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Showing posts with label Amazon customer reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amazon customer reviews. Show all posts
26 December 2018
24 November 2018
30 October 2018
Amazon Customer Reviews: Cancel, Cancel, Cancel
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| A Stranger in My Grave Margaret Millar New York: Random House, 1960 |
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| How Like an Angel Margaret Millar New York: Random House, 1962 |
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| The Fiend Margaret Millar New York: Random House, 1964 |
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| Beyond This Point Are Monsters Margaret Millar New York: Random House, 1970 |
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28 September 2018
20 August 2018
13 July 2018
07 June 2018
The Amazon Customer Review 2018 Ontario Election Edition: Interesting and Easy to Read
Election Day in Ontario. If the pollsters are correct, Doug Ford is set to become the province's twenty-sixth premier. That's him smiling on the cover of Ford Nation, the book he wrote with his brother Rob.
Ford Nation ranks as one of the most remarkable achievements in Canadian publishing. Doug announced that he was writing the book at a 13 September 2016 news conference. Two months later, there is was, finished and in stores.
Again, a remarkable acheivement... made more so by the fact that co-author Rob had died nine months earlier.
At that news conference, held in his mom's garden with Rob's widow Renata by his side, Doug described the work in progress as "the most exciting book that this country has ever seen when it comes to politics."
Does the finished product live up to Doug's claim? I haven't read Ford Nation myself, and so rely upon Amazon customer reviews:
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14 May 2018
23 April 2018
Amazon Customer Review: NHL Playoffs Edition
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| cliquez pour agrandir |
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23 March 2018
15 February 2018
13 January 2018
18 October 2014
15 September 2014
An Invalid Amazon Customer Review (and others)
Three reviews by Amazon customer Lamppu. I have problems with the first, disagree wholeheartedly with the second, and have no opinion on the third.
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25 August 2014
An Amazon Customer Review is Reconsidered
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| The Loved and the Lost Morley Callaghan Toronto: Macmillan, 1951 |
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18 August 2014
The Return of the Amazon Customer Review
Okay, so they never went away – but they did from this blog. I had a grand old time a few years back tearing strips off homophobes, book burners, prudes, egotists, and those who think they know something about history and geography.
I wonder why I stopped. Too much fun? I do remember thinking that change was coming. After the Orlando Figes scandal, how could it not? No responsible retailer would allow its customers to be so grossly misled.
Sure enough, 2012 saw Amazon deleting all sorts of customer reviews. “My sister’s and best friend’s reviews were removed from my books,” sniffed self-published author M. E. Franco. “They happen to be two of my biggest fans.”
Now, there's a coincidence.
How many reviews did Amazon delete? The company was mum. Writing in the New York Times, David Streitfeld described the exercise as a "sweeping hazy purge". Neither friend nor family to M.E. Franco, I noticed nothing.
Then came 2013, a busy year in which Amazon's customer reviews cropped up in a trio of otherwise unrelated Canadian news stories.
The first concerned the resignation of Toronto District School Board director Chris Spence, who had been caught plagiarizing all sorts of things including – improbably – an Amazon customer review. Might it have been one by educator Rudy Patudy? Reporters were not so specific.
The Spence scandal was followed closely by a hysterical, media-created controversy over a print on demand publisher's sexy blonde Anne Shirley. Then came Stephen King, who just happened to give his latest the same title as a very fine 2006 graphic novel by Emily Schulz.
This in turn led to all sorts of nastiness from semi-literate folks who purchased the wrong book in error:
Good souls worked to repair the damage:
The author endured it all, recording her experience on a blog and coming out a winner with a refurbished MacBook Air for her suffering.
The current year had been much more quiet until I began receiving emails from a publisher encouraging me to ask family and friends to post reviews of my "books" on Amazon.
Before continuing, I want to make one thing clear: I have no books with this publisher. I have no book with this publisher. That said, I did play some small role in one tome's journey to print. This modest effort has resulted in messages such as these:
If you/your family and friends are unfamiliar with posting online reviews, we have included some guidelines below. Online reviews are a great way for authors and readers to interact online. Reviews are critical to both publishers and readers alike, and many consumers rely on these opinions when making purchases on Amazon.Lord knows this is anything but the golden age of publishing. I wish the publisher well. I wish the book well; it deserves to by widely read. But I cannot call on family and friends to plant online reviews. I cannot ask them to laud something they haven't read or encourage them to think better of a book because of some small connection to yours truly. Amazon customer reviews are unreliable and ill-informed as it is. Who wants to be part of that mess.
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