Saturday, February 28, 2015

One of these things is not like the others

This post is for all my sisters and brothers who self-publish and get "customer reviews" and receive some quizzical reviews that make them scratch their heads.

First, I am not complaining or whining.  Really. I have had some scathing reviews that should have sent me to bed in a dark room.  I picked myself up and kept going.   I've had reader reviews that said my writing was disjointed, confusing, too long, too short, too sexual, too boring, jumped around, couldn't be followed, had pages missing,  punctuated by an imbecile, punctuated by less than an imbecile, had a horrible ending, etc.  I've had readers say they wanted to throw the book across the room.  Did throw the book across the room. Wanted to throw the book at me. I've had many readers say in their review that they gave fewer stars because the book should have been longer.  The book in question was 720 pages.

The reviewing system at Amazon is like the wild, wild west: thrilling, rough, scary and seductive.

In the screenshot below, a frustrated customer who didn't get her book and couldn't get satisfaction, put her complaint where she thought it would do the most good.  If I had her e-mail, I would gladly send her a book.  BTW, Amazon is always diligent about customer satisfaction and I'm certain they will make this right.








4 comments:

  1. Is it acceptable, as author, to add a comment to her review? She'd be talking to a real person (and it's even you), instead of a big mean system that doesn't care about a 1-star.

    Holger (just finished "Three Daughters", which I loved)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for your comment. It is probably not correct to respond to a review. I don't mind the system - in the long run I think it evens out. Amazon does have parameters and an author can appeal a review that clearly is outside the rules.

      Delete
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