Please DON’T review my books and stories

Now that I have your attention, humor me for a couple hundred words or so and I’ll explain.

I’m a purist. Perhaps I’m too idealistic for my own good, but I trust the system. I voted absentee from Uganda in the last election even though my guy was, well, not the odds-on favorite in the state I’m registered. I stopped watching basketball when I realized coaches sometimes instructed players to foul intentionally to stop the clock and get a free time-out. As a kid, I had such a hyper-attuned sense of fairness my parents worried I was setting myself up for a lifetime of disappointment. Good thing I also have a hyper-attuned optimism.

So imagine my disappointment when a friend published a book. A decent book; not without its problems, but good enough to get a prestigious agent and a top-notch publisher. A valiant first effort. That wasn’t the disappointment. The disappointment came when I went to Amazon and saw seven or so reviews, all of them five star, and all of them posted by variants of the author’s parents’ names. “Andy S” was one. “A. Smith” was another. “A. Robert Smitty” was yet another. Good grief.

I’ve heard that stuffing your book’s review page with planted reviews is a good way to get your book noticed. Is it, though? I can hear some authors responding “Yes! It is! This is war, and you gotta pull out all the stops.” I’ve never been in the military, but it seems obvious a good general won’t simply throw everything he has at the enemy. Some modes of attack are so unprofitable, even if successful, as to not be worth it. Don’t spend 90% of your resources getting 10% of the result. Don’t be penny wise and dollar dumb.

There are many reasons I think planted reviews are not a good idea. First, it’s just plain dishonest. Call it God, karma, short-sightedness, “wow, I guess I didn’t think that through,” whatever, there are consequences for dishonesty (see my third point below). My next objection is I can’t see how a handful of planted reviews are going to make any difference in sales. First off, many readers say they shoot for the middle in reading reviews, ignoring the one- and five-stars and looking at the threes. If a book is doing so poorly that 90+% of the reviews are planted, that might tell me something (this is not an absolute, of course. There are many reasons a successful book might not have many reviews. But that’s another issue). And if the book takes off and does well, then eight or ten planted reviews aren’t going to make any difference. Finally, the adage “a rising tide floats all boats” can come back and bite us. Let’s say I run to Kinkos, photocopy the last ten years of my phone bill, self publish it, then get ten reviews from four friends with multiple accounts. How are my ten planted reviews going to raise my book above your book and its ten planted reviews? This is one of the consequences for dishonesty; my dishonesty negates any advantage your dishonesty gives you, and vice versa. Nobody wins.

Therefore, let me add a few words to my title. Please don’t review my books or stories unless you mean what you say. If the book is only suitable to line a bird cage (I’d like to see you do that with an ebook), say so. I would rather have five reviews the reader relates to than twenty where the reader says “man, what were those other reviewers thinking?” As those other reviewers, I hope you feel the same way.