blinked at people saying these things in a different context, after all. It's just a combination of things.

When attacked, my tendency is to attack back. So once it starts, no matter where that is, even small things can seem major. Which doesn't mean I'm wrong, just that I'd normally be nicer about things and not care about them nearly as much.

[bdrosen]

No I don't see that I've said anything a bit off. If I did, I wouldn't have said it in the first place, right?

What about read for free with kindle unlimited or try it free? Do you get notified of those as well? I can see you getting notified for read for free, but not for try it for free. That means that they could have read the first few pages right? Based on the comments, it looks like "Ron" has at least read some portion of at least some of your books (or is good at faking it) and it looks like Elaine has at least read a bit of the book too as she mentioned working the embassy the 2nd night. That does not mean that the reviews are not fake, it just means that if they are fake, they put a lot of effort into it.

Of course I don't particularly think the work is one star worthy, which makes sense seeing that I gave it a 5 star rating. Based on the comments themselves, I would say the ratings for Ron should have been at least a three and Elaine should have been at least a two, and that is only because the description didn't mention the previous books. If the description had mentioned them, it should have been a three.

To me a one star review would be for a book that is completely unreadable and would have no redeeming qualities. This would mean no attempt at editing (either by the writer or volunteers), extremely poor grammar, awful plot, continuity errors, simple things wrong like talking about universe when you mean solar system or traveling through the galaxy at sublight speed but it only taking weeks or months. I'm having a hard time thinking of one off the top of my head, but I know I have encountered a few.

That being said, books can harm readers. Some examples:

1 Waste of reader's time and money. The money issue may not be relevant since with kindle you can easily return it or even try it for free, but this was more of an issue with paper books previously. The waste of time is still valid.

2 Copyright infringement. You see this on amazon occasionally with some random person putting up a book by other authors as if they wrote it.

3 Some people would argue that subject matter can be harmful. For example, google trigger warning. Not sure I buy this completely though - I saw a good article debunking this a while back that I wish I could find the URL for. At the very least, I've read books that I've found disturbing and wished afterwards that I didn't read.

That being said, if there was a book that I absolutely hated because it was disturbing and I wished that I had not read it, I would not rate it a one star. It may not be a book I liked, but it likely meant that it was at least well done technically since it stayed in my head and haunted me. In that case I would likely rate it higher as at least a three or four, but still put a warning in the comment along the lines of "this book is well written but it wasn't to my taste because ..."

[PS Power]

No. If Amazon gives you the book, no matter how, it's a verified purchase. So borrows count too, as far as anyone has been able to determine.

It would take about ten minutes (or less) of scanning in order to put that together. Claiming they read 32% or 20% is designed to make you think they read the book. If they only looked at the peek inside feature, then they're lying about that, which shows ill intent, if nothing else. I don't know, not having checked, is the thing with Eve and the embassy in the check inside portion? If so, that's probably your answer right there. I'll go do that now.

The other option is that one of you, from here, gave them a copy of the book (from the editing portion of things) or that one of you is the person themselves. I suppose that could be the case. I'd like to think people were kinder than that, but the world is also filled with people that only think of their own needs and desires, so, it's possible. Probably not that one however, since it would be too much work.

[PS Power]

I checked the look inside. It didn't have that part, so it's one of the other options. Interesting.

So, who stole the strawberries?

[bdrosen]

That is odd. I had just checked the same thing and saw that the scene was not included in the look inside as well. Like you said, they are not listed as verified purchasers like most of the other reviewers either. That pretty much has to mean one of the following:

1 There is some other loophole here where they could view it via amazon, although I don't see how.

2 They purchased it in a different country version of amazon like Australia. Not sure this would be possible, as there does appear to be linkages between the sites, plus this does not make much sense.

3 They purchased it under a different account not linked to the reviewing account for deniability. (ie the purchasing account was associated with an author)

4 They got a free copy from somebody who either got a pre-read copy or who purchased it. Since I doubt that they got this via a pirate site, that likely means they got it directly.

Since 1 and 2 look to be unlikely, then I have to agree that it is looking increasingly like ill intent. Purchasing it under another account, for the two negative reviews, would definitely be suspicious.

Looking at the Reviews by Ron, I see that for other books, he is listed as a verified purchaser, but not for yours. He also had a negative review of On the Line which was also not verified, but there is enough in there for it to look like he is actually a legitimate reader, who may have gotten free copies but just didn't like these two books. If so, he should have at least given the books he did like positive ratings. He is also listed as following you on Amazon. So, I don't think he is part of an organized effort to downgrade the books, but is just being thoughtless since he could have shared the same opinions here or via email and probably should not have given them only one star even if he did not like them.

Looking at Elaine's profile, I see that she has some verified purchases, but a few others than yours are not. That seems to mean that she has some way of getting copies of books other than your without them showing up on Amazon. This means that she would have been more likely to purchase under a second account I think, which means that she is more likely to have ill intent.

So I don't think the two reviewers are related, but I would definitely be interested to see if either of them respond with comments about how they got copies of the books such that the reviews don't show up as verified. Not responding would likely be informative as well.

[PS Power]

Not exactly. There are people that specialize in getting around amazon.com's system and hire out. You can look that up if you want. Everything you said fits that profile exactly. In fact, MOST of the time the people actually buy the book. It's really suspicious that they didn't.

You have no way to state that the two reviewers aren't related, or the same person even. Or hired by the same person. (To be fair, I don't know that either.) Not responding... Well, that means nothing. Do people even check the comments on their old reviews?

Responding could mean anything as well. An innocent person that truly believed all they said, say due to mental illness, or other problems, might respond vehemently. So might a guilty person, trying to seem innocent.

*I've give all of that some thought. There is a feel that you can get from things that hold ill intent toward you however. It's a lot harder to notice form the outside. For instance, when I got a bit snippy with you over what you wrote, you noticed it, didn't you? You took it personally and it had greater weight than it would for someone casually reading it. These really do have that kind of feeling to them. Unfortunately, there's very, very little I can do about it, either way. The recommended response, from Amazon.com is to address them in the comments section, by the way.

So that's well within the rules.

As for purchases from over seas, unless they made a point of having an American account, but bought overseas, they couldn't put a review up. Possible, but it's about the same as having a second account for nefarious reasons. (As the normal response would be to put the review up on their home country's site.)

As for following me, that means nothing in particular, other than that this person used that account for a similar reason before. There were no positive reviews, only negative ones? Do you follow authors that you only hold in disdain? No. That would ridiculous. Possible, but... Not exactly something that really would happen.

[Korwin]

[PS Power]

If only I could learn to write in German.

Also: Yay! You have a review!