Are 5-star reviews from fellow writers counterproductive?
Apr 23rd, 2008 by Lynne
The recent discussions about review fraud on DearAuthor, SmartBitches, and Karen Scott’s blog have made me wonder if 5-star reviews from fellow writers actually work against the book instead of helping sales. For example, if I see a page full of glowing reviews and every last one of them comes from an author, I often wonder if there’s something wrong with the book, like maybe it’s so “meh” that sales are tanking and the author has put out a call-to-arms for her pals to artificially pump up her stats.
Like I was saying in the comments on another post here, I just don’t feel right about posting reviews for friends or for books I’ve critiqued in crit groups. If a prospective buyer of that book ever found out, I think my credibility would be shot, and so would the review’s. I want my friends’ books to do well, but I’m not sure that a review from a fellow writer adds anything to the sales pitch.
As in many, many other lines of business, the best way to increase sales is through word of mouth, and that comes from having a genuinely good product — recommended by people who have no interest in its success or that of its producer(s).
Lynne, Michelle told me about this post, so she must be a lurker. lol A couple of our co-bloggers have books out now and I was wondering if I should review them on Magical or not. Michelle quoted this blog and said probably not. I didn’t think so, and I’m glad to have my feeling confirmed.
Hi, Edie! Yes, I have a few lurkers. :-) ::waves::
I don’t think it’s an issue as long as there’s full disclosure. If a person feels very strongly about a book written by a friend or fellow crit group member and wants to review it, my advice would be to disclose the connection at the beginning of the article. And I’d make a point of giving as objective-sounding a review as possible.
That way, readers can take the reviewer’s potential bias into consideration, and they won’t feel like someone’s trying to put one over on them. It’s when people do reviews without disclosing sources of possible bias that the reviewer’s credibility can be called into question, IMO.