The Extra Cool Group! (of people Michael is experimenting on) discussion

We've been discussing in other threads how we feel about those pesky authors who are out there adding friends just so they can pimp out their own book. As I was reading through updates from my friends, I started thinking about some other types of what might be percieved as pimpin', perhaps dependent upon perspective.

Questions.
(1) How do you feel about reviewers who have book review blogs, and use double-posted goodreads reviews to try and direct more traffic to their blogs? Would you accept a friend request from one? (

2) What about actual, print book reviewers? Do they have a place on goodreads? Is it different from the place of other reviewers? Why or why not?

If they contribute here something different, be it discussions or whatever, it's ok with me. Julia Roberts kissed Richard Gere when she ho'd herself. I want at least an extra kiss.

1) I think that's irrelevant. As long as someone is creating useful content for me in a channel that I use (like GR) then that's great. What happens in other channels doesn't affect me one way or the other.

2) Why wouldn't paper-published reviewers be able to write posts on GR? That seems like a nonissue to me. If they're posting copyrighted info in GR, that's their (potential revenue) loss, not mine.

1. Hasn't happened. No, I wouldn't go there unless I wanted something pimped on their blog.

2. Why not? GR reviews are a social interaction, a place for minds to meet and mix and vote sex work/troll/whatever. An 'actual, print book reviewer' is (complete and utterly plagiarising Ceridwen) writing from the perspective of the book being an object, and not a means to engage in virtual interaction.

The blogs/serious reviews/literati websites upon which I've stumbled, rarely, if ever, demonstrate the level of multi-person interaction, in which the reviewer also participates. Not that all GR reviewers are active on their thread once a review is posted. But most of them seem to reply to comments. Not all bloggers ignore their adoring public, but there's much more skipping, to-ing and fro-ing between review threads and within a group. Look at what's happening in this group.

Having said that, I think whoever wants to join GR has the right to post a review as they see fit. Or not. I'm a fickle thread-hopper because I've little of value to say about my emotional reactions to books - maybe I'll improve with age. Or alcohol - that seems to have a salutary effect on reviews as well.

Sorry, that was awfully monologous :D.

I don't mind about 1 or 2.

BUT I don't know how I feel about an author that just friended me for promotional purpose, of course, asking me to read his book and write a review about it. I would do it for an author who I've been friends with and talked to, but I'm not sure I want to tie my up my time reading and writing for somebody I barely know.

1) I personally don't bother to click on the links to their blogs. Too much work. Plus from what I've learned over my time on GR, many bloggers, who are into heavily promoting their blogs and getting free ARCs, offer almost always praise-filled reviews and I prefer honest ones.

2) I wouldn't mind having access to professional reviews on GR. Maybe to have links to them. I just don't want them sitting at the top of other reviews as if they are an authority, like it was with "Featured Review" option a couple of month ago.

1 - I think double-posting something to generate hits to a blog is a little vain. I'll accept a friend request from anyone but if I get nothing from them but ads for their blog I'll unfriend them.

2 - I'm pretty new to GR but what I like about it so far is that it's real people talking about real stuff so if I enjoy reading someone's comments on message threads I'm going to enjoy reading their reviews of books because I'm interested in them and their thoughts on stuff. I'm not interested in reading professional reviews of books (or movies) beyond a synopsis.

1. If a review ends with "click here to read the rest of this review I don't click, First because this is stupid, second because as a rule I don't read blogs. I go and find a different review.

if they repost the entire review I don't care that it is published somewhere else. I like print reviews but I'm not reading reviews somewhere else when I'm trying to find goodreads reviews.

2. same answer.

3. I know there's no 3, I don't mind when authors friend me or email me, but I won't read a book unless I was already interested and I have an unapproved friend request from an author who just linked me to his blog cause I don't care.

generally I only approve them if they were an author I was planning on reading anyway. Patrick wesnick friended me when his book was in my pile to buy at work which was awesome. also authors have to be nice to me, and then I'll probably read their book whether or not I was interested.

I approve any author who asks to friend me. I'm always on the lookout for new talents. I keep on hoping I get around to reading one of the new author's books. Unfortunately, I have too many famous books I still need to read. My fear is that I will be wasting time reading a mediocre, untried author's work.

FB and other groups have soured my opinions.

i do not trust orgs. if i write something, i expect to keep the common copyright, posting first to my page ensures that via timestamp proxy.

i definitely cross post, no doubt about that, but i do not force people to my site to read a review. i could care less if people go to my page.. i average more traffic for people searching out porn and locating my quotes from 'clerks' than i do from legitimate people :)

hoo doggy.

Sure, why not? (Then again, I review for Speak Its Name, and double post reviews on my blog, Amazon, and Goodreads). So I'm one of the perps.

I pretty much accept all friend requests unless people seem super creepy; I don't care if they just review, just rate or never really do much.

As far as actually enjoying the reviews in either category you mentioned, as long as the person is still replying to people's comments on reviews and seems active on the site (voting, etc), I won't skim over their reviews. If it seems like spam solely written to drive people to a professional or unprofessional blog or book review site, I will probably start skimming. If there is a lot of it I would probably remove them from my friends.

Like Jasmine in message 9, I'm not inclined to click on "click here to read the rest of this review." The only exception is a person that is in my professional network. I found that she was reviewing here, so I'm willing to wait an extra three seconds to see her stuff. If someone cross posts by including the full review and a link to their other site, I'm totally OK with adding them to my network.

Print reviews on goodreads? My first through is that if it was just summaries or blurbs from print reviews (like Amazon includes), I would be annoyed to have to scroll through all those bland quotes.
Ryan

Whoops! Almost started a new thread on the same topic. I wrote a mean response to a spammer the other day doing the sales pitch on his book. He called me an "absolute ass," which is better than a partial ass, I suppose.

I don't go to people's blogs to read reviews. Pisses me off.

MJ wrote: "Whoops! Almost started a new thread on the same topic. I wrote a mean response to a spammer the other day doing the sales pitch on his book. He called me an "absolute ass," which is better than a p..."

you are very straight forward. I enjoy it.

Jasmine wrote: "you are very straight forward. I enjoy it."

Yes: all surface, no depth. That's me. (Plus, I can't keep up with everyone's lengthy responses.)

MJ wrote:"I can't keep up with everyone's lengthy responses..."

reeeeeeeessssssssssppppooooonnnssesss

i don't mind either 1 or 2. but then i don't mind it when authors shill their product either. however, sometimes i will find a blog so annoying that i feel compelled to write a review of their blog in response to their posted link. this has not usually been favorably received....which is not something i really understand. why post a link to your blog if you're not willing to get some feedback on it?

Do what I do. I have a very big monitor since I'm a graphics person. I open my eyes really wide and let the words soak in quickly.

Jason wrote: "MJ wrote:"I can't keep up with everyone's lengthy responses..."

reeeeeeeessssssssssppppooooonnnssesss"

I could care less about (1) or (2). If something is being contributed, then I'm all for spreading the reviews.

1) As a follower yes, as a friend unless they were also generally active on GR, probably not. I don't want to be 'marketed' reviews any more than books, so same rules as for authors apply.

2) No different. They are book people so they are fine by me.

I don't like professional reviewers. They just seem to try and out-clever each other. I pay a lot more attention to friend's reviews or even just number of stars.

@Caris: I know who you mean, but why advertise the name? :D

Mykle Hansen wrote something interesting somewhere else. A review posted on Amazon has immediate impacts on sales of books, so from an author perspective, which he is, having reviews from GR posted onto Amazon is a desirable thing.

It's made me think about a couple of things. I don't like to star my reviews - if I think a book is worth reading, I write about the book and recommend it to people in my friend network (keeping in mind their general tastes - the better I *know* that friend, the more likely I am to push the book, because I want to share something which in my opinion was good). Stars usually mean I have a fond emotional memory of the book, and probably nothing worthwhile to say, except in the case of non-fiction which I do star as well as review (no, don't ask, I know it's contradictory).

But given Mykle's comment, I now need to post my reviews at Amazon, because it's the POS for books of authors whose work I admire. Which means I have to start thinking about stars and writing reviews which are more straightforward. I don't think that will make me terribly professional, however, and I can't see myself hypertexting from here to Amazon, because I'll probably end up writing two different styles of reviews.

On top of which, I'm quite happy sitting in my cubby hole here in GR and don't want friends and people who visit to go traipsing off somewhere else.

Word! But I think Amazon needs better reviews. You shouldn't feel the need to dumb yourself down!

Too many Amazon reviews are just play-by-plays of consumption: customer purchased the product, consumed the product, the product did or didn't meet customer expectations and the residual feeling ranges from "grumpy" to "eager for more product." It doesn't matter if it's Infinite Jest or a Ryobi Orbital Sander. feh.

Mykle wrote: "Too many Amazon reviews are just play-by-plays of consumption: customer purchased the product..."

That might apply for books with a lot of reviews but for self-published authors (I look after a dozen or so) its more like 'too many Amazon reviews are just reviews by friends, family, other self-published authors from groups such as the ones on Goodreads, and by the author using different aliases'. I have one author with 27 reviews out of which two are definitely genuine (the non-positive ones!).

Petra X wrote: "That might apply for books with a lot of reviews but for self-published authors(I look after a dozen or so) its more like 'too many Amazon reviews are just reviews by friends, family, other self-published authors from groups such as the ones on Goodreads, and by the author using different aliases'. I have one author with 27 reviews out of which two are definitely genuine (the non-positive ones!)...."

crap. too true.

Mykle wrote: "Word! But I think Amazon needs better reviews. You shouldn't feel the need to dumb yourself down!

Too many Amazon reviews are just play-by-plays of consumption: customer purchased the product, c..."

that might have to do with the fact it is a cite where you can buy everything. probably the same people review all the products.

also even here you get those but since you follow reviews instead of reviews they are easier to avoid.

Yeah, being able to browse through the many reviews people on here have posted seems to me to add accountability that's missing (or at least lessened) over on Amazon. Does that seem right to you people who actually use Amazon? (If this question has already been answered, my bad. I'm trying to keep up with all the threads, but it ain't happening.)

Michael wrote: "Yeah, being able to browse through reviews people have posted here adds accountability that's missing (or at least lessened) over on Amazon. Does that seem right to you people who use Amazon?"

Reviews of books on Amazon have neither prevented nor encouraged me to buy a book (despite what Mykle said, and I believe his experience since he has the stats to prove it) because I've either already decided I want to buy a book via Amazon, or I'm on there to 'click inside' a book about which I've heard (lately via GR). The only book I've bought via Amazon because of GR is The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East and I still read an extract first. My S.O. has recently started buying from iBooks because of acquiring an iPad.

I find reviews are so very personal to the person who wrote the review, and reading is a very personal experience. So it doesn't follow that I'll like or dislike a book just because of a person's review. I have to be able to read something from the book first. But it is fantastic to see here on GR what real people (apart from the sock puppets, of course) are reading and add books of which I would never have heard to my TR list.

Other products? I thought Amazon only sold books or DVDs. Shows how perceptive I am.

I've found Amazon reviews reliable enough when its a popular book, but otherwise its hit and miss. I also research toys (science and art items, not toy-shop toys) for my bookshop on it and the reviews are dead-on for quality, age-range and play value. Obviously toys don't push the same buttons that books, or their authors, do when it comes to reviews.