Austenesque Lovers TBR Pile Reading Challenge 2016 discussion

I've run this past her and Sophia said it was OK for me to post this here.

Very recently I came across something on Amazon which greatly disturbed me, so much so that I got in touch with them to see if they would do anything about it.

Like everyone in the TBR group, I'm a card-carrying Janeite. As such, I don't just read Jane Austen's work and as much JAFF as I can but I'm also slowly accumulating a collection of non-fiction about Jane, her life, times and works. All of these books have been bought from second hand bookshops and charity shops, as I think such places need our support.

Last Friday, I was working at a pharmacy in a new location for me and noticed a second hand bookshop just along the street. So of course, where did I go in my lunch break? As it happens, they mainly specialised in children's books but they did have a small section of Classic Literature and related non-fiction. I bought one book, on the day, an illustrated copy of a selection of Jane Austen's letters, called My Dear Cassandra. I'd already heard of this book and have been wanting a copy for some time. The other books I wasn't sure of, so made a note of them and looked them up on the internet over the weekend while I was in bed with my flu virus.

I was extremely dismayed to see that without fail, one person had posted 1 star extremely negative reviews on Amazon for all of the books I was looking up. When I checked further into his complete list of reviews, he'd posted nearly EIGHTY (80) very similar ones for many Jane Austen related books. Turns out, he was trying to promote his own book which claims that Jane Austen's books weren't written by her at all but by her cousin Eliza de Feuillide. So, he was abusing the Amazon review process in a major way. Firstly, he was bringing down the overall star rating with his 1 star reviews and secondly, he was promoting his own book in the reviews. I gather that's a BIG no-no in Amazon's terms.

I've been in touch with Amazon as a result and they've obviously taken this very seriously indeed as all of those reviews have now been taken down. It really surprised me that one person would go to such lengths. Despite my advanced age, I must still be somewhat naive!

I guess what I'm trying to say is:

1. Don't ever take an overall star rating as final without checking the breakdown of those ratings. One 1 star rating in a single-figure number of 5 stars will, by sheer maths alone, affect the overall figure in a major way. The same would apply in the reverse situation.
2. The review process isn't something that should EVER be abused. Faint hope, probably, and I know no-one here would do it.
3. Even a huge company like Amazon will sometimes take notice of one voice when something wrong is pointed out to them.

Sorry for waffling on at length, but this was a great shock for me and I thought it ought to be brought to the attention of a wider audience.

Thank you so much for your post and for taking the time to pursue Amazon. When I look at reviews, I go to people's names, look for patterns amongst other books and from people I know from online. I look at GR ratings for consistency, and shake my head at some inconsistencies I note between them, and then I google the book to look for other reviews, as well as looking on blogs I trust for reviews too.

That's part of why I started my blog too. I want readers to feel confident that I won't steer them towards terrible JAFF or under rate something wonderful. Not that my tastes are perfect, but I think I have tastes that are pretty consistent with many JAFF lovers, and there's too much JAFF for one person , or just a few, to read it and write reflective reviews for all of the really good and great JAFF.

I hate that people write JAFF only to make money and not to pursue Austen's stories and characters with integrity and a meaningful or tastefully executed story! But communities such as these are a tremendous help for readers, so thank you so much for your post!

Claudine wrote: "Thank you so much for your post and for taking the time to pursue Amazon. When I look at reviews, I go to people's names, look for patterns amongst other books and from people I know from online. I..."

Thanks Claudine. I'd heard previously about suspect 5 star reviews but this was the first experience I'd had where someone was deliberately giving 1 star mainly because he had his own book to promote that disagreed with popular opinion. I've no problem with someone wanting to publish a theory that goes against the grain. After all, that's what free speech is all about. It was the way he abused Amazon's review process that really annoyed me. To be honest, I never expected Amazon to do anything about it but was very pleasantly surprised when they did!

Yes, that's wonderful that they responded. I've seen some JAFF that's had suspicious review patterns, but never by any authors that I prefer to read books by in my experience.

Thanks again for sharing! And for noticing!

As an author who has had to deal with similar nonsense with reviews, I say AMEN and thank you, dear Anji, for noticing, caring and reporting.

What staggered me, Pam, was the lengths this person had gone to. He'd posted nearly EIGHTY negative reviews. That must have taken some time and effort, even given that most of them were the same review that I guess he'd copied and pasted.

Sorry to hear you've been on the receiving end of such nastiness, too.

Imagine the time he spent on those reviews. The time would have been much better spent writing and promoting his own work. I'm sure he somehow felt justified.

Craziness. If I see a book whose blurb interests me with a rating lower than ~3.5 stars, I usually start reading the low reviews. I can usually tell pretty quickly if I should let them influence me or not, because I watch for them to describe things I don't like about books. If they match with my dislikes, I skip the book; if they don't, or if they have no meaningful content, then I ignore them and buy it anyway.

Glad you caught that and reported it, Anji. It really is disturbing that someone would actually do that. Hope karma bites him in the butt big time and his book doesn't sell!

I look at the ratings, I DO NOT buy books based on the ratings alone!!! I will read several of the reviews on the high - middle - low ratings and decide if the premise is interesting to me, that's on the books written by authors I do not know. I have to say I generally buy books from the authors I know and that I have read books by before.

It's just like movies, I do not base my going to see movies based on critiques. I tends to ignore movie critiques, that is unless I'm trying to get my dad to come to the movie!!! Lol

I'll add my voice to the rest and say Thank you for pursuing this with Amazon. I'm pleasantly surprised they went into action so quickly, but this guy was pretty far over the line so that is good.

It's frustrating that people are always trying to work the system instead of just putting in the time and doing it right. But that just forces us all to be that much more discerning and do our due diligence.

I think this is why I love seeing what everyone is reading here in the group b/c I know people are giving their honest opinions and are actually reading the books. :)

Anju-just read your comment about what that guy did and I'm amazed. Hard to believe that anyone would go to so much trouble to denigrate 80 (yes 80) books in the eyes of the public so that they might look more favourably on his own one.

Am delighted that Amazon took your comments do seriously and actually removed his 1 star ratings. I guess sometimes a small voice can be heard among the noisy babble.
Well done! You've gone us all a great service!

Thanks for the kind comments everyone. I was amazed Amazon acted as they did, and so quickly too. I'll be keeping an eye open for this guy from time to time just in case he decides to try and repost. Hopefully Amazon will be doing the same.

So, in view of this experience, don't be afraid to get in touch with Amazon. They won' t always take notice but occasionally they do.

The person you speak of is, I believe, on Goodreads too. Last year I posted a thread on one of the Jane Austen groups asking people's opinions about different biographies, and he totally took over the discussion. Good for you for following up!

Abigail wrote: "The person you speak of is, I believe, on Goodreads too. Last year I posted a thread on one of the Jane Austen groups asking people's opinions about different biographies, and he totally took over ..."

Just tracked down your thread, Abigail. You're spot on in your assumption that it's the same person. He's also trying to promote his own book in some of his GR reviews.

This has happened on Goodreads, too. I read in the author feedback group of at least one individual here who intentionally puts one-star reviews to hurt the overall rating of a group of books. This particular person adores a certain Regency romance author, so gives one-star ratings to all novels he considers her competition. I'm sure that author is upset by it all (I don't know who it is). The trouble is, he's allowed his "opinion."

Unlike Amazon, Goodreads allows readers to assign ratings with no review, so it's impossible to understand the rationale. Although I often wish for more information, this system is a benefit for me, as I avoid writing reviews when I rate a JAFF novel well. Amazon encourages authors to review as long as it's not for the books of friends or family, but I'm friends with many JAFF authors. To an outsider, it's not clear who's a close personal friend and who's a mere acquaintance or a writer I'm a fan of but don't know. Even though I can easily write an impartial review, I want to eliminate any implications of favouritism. At Goodreads, at least I can help with a star rating. Sometimes when I read a fantastic new novel, I wish I didn't have that constraint, as I want to tell everyone what I liked!

Like many who commented already, I read a range of written reviews, especially the lower star reviews, before choosing to buy a book. Sometimes the statement the reviewer makes will entice me to buy, since I like a different style of book than that reviewer. I may buy the book in spite of its shortcomings from multiple reviews, because I'm curious about the content, yet must bear the low-star issues in mind while reading, allowing that they may annoy me, too. In some cases, I can see how the author had good reason for including the material the reviewer disliked.

If reviews are all high-star and glowing, yet vague, I become suspicious about the motives of the reviewers, especially soon after release. I'll wait to see what my friends say.

You make a lot of really excellent points Suzan. They're very much worth bearing in mind when reading reviews here and on Amazon. Thanks so much for your comments.

I seem to have missed the beginning of this conversation (sometimes e-mails get away with too many coming in) so would someone inform me as to which person we are to be aware of on both Amazon and Good reads. I am aware of one person who I reported to Amazon as they ignored my pleas to stop posting the entire story summary without a warning as to it being SPOILERS. I just skip those reviews. But I don't usually read 1 star reviews most times although I have posted one or two of my whole. I usually look for the longer reviews to give me in depth thoughts about a book.

I always read the sample as I can get a good idea about a book when I am considering purchasing it.

I simply read the opinion's and reviews posted by my GR friends. If they value and grade it highly then I know that I'll love the book too.

I'm double jobbing...not concentrating....above should read 'opinions'.

Sheila wrote: "I seem to have missed the beginning of this conversation (sometimes e-mails get away with too many coming in) so would someone inform me as to which person we are to be aware of on both Amazon and ..."

I don't think anyone named names and I'm not sure who it is, but maybe someone else does.

Anji wrote: "I've run this past her and Sophia said it was OK for me to post this here.

Very recently I came across something on Amazon which greatly disturbed me, so much so that I got in touch with them to ..."

I didn't see this post until now, but I'd noticed this reviewer too, and reported one of his reviews. I think it's such a mean-spirited thing to do, particularly as the book I saw the review of was written by somebody who is now dead, so it's not even as though the author would be likely to contest it. I don't like people using book reviews to advertise their own books, but it's even worse when they are giving a one star review and marking down their competition. I'm glad the reviews are gone.

And I can't tell you his name, Sheila, because I purposely didn't add his book to my wish list, LOL! There was nothing covert about it though, the review was just an advert for his book.

OK, I don't usually pay any attention to 1 star reviews anyway so I just probably didn't notice or read his.

If there are a number of 1 star reviews (more than any other) I will look at several of them to get an idea of why, then I will look at the sample. I try to see if any of my friends on GR plan to read or have read the book as well. I know that I have unsuspectingly bought some books that are absolutely awful and have marked them as 1 star with written review to explain my decision so that others can make an informed decision themselves if they want to buy it or not.

I do post reviews for all, even if the stars are low in count. Sometimes a book just is not my style or has numerous errata and then there was one which had so much of JA's words I had to mark it lower.