Jenny Twist joins me today to discuss saboteur reviewers - if you're an author, you know what she's talking about.
Jenny's novels include All in the Mind, Bedtime Shadows and Away with the Fairies.
Jenny's novels include All in the Mind, Bedtime Shadows and Away with the Fairies.
The Saboteurs
I am becoming increasingly disturbed and upset by the saboteur reviewers who seem to be appearing more and more often on Amazon. I know at least two superb authors who have fallen foul of these people and I recently did so myself.
We can all (I hope) handle the odd bad review. After all, most of our readers are ordinary people, not academics. They don’t review according to the quality of writing but simply according to how much they liked it. Consequently they will often give a bad review because they don’t like the genre, or the format, or they felt it was a bit too long, too short, shouldn’t have so much sex in it, should have more sex in it, etc.
That’s fair enough, I think. We put our books out there. We WANT ordinary people to read them. And we should remember that ordinary people are not always fair.
We should also remember that we can’t please everybody. I find it hard to believe, but even Stephen King and Kate Atkinson get bad reviews!
But I’m not talking about ordinary people here. I’m talking about those who seem to take pleasure in shooting good authors down. You often can’t identify them because they write under pseudonyms. Like most bullies they are also cowards and are not prepared to expose themselves to the kind of ridicule that they dish out to others.
Disturbingly, where I have been able to identify them they have turned out to be authors themselves. The logical assumption is that they see these talented authors as a threat. As if people only ever buy one book and you need to stop them buying this one that is better than yours. If that is the case it makes perfect sense that it should be the very best authors who suffer most.
You have no defence against these people. If you argue with them you just look petty.
But it is pretty galling when you have a string of four and five star reviews and you get just one of these ‘nasties’. It is Amazon’s policy to publish the ‘most helpful’ positive and the ‘most helpful’ negative reviews at the top of the review page. Consequently, if the nasty is the ONLY negative review it appears right in the face of every potential reader who views the page. No amount of voting it down will get rid of it. My own nasty eventually acquired 20 votes of ‘not helpful’ and no ‘helpful’ votes at all but remained in its prominent position.
I believe it killed the American sales for the book, which continued to sell well in the UK (the reviewer had not posted it on the UK site).
So these people are affecting our sales, our livelihood, and we are helpless to stop them. Amazon will not withdraw a bad review, no matter how unfair it is, on the grounds that everyone has a right to their own opinion. (Goodreads, incidentally, has been known to do so. So it’s always worth asking).
I don’t suppose appealing to the saboteurs directly would make any difference. I imagine they must get pleasure from hurting other people.
I am considering asking Amazon if it would be prepared to change its policy. Given how devastating these reviews can be, wouldn’t it be better not to post the ‘most helpful’ negative review when it is the ONLY negative review (I would suggest only start featuring one when there is a minimum of three) and NEVER to post one if it has not had a single positive vote. Come on Amazon, be fair!
In the meantime I have had to settle for sending out a general curse to these gremlins. They will find the next time they attend an important function that they will suddenly fart loudly and follow through. And serve them right!
I am becoming increasingly disturbed and upset by the saboteur reviewers who seem to be appearing more and more often on Amazon. I know at least two superb authors who have fallen foul of these people and I recently did so myself.
We can all (I hope) handle the odd bad review. After all, most of our readers are ordinary people, not academics. They don’t review according to the quality of writing but simply according to how much they liked it. Consequently they will often give a bad review because they don’t like the genre, or the format, or they felt it was a bit too long, too short, shouldn’t have so much sex in it, should have more sex in it, etc.
That’s fair enough, I think. We put our books out there. We WANT ordinary people to read them. And we should remember that ordinary people are not always fair.
We should also remember that we can’t please everybody. I find it hard to believe, but even Stephen King and Kate Atkinson get bad reviews!
But I’m not talking about ordinary people here. I’m talking about those who seem to take pleasure in shooting good authors down. You often can’t identify them because they write under pseudonyms. Like most bullies they are also cowards and are not prepared to expose themselves to the kind of ridicule that they dish out to others.
Disturbingly, where I have been able to identify them they have turned out to be authors themselves. The logical assumption is that they see these talented authors as a threat. As if people only ever buy one book and you need to stop them buying this one that is better than yours. If that is the case it makes perfect sense that it should be the very best authors who suffer most.
You have no defence against these people. If you argue with them you just look petty.
But it is pretty galling when you have a string of four and five star reviews and you get just one of these ‘nasties’. It is Amazon’s policy to publish the ‘most helpful’ positive and the ‘most helpful’ negative reviews at the top of the review page. Consequently, if the nasty is the ONLY negative review it appears right in the face of every potential reader who views the page. No amount of voting it down will get rid of it. My own nasty eventually acquired 20 votes of ‘not helpful’ and no ‘helpful’ votes at all but remained in its prominent position.
I believe it killed the American sales for the book, which continued to sell well in the UK (the reviewer had not posted it on the UK site).
So these people are affecting our sales, our livelihood, and we are helpless to stop them. Amazon will not withdraw a bad review, no matter how unfair it is, on the grounds that everyone has a right to their own opinion. (Goodreads, incidentally, has been known to do so. So it’s always worth asking).
I don’t suppose appealing to the saboteurs directly would make any difference. I imagine they must get pleasure from hurting other people.
I am considering asking Amazon if it would be prepared to change its policy. Given how devastating these reviews can be, wouldn’t it be better not to post the ‘most helpful’ negative review when it is the ONLY negative review (I would suggest only start featuring one when there is a minimum of three) and NEVER to post one if it has not had a single positive vote. Come on Amazon, be fair!
In the meantime I have had to settle for sending out a general curse to these gremlins. They will find the next time they attend an important function that they will suddenly fart loudly and follow through. And serve them right!
About the Author:
Jenny Twist was born in York and brought up in the West Yorkshire mill town of Heckmondwike, the eldest grandchild of a huge extended family. She left school at fifteen and went to work in an asbestos factory. After working in various jobs, including bacon-packer and escapologist’s assistant, she returned to full-time education and did a BA in history at Manchester and post-graduate studies at Oxford. She stayed in Oxford working as a recruitment consultant for many years and it was there that she met and married her husband, Vic. In 2001 they retired and moved to Southern Spain where they live with their rather eccentric dog and cat.
Jenny Twist was born in York and brought up in the West Yorkshire mill town of Heckmondwike, the eldest grandchild of a huge extended family. She left school at fifteen and went to work in an asbestos factory. After working in various jobs, including bacon-packer and escapologist’s assistant, she returned to full-time education and did a BA in history at Manchester and post-graduate studies at Oxford. She stayed in Oxford working as a recruitment consultant for many years and it was there that she met and married her husband, Vic. In 2001 they retired and moved to Southern Spain where they live with their rather eccentric dog and cat.
Her first book, Take One At Bedtime, was published in April 2011 and the second, Domingo’s Angel, was published in July 2011. Her novella, Doppelganger, was published in the anthology Curious Hearts in July 2011, Uncle Vernon, was published in Spellbound in November 2011, Jamey and the Alien and Uncle Albert’s Christmas were published in Warm Christmas Wishes in December 2011, Mantequero was published in the anthology Winter Wonders in December 2011 and Away With the Fairies, her first self-published story, in September 2012.
Her new anthology, with Tara Fox Hall, Bedtime Shadows, a collection of spooky, speculative and romance stories, was published 24th September 2012.
Her new novel, All in the Mind, about an old woman who mysteriously begins to get younger, was published 29th October 2012.
Turning Back the Clock, a short horror story, will appear in Horrific Histories by Hazardous Press early 2013.
Her new novel, All in the Mind, about an old woman who mysteriously begins to get younger, was published 29th October 2012.
Turning Back the Clock, a short horror story, will appear in Horrific Histories by Hazardous Press early 2013.
RSS Feed
