If you’re as addicted to blogs as I am, you may already know about the brouhaha going on about Amazon, reviews, authors skewing reviews, etc, etc…etc…etc… :-O

If not, eh, I’ve got a headache from following it so I don’t recommend trying to keep up. Basically it revolves around reviews on Amazon, their validity~ and leads me to today’s post.

Just how important are they?

Way back when…okay, okay, back in ’04 or ’05, when I was first getting into publishing and trying to figure out which way is up, I thought reviews were all-important to my career.

Now I know better.

Back then, I thought a couple of good reviews would bump sales and bad reviews would decrease sales.

Now I know better.

A few years back, I thought I’d try to get some reviews of my books up on Amazon and did a contest through my group and now? I wouldn’t mess with it. For a couple of reasons:

• A good review means a lot more if somebody posts it without being prodded.
• A good review is just one person’s opinion, just as a bad review is just one person’s opinion. There isn’t a writer alive (I don’t think) who’s entire career rested on the shoulders of one reviewer’s opinion.
• It just doesn’t seem quite right.

Skimming down over the reviews I’ve got on Amazon, some of them make me smile. Some of them make me laugh. Some of them make me wince and think Man…I need to work on that. But none of them make me break out in hives and panic. There’s not a one of them that keep me awake at night, worrying that it will sway somebody from buying my book.

I’ve learned better. I know that a lot of readers don’t put too much stock in Amazon reviews~too many squeeing reviews like… ohmygoshthisbookissoexcellentyoumustbuyitordie or the flipside… holysh*twhatdumbasspublishedthisperson and you have to wade through those all too often to find the good reviews.

I know that a lot, and I mean a lot, of readers don’t interact with the online community. They don’t skim reviews, they don’t check out websites, etc,etc…they pick up their book at the store, they read it, if they love it, they may look for more at Borders and if they hated it or it was just…meh…they’ll trade it, donate it, give it away. They don’t even see the negative reviews.

I know that from my experience as a reader, I tend to focus more on a thoughtful, critical review that lists the pros & cons of a book, versus the squee-type reviews. The glowing reviews, sorry, but I almost automatically discount them because they rarely give me the info I look for.  And that’s when I even bother to look for a review-trust me, it’s not very often.

As a matter of fact, the few times a review has influenced my buying choices (and I mean very few) it’s been over a bad review, versus a good one. Either I can’t believe the book was as bad as all that or because I’m curious or because whatever the review hated sounds like it might be right up my alley.

Is there one book out there, just one, that shot straight up into the stratosphere over a couple of Amazon reviews? Probably not. I’d almost be willing to bet the answer is straight-up NO.

Reviews are opinions. That is all. And everybody is entitled to their opinion. Whether they hated the book, hated the hero, the heroine, whether they connected too much with this character or that character…etc…etc…etc…ETC, it’s one person’s opinion. They are entitled to it. If you like it, hey that’s great, if not, you can hook up with somebody’s opinions that are more in line with your own.

But none of us have the right to tell somebody they are wrong for not liking this book, or wrong because they liked that book and you hated it. It doesn’t matter if you’re an author, a reader, or Ricardo, the amazing reading reindeer. It’s their opinion. Let them have it.