A Brief Note on Amazon Ratings

No this isn't an add.

Hello again readers! Here now I bring you a short and humble opinion piece. This piece has everything to do with writing a review of something on Amazon. Now personally I'm no stranger to Amazon reviews and have seen and been seen by many other inhabitants of Amazon. Though I really only browse the book and Kindle section I have noticed some trends.

The first trend I've seen is for people to give either really short positive, or really short negative reviews. This is something I personally abhor. Small barely three sentence reviews tell a casual browser nothing about the book other than that you liked or disliked it. I've seen reviews that are 500 characters that really only said, 'I liked it, the author did a good job' or on the flip side 'I hated it, the author can't write at all'. I'm sure I don't need to elaborate on how unhelpful either of these reviews are.

People who are browsing the review section are generally looking for something just a bit more than tiny snippets of opinion. Most of the highest rated reviews I've read on Amazon have been ones which are at least two full paragraphs of text. They briefly illustrate why a reviewer liked or disliked a novel and explaining what they thought overall about it. Sort of like a brief mini blog review.

On the flip side of all that though, there are people who post entire blog reviews on the review section. Now from a personal perspective I don't mind this nearly as much as other people, I want deep insightful reviews which give me a look into what I'm buying, but some people merely want brief snippets of the good and bad. This is what generally makes me think the 'blog format' review on Amazon is a bad idea. Most people will skip over such long reviews it seems and simply look for shorter, less intense pieces.

These are the two extreme's that I find in the review section on Amazon. So in my own humble opinion I think people ought to try and meet somewhere in the middle.

Shorter, neat and concise reviews giving the straight up honest likes or dislikes (and importantly, reasons)  of a reviewer are best. They are honest and tell people what to expect when reading the book. More importantly they generate lots of either good or bad publicity for a novel, and drawing publicity (in any form) are incredibly important to aspiring writers.

Sadly I myself am guilty of some of these very same things, and I will be working to improve upon them and write detailed, well thought out, and ultimately fair reviews in the future. So look forward to me practicing what I preach, and rightly call me out on it if you see otherwise!

Here is an image of what I consider to be a good review done by myself (unfortunately, yes there is a spelling mistake in it, but I really can't go back and fix it):

So there we go readers! Some Amazon etiquette and a mini-review of a book from me all in one! I dare say that it was a productive post! Take some time to browse my own humble reviews if you like, and remember this little piece of proper discourse on the internet when you next go to write something!

Until next time readers, until next time!