The Land of 10,000 Reviews
We’ve probably all gotten a request from a writer to do a review.
Clearly, people believe that reviews equal sales…you know, unless they just genuinely want the criticism. 😉
However, when we look at the books with the most reviews at Amazon (I figured out and reported on a way to sort search results by most reviews here: New search tip: sort by Most Reviews), you’ll find that they don’t match up with Amazon’s
USA Kindle Store E-book Bestsellers (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
The reason for that is pretty simple.
Reviews are forever. 😉
Well, not quite forever….sometimes, rarely, a review is removed from a Kindle book.
Amazon may do that if they suspect a financial or other inappropriate connection between the reviewer and the publisher/author.
Amazon completely has the right to do that, of course…contrary to what you might hear, that has nothing to do with free speech.
Free speech has to do with what the government can restrict…not what a business decides to do.
A store doesn’t have to carry your book; Amazon doesn’t have to run your review.
That said, Amazon tends to be pretty unfiltered in terms of reviews, from what I’ve seen. If they were eliminating them to boost sales (getting rid of negative ones), or because of writing quality (don’t get me started), you wouldn’t see a lot of what you see now.
I do use Amazon reviews, but not necessarily at face value.
I’m getting some home automation for the first time, to get the experience of that with our
Amazon Echo (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
and a reviews said that one outlet had such a bright “ready light” that the reviewer wouldn’t put it in a bedroom. I have extra good night vision (possibly related to my color vision deficiency), and that would likely bother me, so I got something else.
That was useful. 🙂
No, reviews don’t tend to be removed…so if you have over 10,000 reviews at Amazon (which is true of fewer than 100 books in the USA Kindle store), you also need longevity.
I say “also” because you need both: engagement and longevity.
So, the books in the 10,000 plus club include Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and 50 Shades of Grey…all of which were on the bestseller list for some time, and all of which are still selling.
I’d say there are a few other factors:
- Books with media tie-ins, especially movies, tend to have more reviews
- Books aimed at younger readers (not children necessarily, but Millenials and younger) also get more…I think that group has more online social engagement
- The books tend to be newer…even if you love a book you read twenty years ago, you aren’t likely to write a review at Amazon
I may add to this post later today with more specifics, but I did want to share this awareness now. 🙂
Update:
These are the ten most reviewed:
| Title | Rating | Reviews | Release | Days in Release | Reviews per Day | Most Recent Review |
| Gone Girl | 3.9 | 41,448 | 6/5/2012 | 1180 | 36.13 | 8/29/2015 |
| The Fault in Our Stars | 4.7 | 36,553 | 1/10/2012 | 1327 | 28.55 | 8/29/2015 |
| Fifty Shades of Grey | 3.5 | 32,852 | 5/25/2011 | 1557 | 22.10 | 8/29/2015 |
| The Girl on the Train | 4.0 | 31,162 | 1/13/2015 | 228 | 137.68 | 8/29/2015 |
| Unbroken | 4.8 | 25,418 | 11/16/2010 | 1747 | 15.55 | 8/29/2015 |
| The Hunger Games | 4.6 | 24,024 | 2/7/2012 | 1299 | 19.49 | 8/28/2015 |
| The Goldfinch | 3.7 | 22,432 | 10/22/2013 | 676 | 34.18 | 8/29/2015 |
| Divergent | 4.5 | 20,939 | 10/21/2014 | 312 | 68.11 | 8/28/2015 |
| Mockingjay | 4.3 | 19,593 | 9/30/2014 | 333 | 59.84 | 8/29/2015 |
| Inferno | 4.0 | 18,554 | 5/14/2013 | 837 | 23.17 | 8/29/2015 |
Bestsellers:
| Title | Rating | Reviews | Release | Days in Release | Reviews per Day | Most Recent Review |
| The Martian | 4.6 | 15,161 | 2/11/2014 | 564 | 26.88 | 8/29/2015 |
| The Girl on the Train | 4.0 | 31,162 | 1/13/2015 | 228 | 137.68 | 8/29/2015 |
| The Good Neighbor | 3.7 | 1,336 | 8/1/2015 | 28 | 47.71 | 8/29/2015 |
| The Girl from Krakow | 4.1 | 422 | 8/1/2015 | 28 | 15.07 | 8/29/2015 |
| The Girl in the Spider’s Web | 3.3 | 6 | 8/1/2015 | 28 | 0.21 | 8/28/2015 |
| About That Fling | 4.2 | 330 | 8/1/2015 | 28 | 11.79 | 8/29/2015 |
| City of Echoes | 4.2 | 508 | 8/1/2015 | 28 | 18.14 | 8/29/2015 |
| Small Wars | 4.4 | 246 | 8/13/2015 | 16 | 15.38 | 8/29/2015 |
| Hawk | 4.3 | 61 | 8/17/2015 | 12 | 5.08 | 8/29/2015 |
| Trail of Broken Wings | 4.4 | 2,799 | 5/1/2015 | 120 | 23.33 | 8/29/2015 |
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This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.
I Love My Kindle 
August 29, 2015 at 7:34 pm |
I used to think that reviews were forever, too, but the last time I checked my reviews on Amazon, I discovered that about half of them had been “hidden” and I had no idea why. They didn’t contain spoilers or bad language, and the items reviewed were still available. Because they were hidden, I couldn’t go back to reread them to see if I could find what was wrong, and Amazon would not explain why they had been hidden. At that point, I removed most of my remaining reviews and have declined to review anything since.
August 30, 2015 at 3:12 am |
Thanks for writing, Lady!
My guess is that your reviews still count in the numbers, though…
August 30, 2015 at 4:42 am |
Of the ten most reviewed I had heard of all of them save two or three. Of the best sellers, other than the Martian, I had heard of none of them. Of the titles on both lists “inferno” is perhaps the only one I might read.
On the best sellers list you list “Hawk”; I found several with that title — all well-reviewed — perhaps you could indicate which one you mean?
For me, a 5 star rating system is overkill. For every 1000 books I read, I have probably given less than 25 5-stars, and a similar number have gotten 3-stars (I don’t use 1 or 2-star ratings at all — I do have a “couldn’t finish” collection that has 2 or 3 titles in it).
It is rare to see a title with a rating higher than 4.0. When I see such, I look at the number of reviews — if that number is less than 20, then I discount the rating.
August 30, 2015 at 6:08 pm |
Thanks for writing, Edward!
Hawk (A Stepbrother Romance)
by Abigail Graham
Hawk (A Stepbrother Romance) (at AmazonSmile*)
Sorry, I was trying to get it to fit on the page…didn’t quite make it, but will still able to be read, I think.
I knew all of the most reviewed, and I’d say half of the bestselling.
In my experience, quite a few of the books are 4+. I just checked by sorting by Average Customer Review. The most results you can get are 400 pages of usually 16 titles per page (the last page may be shorter): 6,400 (roughly) results. They were all over 4.0…