From No Shelf Required:
Q: What is your ideal kind of online library and book store?
A: The kind without comments, reviews and ratings. The kind that only gives useful descriptions and context.Someone asked me recently to describe an ideal app for reading (inside the app: a mix of ebooks, magazines and newspapers), and I found myself describing a very quiet virtual place, full of knowledge and information, without all the white noise. No Comments section. No opinions. No venom.
This led to another question: So you would not allow readers to express their thoughts online? My answer: I want readers to write and express their own original thoughts by publishing their own works (if they so choose), after being inspired or motivated by reading the thoughts of others. But I would like us all to say and write less about other people’s creation, especially since our inherent need (clearly) is to dislike it at least as much as to praise it. It’s become a nasty race. Everything revolves around liking, rating, heart-ing books online. And we must realize it’s hurting more than helping a large number of writers out there.
The value (and the point) of what we create (whether for entertainment or education) is that it will not appeal to every person at every given moment. The writer owes the reader nothing (I’m referring here only to the process of reading). It isn’t the writer’s responsibility to please every reader’s imagination and taste. It is the reader’s responsibility, however, to remain aware of that.
. . . .
This idea that we can ‘decide’ for others has been a dominant force in the publishing and library industry for centuries. Ask yourself next time you walk into your local library or bookstore: are the books awaiting me there (in any format) all the great books out there for me to discover and be inspired by?
. . . .
However, there is no ‘perfect’ combination. A lot of good writing falls through the cracks. It’s been a faulty process for centuries, although, to be fair, a human one. Today, we are turning a corner whether we like it or not. I, for one, like it. We are leveling the playing field, which means more than ever, people are writing and publishing. I’m not suggesting we are all equally good at writing and that everything published will find readership, but I am stating that the process of ‘rating’ literature and ‘quantifying’ a book’s value via ratings (like those we see on Goodreads and Amazon) is often subjective and driven by interests, personal and professional.
Which brings me to book critics and book reviewers. We don’t need them the way we used to (note to the reader: I was a book review editor for ten years). In an evolved society, we (will) think for ourselves more. We (will) exchange knowledge and information without the ‘influence’ part. We (will) ‘filter’ on our own.
Link to the rest at No Shelf Required
PG notes that no one forces a reader to pay attention to reviews and ratings.
For some of his purchases, ratings and reviews are very helpful for PG. For others, they’re superfluous.
In a world where nothing is new or innovative, people would probably pay much less attention to reviews. PG has no problems shopping for fruits and vegetables without any reviews or star ratings next to the carrots.
However, each book is new. Absent plagiarism, no one has written or read that particular book before. A great many readers want to devote their limited reading time (and book budget) to new books they will enjoy. Very few people are happy when they spend money on a book they end up hating after 50 pages.
Some might rationalize the time spent on a bad book as some sort of learning experience that broadens the reader’s outlook or something – an “Eat your spinach – all of it. It’s good for you” view of the world. Reading a terrible book will broaden your outlook by exposing you to a person who can’t write but may have other undiscovered and unexposed talents or experiences you can learn from.
If someone is untalented at writing but talented at playing the lute, PG would much rather be exposed to that person through his/her lute performances. If one likes to enjoy people at their best and finds inspiration and uplift in the works of great artists, the lutist is eminently preferable to a failed novelist.
PG regards time spent reading a book that’s not well-written as pretty much wasted when it could have been used for reading something he enjoyed or learned from.
From a practical standpoint, reviews and ratings are usually the most potent form of marketing for books. That’s the reason authors work hard to solicit good reviews. If reviews weren’t a good way to sell books, smart authors would spend their time somewhere else.
As far as an online library and bookstore providing only “useful descriptions” as described in the OP, a description like “I hated the book and couldn’t finish it” can be among the most useful descriptions provided to a prospective purchaser, particularly when 50 other people usefully describe the book in the same way.
Reviews make no difference to me at all in choosing books to read. My usual thing is to pursue interviews with newly favorited authors to see who they like.
Reviewers are worthless unless they think enough like you.
Check on their reviews on a few things that you have already seen/read, if you agree with their reviews then they may be worth your time, if not look for a reviewer that you can agree with.
YMMV as they say.
I disagree, I’ve bought books based on negative reviews, maybe a particular reviewer didn’t like that a book was slow but if I’m in the mood for a slow read, then I know exactly what I’m getting.
I tend to look through lots of negative reviews to see what the major complaints about a book are, and if I think I will enjoy it, I buy it.
I think it’s about detail, negative reviews tend to be more detailed because I think it’s easier to explain why we didn’t like something as opposed to why we did.
I often buy non-fiction books due in part to negative reviews. As always, this has to be a reasonably longish review, so that the reviewer’s biases and intelligence (or absence thereof) come through. If, for example, the reviewer’s objection to the book is political, and he is an idiot, this counts in favor of the book for having the right enemies.
Reader reviews can be very helpful for some sorts of books. Not so much for fiction, as tastes vary too much. But for nonfiction, an informed reader can be very helpful indeed. The beauty of it is how difficult it is to fake this. I disregard short reviews. They all boil down either to “This book rocks!” or “This book sucks!” without giving me any reason to rely on the opinion. But a long review by a reader who knows the subject is another matter. We sometimes find axes being ground, but that comes through and can be factored into the purchase decision.
But as other comments have noted, the linked article seems to be talking about more formal reviews. “We don’t need them the way we used to…” Why not? I read the New York Review of Books in part because it brings books to my attention that I would not otherwise be aware of. This is as true today as ever.
What has changed is that access is not the barrier it once was. I can order any book I want and have it delivered within days, or even instantly. And with self-publishing, we have access to books that would not have been published back in the day.
But what has not changed is that we are still limited in time and attention. Combine that with our newfound access and reviews of some sort or other turn out to be more important than ever.
I certainly agree that we don’t need “book critics”, but I think the reason for that is because we have regular people able to share their thoughts and opinions about a book, and regular people are usually better able to inform what other regular people want to read than “book critics” are.
A book critic will probably not say, “This supposed to be a romance, but the hero died at the end!” Which is something I’d want to know before reading a book. A customer reviewer is much more likely to warn me about that. Customer reviewers are also more likely to discuss specific plot points and things like if the MC is TSTL and give examples, which is helpful to me. Book critics don’t tend to do that sort of thing. I don’t care how the book made you *feel* because I am not you and will probably not respond in the same way. I also don’t care how pretty the language was because that’s of small concern to me. Tell me specifics and let me decide how that would make me feel. That’s helpful to me. The way book critics (and many book review bloggers) write reviews is not helpful to me in the least.
Ah, the reader-equivalent of the MTV Movie Awards. Back in the day, they awarded movies on categories movie-goers cared about, think “Best Fight Scene,” or “Best Kiss.” This may have been the award show that inspired the Lonely Island parody “Cool Guys Don’t Look at Explosions” (because they walk away and don’t think about the people they killed).
That said, good critics have their place. I like the ones who can bring some background or insight to their review that deepens my enjoyment (or sometimes hatred) of a story. The thing is, though, I typically discover such a critic after I’ve read a good book, when I’m still trying to process it and I want to see what someone else thought of nuances/issues, or delights/irritations that moved me.
I’m not sure she’s writing for us, about the individual consumer-as-reviewer. She’s spent years writing professional book reviews.
and
I don’t think Amazon reviews are on this woman’s radar screen at all.
The big advance Amazon could make would be to publish completion rates (for Kindle titles). I’m interested in whether other readers actually finished a book…
Often you can tell. One of the things I look for in the reviews, positive and negative, is comments on the quality of the ending. Complaints about the book being ‘rushed at the end,’ or ambiguous, or having an unexpected – and unappreciated – cliffhanger, are all red flags.
These experiences stick in readers’ minds, and warn me away from the book.
Good points. The problem with reviews is that so few people write them (I’ve seen estimates as low as 1 in 100 genuine readers) and it’s far from a random sample with massive grade inflation (a book has to be a real stinker to have an average rating less than 4 stars).
I’ve seen at least one indie author (a successful one, who makes his living from his writing) reporting a rate of one review for every thousand copies sold.
Exactly.
I was seeking the words to express this, but drew a blank. My thought was, “‘The kind that only gives useful descriptions’? Useful to whom? Deemed useful by whom? Who guards the guardians?” Then I saw your comment, where you put it most succinctly and accurately. Thank you, Alicia!
You’re welcome. (I think I like commenting a little bit too much for my own good.)
And those with the biggest ad budgets will push their books forward, regardless of merit.
I reiterate: some of the current climate of complaining has to do with dissatisfaction with what is most advertised, and turns out less than (ful)filling.
It has always been so, that those making the most noise penetrate the public consciousness better, and sell. But the dissatisfaction has also always been there. Reviews and ratings give readers a fighting chance. Especially the negative reviews with carefully analyzed reasons, and quotes; I love those.
Especially the negative reviews with carefully analyzed reasons, and quotes; I love those.
I love how much money — and time — that such reviews have saved me.
Well, Mirela Roncevic’s final solution would prevent me from calling her an anti-free-speech fascist and condescending pseudo-elite so there’s that.
Without ratings and reviews, all we have left is advertising. which isn’t at all biased.
And people who are vaguely dissatisfied with most of what they read.
Ratings and reviews are just like belonging to a very large book club, where discussions of books read by the members are listened to by other members and used to select reading they might like.
It is completely ridiculous to assume that you will find exactly what you want to read by just walking into a library and choosing something at random.
We don’t have infinite time. Not on this Earth, anyway.
It is completely ridiculous to assume that you will find exactly what you want to read by just walking into a library and choosing something at random.
I’ve done something similar in book stores for years, and usually was very satisfied with my selections. Stand back, and look at a rack of cover-out books. See what books appeal from just glancing at the covers. Then read the blurb for them. Buy one. It has worked for years with many books.
I never read reviews for fiction, I don’t care if others do, and I don’t care if reviews exist or not. What others use to select books is none of my business.
I’m reminded of the days not too long ago when very few books on the shelves had readily available reviews. Nobody cared.