Behind the Reviews

Although book reviews are certainly helpful (I use them all the time to decide what books to buy, although I usually just look at the lowest reviews), they can also be deceptive. I recently had a five-star review on Amazon that got me to thinking. Here is the review:
"I was pleasantly surprised by this book! I wasn't sure if this would be a good read due to the low number of reviewers. However, the story was very good, the characters were developed, and the writing was "clean" and well-edited. This has a fair amount of suspense, strong moral and Christian values, and a sweet love story. I would recommend this to all readers from teens up."

When Winter Is Past, the book she reviewed, then had thirteen reviews and now has fourteen. However, many more people have bought the book than the number of reviews indicate. I've had hundreds of sales. Why the low number of reviews? As you can guess, most of my readers don't take the time to leave reviews. And, unlike most writers, I have not bought reviews by giving reviewers a free book, but I am pleased that all fourteen reviews are five-stars.

The fact is that many publishing houses, as well as indie authors, have a large group of reviewers in place who read a book prior to its release and are ready with their reviews. I know that, although these early readers don't usually lie in their reviews, they do tend to be lenient on the books, because they've been given a free copy. I'm not sure how I feel about the ethics of this, but it is a good way to get a lot of reviews. In fact, it's the main reason so many books have a large number of reviews. I just caution readers not to think a book isn't good just because it has few reviews.

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