I attended college at the University of Virginia, one of a relatively small group of schools (including all the military academies) with an honor code, and one of the very few whose code is totally student-administered.
The terms of the code are clear: any student caught lying, cheating or stealing is subject to expulsion. And yes, if you witness such a violation, you’re duty-bound to report it, or be subject to expulsion yourself (admittedly harder to prove). And I can tell you it worked. Sure, at any given point in time, there was likely an Honor Trial going on (again, all student-run), but the dozen or so trials in a given year in a student body of roughly 25,000, proved the system’s fundamental solidity.
Professors would hand out tests, hang around for 5-10 minutes to answer any clarifying questions, and then take off. And no one cheated. When you finished your test (or handed in a term paper), you wrote on the front, “On my honor as a student, I have neither given or received aid on this exam.”
Not the case for many friends from my Massachusetts high school who attended one New England state school in particular. There, the cheating was so brazen and rampant that it created a tragic, yet all-too-common dilemma: If you were an honest B student, those doing C & D work were often cheating their way to A’s and B’s. What to do?
This wasn’t simply a theoretical discussion of ethics and morality here. When higher grades meant higher GPA’s meant a higher chance of graduate school admission or a better job, those sticking to their principles ran the risk of losing those races. To realize my academic playing field was truly level was a gift.
But today, as an author, I find myself being able to relate to my honest friends’ dilemmas of many years back. Let me explain…
Between my two active titles, I have roughly 180 Amazon reviews that hover around five stars. Recently, one of my books (“The Well-Fed Writer”) received a one-star review with the title, “Fraudulent Five-Star Reviews!!”
This, uh, “gentleman” had decided I was in fact, guilty of recruiting my friends to manufacture my reviews out of whole cloth. Of course, this conclusion was based on nothing more than, 1) the existence of my 60 five-star reviews, and, 2) the unfortunate fact that fabricating B.S. five-star reviews to help out your friends (while also posting one-star versions on competitive titles) is endemic on Amazon.
Of course, it couldn’t be that I’d actually written a good book. Since so many others are cheating, I must be as well.
So, this is what it’s come to: If you’re one of the authors who invests copious blood, sweat, tears and silver to write and produce award-winning books, and who earns honest praise from readers, you wake up to discover that that genuine praise has been both devalued and rendered suspect by a flood of fakes.
I know. “Quit worrying about one knucklehead’s clearly minority viewpoint.” Point made. And yet, given Amazon’s proclivity to highlight one-star reviews (must be that Pacific-Northwest, latte-swilling, tree-hugging, uber-inclusive, “everyone’s-opinion-has-value” vibe…), a review like that can get a lot of traction. And yes, I did contact Amazon, and ask that it be removed, on the grounds that it wasn’t, in fact, a “review” (i.e., it never discussed the content of the book). No luck.
I promise, I’m not losing sleep over it. But, the whole trend toward made-up five-star reviews is worrisome enough, that none other than The New York Times devoted a story to it (8/19/11: “In a Race to Out-Rave, 5-Star Web Reviews Go For $5.” Whoa. The trend’s actually spawned a new writing specialty – writing five-star reviews for money. Pay me $5 and I’ll say whatever you want me to say. Amazing.
At the risk of appearing preciously quaint, this just wasn’t how I was raised. And to all those involved in crafting made-up reviews for books you’ve never read, or asking (or paying) others to do so, I’d say this (and likely waste my breath in the process): This isn’t “smart marketing.” It’s not “being aggressive” or “proactive.” It’s not “adapting to competitive pressures” or being a “creative promoter.” It’s dishonesty. Period. Dress it up any way you want, but bottom line, it’s lying in print.
The good news, according to the article, is that entities like Amazon are taking this seriously, since the currency of a five-star review is becoming devalued by the day. Researchers at Cornell have come up with an algorithm that, in 90% of cases, can distinguish real from fake reviews.
Of course, even if that evolves into software, the B.S. artists are likely to adapt, by emulating the identified qualities of a genuine review while avoiding those of a counterfeit one. And round and round we go (see: spammers/spam filters).
To those who haven’t stooped to this yet, but are considering it (in much the same way as my B-grade friends did way back when, and their contemporaries no doubt still do), just don’t. Focus on making your books as good as they can possibly be, in every way – better than they have to be, in fact (a part of the publishing process, over which, incidentally, you have 100% total control).
Do that, and the praise will be genuine, and will come naturally. But, more importantly, your book will benefit from priceless word-of-mouth advertising, which will build an enduring demand for the title. And that’s something the author of a mediocre book who’s resorted to fraudulent reviews can never hope to enjoy. For when real reviewers really read the real book, and speak the real truth, the gig’s up.
Share / Print
Thanks for writing this, Peter. The real question remains unanswered (and likely will for a while): How to book buyers weigh reviews? And I’ll toss in: Why hasn’t Amazon’s “review the reviewers” quality control worked better?
In your case I would think Amazon will respond—and quickly. For a lot of reasons. You’re easily seen by a human being within Amazon as legit and clearly caught up in the “you must be cheating too since everyone else is” mess. Please let me/us know how quickly this gets sorted. And press on if it takes a while!
I have bought and been guided by Peter’s second book – The Well-Fed Self-Publisher. It is, indeed, worthy of five stars. I would only add, lest you read his post and think him an anti-marketing writer-geek, nothing could be further from the truth. The kind of “market-hard-but-do-it-right” advice in this blog is found throughout his book.
Peter: Oberlin College where I attended in the 1960s also operated on the honor system. I don’t understand why more schools don’t adopt it.
In terms of reviews on Amazon or any other site, the question is how do they play into the buying decision? I’m not bothered by bad reviews if the preponderance are 4 or 5 stars. But even if most reviewers give a book 4 or 5 stars, I will read the reviews to see what they say about the book before I decide to buy.
But I doubt many people go hunting for a book by searching on keywords or genre labels. The vast majority of readers are influenced by other readers — friends and family (1st), book reviews (2nd) and other factors (last).
I know star ranking plays into whether a book is offered to buyers of similar books, but again, I’m not convinced that has very much impact on sales. I for one never look at the titles offered when I buy a book on Amazon.
Therefore, positive reviews are nice to have, but I think too much is made over how many one has and whether one’s star ranking is 4.3 versus 4.2.
Thanks for sharing your experience. It’s sad (and yet not all that surprising) that this is going on. I too have a book with a good number (and good %) of very favorable reviews. Most of them can be traced back to the reviewers’ blogs so I guess that’s “evidence” of their validity, but still. . . what an unfortunate situation. I wish you the best with it.
Mm
I think the “look inside this book” feature is invaluable; anyone in doubt can peek at the first few pages and see if the quality glimpsed there matches the reviews.