Hey, Did You Know We're All Irrelevant?
That’s right. Avon Books still believes that those of us out there writing internet reviews and reading them before we buy books don’t make a difference in the sales numbers. I was a little startled when I first saw this view expressed in Laurie Gold’s 2002 interview with Avon, but downright flabbergasted to see this expressed in 2009. After all, the internet is all-pervasive in today’s culture. People shop online, socialize online, research all manner of things online, and review all manner of items online. Therefore, it seemed a little odd to me to discount the importance of online book reviewing.
Various news stories recently have described the decline of newspapers as internet news sources surge in popularity. For a few examples, see here, here, and here. And if people are turning online to get their information about the world, it stands to reason that they would start turning online to get information about the book world as well. And that’s where I take issue with some of what Avon had to say.
After all, if people read the news online and shop online, wouldn’t it be reasonable to think that they pay attention to online reviews? Our experience here at AAR would certainly bear that out. Readership has steadily grown every year, with over 4 million unique visitors coming to the site in 2008. I suspect that owners of other romance sites have noticed this kind of steady growth as well. And in a 2008 survey on book purchasing habits(“The Reading and Book Buying Habits of Americans”), Zogby surveyed 8218 adults. While not strictly a romance survey, the survey did find that more than half of the respondents go book browsing online without knowing in advance what they plan to buy, and that close to the third of them stated that they rely upon online reviews for recommendations. While romance readers may differ in some ways (we tend to buy more books than others, for starters), I seriously doubt that our behavior is so unique as to make this data inapposite.
While I do think there’s some amount of truth to Lucia Macro’s description of the casual book buyer, the casual buyer isn’t the one picking up several books a month and reading voraciously. And it seems to me that by focusing so much on the casual buyer, Avon misses out on those of us who read often and who tend to provide a lot of repeat business to publishers and bookstores. While Avon does have some internet marketing of its own (the “Browse Inside” feature for their books and features on its website), they still seem to discount the reach of the Internet-savvy reader when saying things such as, “(W)e aren’t seeing that any review driven website has the power to “make” a book.”
And with regard to that power to “make” a book, I can certainly think of a few books and authors whose careers would not have gone where they did were it not for the internet. For a recent example, who here remembers Broken Wing? I know that I would never have heard of this book were it not for reviews I saw on various sites. This book was well received on both historical fiction and romance sites – blogger Kristie(J) even had a Quest to get people the read the book. It may not hit Nora Roberts-style sales numbers, but from what I see, the internet did a lot to “make” this book.
The attitude displayed in the Avon interview toward online review sites also bothered me because I see it as indicative of a larger problem in some publishing houses. There seems to be a tone overall of “This is what has worked in the past, so we will keep doing it.” In the current economy, that attitude strikes me as dangerous. Numbers from many publishing houses (including Harpercollins, home of Avon) show serious declines, so it seems obvious that something must change. Harlequin, on the other hand, has been turning in fantastic profits while also being lauded for their innovation. While there are certainly some valid criticisms out there for the manner in which Harlequin has handled the online community, they deserve rightful praise for their mission “to be wherever women are” – including on the internet. Though there’s been no formal study that I can find, I cannot help but wonder if some of the difference in profit outcomes between the two companies could be attributed to corporate views about online marketing and the online reviewing and blogging communities.
Avon has some fantastic authors writing for them, and they have historically been a powerhouse in romance publishing. However, the market is changing now, and it is my belief that the degree to which Avon adapts to this will have a profound impact upon their later sales. I greatly appreciate that the ladies at Avon took time out of their busy schedules to speak with me and I wish them all the best. However, I’d be leaving something important out if I didn’t point out that I also hope they will reconsider some of their decisions toward the online community.
-Lynn Spencer
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All I’m asking is if you find an illegal download on your travels on line, drop a line to Avon Books. Alternatively, sending a note to the author works well too, and thanks for reaching out to the author.
PS When I came across the site it was through google while looking up reviews, I didn’t intend to look for pirated copies of anything.
Carrie I have seen blogs that are huge advicates for ebooks do entries on how to stop piracy and also go over the reasons why it is so prevelant and easy, it is a topic that the online community has addressed, but as the online community is not in control of how ebooks are distributed there really isn’t anything they can do to stop it, other then make it clear what the impact of piracy is and float ideas for how to stop it. I don’t really see how that has anything to though with this debate, unless of course you’re saying that these online blogs are encouraging and spreading piracy. I find that to be far from the truth especialy because I’ve seen editors of epubs post frequently at other sites in the discussions, if they felt their sales were being cut because of those sites they certainly wouldn’t help them. Also I just this week emailed an author when I came across, through google, a site which had what appeared to be pirated copies of her book, so what else are we supposed to do.
Charlaine Harris made the NYT best seller list with her latest book.
Why did I ever buy the first one in the series? Because I read a favorable review on All About Romance.
Shinjinee –
(this off-topic, so I apologize to all other readers) is it possible that you were the reader at The Republic of Pemberley who, when I asked about regency romance recommendations at the Library Page in 2002, both listed a number of excellent authors, Diane Farr and Carla Kelly among them, and pointed me to Good Ton, AAR and TRR? I seem to remember your name. If that was you, thank you, thank you, thank you! That recommendation opened a whole new world for me, and this seems like a good opportunity to tell you how grateful I still am.
Rike
Anon author said that her readers came to her work via several sources. That is fine for her. However, other readers find their favourite books through other means. I got into reading romance and then romantic science fiction via two sources
1. a specific book Madeline Hunter’s By Arrangement, which enchanted me at the time. I started to read all her work (i.e. glom her) and then looked online, which brought me to
2. AAR where I participated actively for some years on the forums. I left for personal issues, and have mostly been offline since then.
Another reader mentioned issues with customer reviews on Amazon. I agree that most reviews of romance books are fairly bland and positive. I used to write detailed reviews, and in doing so made a few friends and some enemies. Some readers welcome detailed reviews, and others don’t.
Best wishes, Shinjinee
Avon never said “”irrelevant.”” In my opinion the on line community is where the early buzz on new authors starts. Avon simply said the wealth of on line fans hasn’t made a key book hit the major bestseller list. Yet. The key work here is “”yet.”” It will happen; we just aren’t there today.
I will tell you where on-line is making a distressing impact, and that is in the world of illegal downloads. Every day several authors contact us, distressed, that people are downloading their work for free. Imagine working on a novel for a year, and in the end all your hard work earns you less than you deserve. Often the on line editions of books have been downloaded thousands of times before we are able to contact the website, and in one case a book had 68,000 copies downloaded, royalty free, before we discovered it.
I’d love it if the passionate online community helped us police those who would steal authors’ work. And think about it. Perhaps if all those books that were downloaded on line for free, actually counted as sales, an online community could “”make”” a book a bestseller. We can all dream.
Everyone have a safe weekend.
Anon author Says: “”was recommended on Julia Quinn’s website””
Am I missing the part where a website isn’t part of the online community?
And as for friends and family recomending books where are those friends and family getting the idea to read the book in the first place. I have recomended books to my sister who never looks them up online time and again, and to other people, heck I’ve recomended books I’ve never read because they didn’t sound like me. I think what everyone is discounting is that the internest isn’t the be all and end all of the buying process any more then it is a nothing, the internet is more like a domino in the what makes a book chain, a reader sees a review likes it buys it recomends it to a friend, a bookseller sees some hype orders more books for their store, a bookseller reads a book review, likes said book, puts it on the recomended spot in the store. None of these factors can be tracked, but I think they are very relevent.
Also one more thing, I didn’t like the lack of respect for the readers who do go online which that interview showed. We are aparently more passiante about what we read then a buyer who picks anything off the shelf, and as such we’re more likely to recomend books that are good. Avon claims the internet hasn’t made a book, but htese passionate readers have made a series, unfortunatly the publisher hasn’t gotten to see this as that series is out of print, which just makes it all the more impressive that readers would track down hard to find copies. Just think of PS’s The BronzeHorseman, and were did you all hear of it?
I think it’s a little weird that someone working for a big publisher such as as Avon doesn’t think the Internet is important. I buy a lot of books from them and I use the internet to read reviews. Since I live in Sweden, it’s almost impossible to buy the books i want in the bookstore. Some stores import books from Avon, but they are all in big cities (far away from me). Don’t they want customers who don’t live in the US to buy their books?
@Pamela Jaffee Thank you. Hope you have a good weekend, too!
Lynn – as we discussed separately, your Avon source clarified that this comment was not a misquote: “we aren’t seeing that any review driven website has the power to “make” a book. Yet.” Apologies for that misunderstanding.
We are supporters of AAR and its followers (we love our authors, we love readers, and we love romance); please know that we absolutely do not believe that anyone is “”irrelevant”” — as our editorial director noted to you, we all have more in common than you think!
Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.
One more thing: While I’ve never had a reader, in person or in a letter/email, say they’ve purchased my book because of a blog or website review, I’ve had several say they’ve read one of my books because it was
A) Recommended by a friend/family member
B) Had “”duke”” in the title
C) was recommended on Julia Quinn’s website
D) had a recommend from a famous author quote on one of the covers.
FWIW…
I am, sort of, on the side of thinking that the online romance community has little to do with sales. I only say that because in Real Life, I know of 5 romance readers from the ages of mid- twenties to late 40’s, and while they use computers I know for a fact that they don’t visit romance blogs or message boards. They pick their books through past success with authors and sorry to say, but by the covers and back blurbs. So, in that way, I am not convinced that huge amounts of romance readers are influenced by the online community. I would be interested in a study done on this subject…perhaps a poll somewhere to get an idea of the interest in blogs and message boards having to do with romance novel reading.
I know Avon thinks the internetz and the people who frequent it are totally irrelevant, but THIS online reader has learned something important today: not to buy from Avon anymore.
And Pamela Spengler-Jaffee’s ridiculous post just sealed the deal. I mean, really. Epic public relations fail, ftl!
Hey there
Avon Books wanted to update the information on editors from the 2002 interview. The link listed editors that were no longer at the company, and we wanted an update.
No one ever said any reader or fan is irrelevant; we listen to all of you, we depend on all of you, whether questions come through FACEBOOK, snail mail, on line reviews or sales figures.
We all face interesting times ahead in getting our books into the hands of readers. I hope we can find common ground in facing that challenge. At the bottom line we are all fans.
“”What this comment meant is that we haven’t yet experienced a trackable surge from one online review site to sales results on one of our books.””
Pamela, no offense, but I think this is demonstrating the same misunderstanding of the nature of the romance beast as the original article. Romance review sites don’t exist in a vacuum. Like their readership, they are densely connected. You’re unlikely to experience a trackable surge from one online review site because romance review sites talk to each other, readers frequent only a differing subset of romance review sites. A book that gets great treatment from a number of sites online will do well–and a book that gets great initial treatment from a small number of sites will find that other reviewers are more likely to read it and review it.
Second: Pamela, no offense, but maybe the reason you haven’t seen this surge is that Avon hasn’t produced the kind of book that would benefit from it. I can’t think of a new Avon author who has gotten the kind of extremely positive reviews that, say, Joanna Bourne or Sherry Thomas or Judith James have.
Online communities are great at promoting new authors. Get some good ones, and then come whining if they don’t work out.
Anon Author, just to further clarify. AAR did not approach Avon for an interview. Avon approached AAR.
Since AAR’s Alexa ranking was brought up by Ms. Jaffe, I think a little clarification is in order: The Avon blog she sited had 102,000 hits last month and a three month average of 105,570. Those are very good numbers.
AAR, with the inclusion of our very popular message boards currently hosted on another server and not included in our Alexa traffic ranking, had 480,068 hits and a three month average of 525,503.
Where did anyone call online readers irrelevant? All I saw was that Avon has not chosen to include review quotes from online sites on their books. Yet. Yes, they say that the online romance community is not indicative of romance readership as a whole, but I hear AAR readers saying this all the time on the bulletin boards. Seriously. All the time.
FWIW, Avon sends review copies to lots of major online review sites and blogs. They encourage their authors to do blog tours, and even sometimes make the arrangements for the “”visit”” just like they would an in-person event. They are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to promote their authors on the net. They don’t think online readership is irrelevant at all; they just think, and probably correctly, that we haven’t yet reached a tipping point. Like it or not, an endorsement quote from Lisa Kleypas or Julia Quinn carries more weight to more readers than one from All About Romance or Dear Author. You guys may know better, but Mary Reader doesn’t. And just as importantly (maybe moreso) the buyers who put the books on the shelves in major accounts are far more likely to increase a buy based on a terrific author endorsement than they are by an unfamiliar review site.
I certainly don’t know the particulars, but from the outside it looks like AAR invited Avon to participate in an interview, Avon agreed (despite the fact that the publishing house is frequently bashed on the bulletin boards–and yes, I know that the bbs regulars don’t speak for the AAR staff, but it is part of the site). Then , when the Avon representatives didn’t say what AAR wanted to hear, you guys came over to the blog and bashed them.
WHOA THERE PARDNERS!! I read that interview, and while I was surprised at the response about the internet, if it works for Avon who am I to judge? I don’t know why all the broohaha. Never once did the people from Avon say I was irrelevant. If what they have been doing works for them—congratulations! We live in a world where a dissenting opinion is treated like an attack. Reading some of these responses leads me to believe that we prefer the “”Stepford Wife”” method. Back off attacking Avon , let them do their thing their way, continue reading and writing reviews on websites such as AAR. There really is enough space in the world, and on the internet for all of us. And when Avon decides to join in welcome them with open arms. Relax people, reading is supposed to be fun—remember?
http://www.mybgarden.com/reldate.html — I’m not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this link, but here goes. One of the fine ladies on the Book Lovers Message board reminded us that there’s another option, other than Romantic Times magazine, for comprehensive lists of upcoming books: it’s called My Book Garden.com. Very helpful.
(This arose from a discussion about Carla Kelly’s latest getting a C rating on RT … and someone said it was a good source of upcoming books).
BREAK
I didn’t think AAR was rude to Avon: what an odd reply back from their publicist. You and SM and DA and so many many sites send readers flying to bookstores to buy new, exciting books. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!
@Pamela Jaffee – First of all, I can tell you that we here at AAR stand by our story. The interview was conducted via several exchanges of email, and the results were simply posted in response to the questions. I did not edit the responses to take out or put in extra wording. No one was misquoted, I think you are out of line for making that accusation, and I believe an apology is in order.
With regard to Alexa, you may have seen mentioned on our site that our message boards are currently hosted on a separate forum. We are currently in the process of migrating this data so that the entire site will be hosted on one server, and I expect our data to change accordingly.
When conducting an interview with your editorial staff, it is not standard journalistic procedure for me to also clear everything with marketing. In addition, I must take issue with your allegation that we posted “”invective”” about Avon online. The interview contained no such thing and in my blog piece, I merely give my reaction to the answers I received from your editorial staff regarding the online community.
For the record, I (and many of my colleagues here) enjoy quite a few Avon books. As with any author-reader connection, some books work better than others for various reviewers, but for myself personally, I know that I enjoy many of the books that I read from Avon. So, when I comment on the connection between Avon and the online community, it is with an eye toward opening a dialogue, not attacking with vitriol. After all, those of us who buy and enjoy your books have a vested interest in seeing your publishing house succeed in this changing market.
I’m a busy person who is not interested in reading mediocre romance novels. I want to read the really good ones out there. So I rely VERY heavily on this site to give me pointers on which books to buy. I may have been disappointed once or twice but no big deal. I will sometimes compare the ratings on this site with amazon. But I’ll go with AAR more often than not. I can not find this kind of quality review anywhere else.
Personally, I haven’t trusted author quotes on books ever since I read this blog article by Jennifer Crusie: http://jennycrusie.blogspot.com/2006/09/confessions-of-reformed-quote-whore.html
So I give more consideration to a quote from a review source just because I am more confident that they actually read the book.
I am astounded that AAR would post such invective online about Avon, misquote our editors* and make assumptions about our online marketing and publicity platforms, without attempting to reach out and contact Avon’s publicity or marketing director about issues pertinent to our positions.
HarperCollins is an internet-forward company; we are among the forefront of those experimenting online, and stretching digital frontiers. As publicity director for Avon, I know that traditional print reviewers are not as plentiful as in previous times, and I have been working strategically with our online marketing managers and directors for the past three years to hone our outreach to the sites where romance fans flock for information about books and authors. We have some of the most web-savvy authors out there – Eloisa James, Julia Quinn, Elizabeth Boyle, Jenna Petersen, Anna Campbell (and so many others) – and we strive to learn from these very intelligent, Web-forward women continually.
We have myriad online platforms in place for our authors to be promoted, and self-promote from the rich author microsites we created for our authors at HarperCollins.com; to http://www.AuthorOnAir.com‘s Romance Radio (a dedicated online broadcast portal to promote our authors); from ready use of the publishing industry’s first in-house video studio to create interesting vignettes that Avon and our authors can work together to promote virally online; to setting up interactive virtual/bricks-and-mortar signing events, where readers can interact with favorite authors either in-person or online.
I could go on, and on.
*For the record – When your Avon ‘source’ was (mis)quoted as saying “”we aren’t seeing that any review driven website has the power to “”make”” a book. Yet.”” There was no intended detraction from Avon’s respect for online review sites (if you look at Publicity/Marketing’s outreach, we know how to reach our readers — they are a websavvy bunch. We recognize that they are largely online. In fact, two years ago, I told the Wall Street Journal that romance readers were at the forefront of the online community, and would be the ones to drive e-books to widespread popularity. The journalist found it hard to believe it at the time…but it’s common knowledge now.) What this comment meant is that we haven’t yet experienced a trackable surge from one online review site to sales results on one of our books; we HAVE seen it happen for sister imprints, and are working to assess and quantify opportunities that will help us maximize online results for our authors, and help us connect with the romance genre’s Internet-savvy readers.
For the record, LikesBooks.com Alexa ranking is 172,345; the Avon Blog (http://avonromanceblog.blogspot.com) – run by our talented Editorial team – ranks at 105,570. These smart women love SMART books written by, and for, smart readers. We all do, here at Avon.
Pamela Spengler-Jaffee
Director of Public Relations, Avon Books
>>Outside of RT, how many mainstream reviews can be quoted for a romance novel?
And I’m not sure I’d call RT mainstream. They go to a pretty specialized audience. Last time I picked one up at Borders, the manager told me they only sell 2-3 per month at her store.
Sandy AAR wrote:
“”Mainstream print reviews for romance novels are RARELY available — and then only for established authors.””
Exactly. Outside of RT, how many mainstream reviews can be quoted for a romance novel? The big newspapers? Forget it. Sometimes, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, and Kirkus will review romance novels. But even then, unless they are librarians or booksellers, the readers mentioned in the article probably won’t be familiar with those review sources. Those are trade journals, so most people don’t run into them unless they are major publishing geeks.
Besides, just because a reader isn’t on-line, or doesn’t read on-line review sites, that doesn’t mean she can’t judge a quote from an on-line review. They might be more impressed with a well written quote from, say, AAR than from yet another glowing author blurb. To me, and maybe to those fans as well, a review quote says “”Wow, someone reviewed this book,”” while an author blurb says “”Oh no, not again. And why aren’t there any reviews of this book? Are they hiding something?””
Finally, let’s not forget that while there are readers who will buy every (or almost every) Avon romance that comes out in a month, they aren’t the only potential customers. Lots of TV shows have marketed themselves to a loyal core audience, only to get canceled after a couple of seasons because the rest of the world didn’t know they existed.
If Avon thinks the online community does not impact their sales, then why do so many Avon authors have elaborate websites? Why would Eloisa James & Julia Quinn bother investing time & money into them if they didn’t believe they made a difference to their sales figures?
Here’s a way for readers to prove that they check reviews. Cite them!
If you’re a member of GoodReads, on marking a book “”To Read”” or “”Read”” and then writing a review, there is a choice to list who recommended it to you. I’ve started citing where I heard about it there, whether Library Journal, All About Romance, Dear Author, Smart Bitches, NPR, newspaper, magazine, friend…whatever.
I would think that if enough readers start to do this, that publishing companies should (if they really WANT to market) start paying attention.
Do you all agree?
Hi Girls,
I am late to this discussion. I used to buy almost every historical Avon published. RT’s reviews were too nice and I stopped basing my buying on them. I check other sites for reviews (AAR, too ). You guys have saved me from buying books I really wouldn’t have liked. The tightening ecomy and the rising costs of books effects every purchase I now make. I no longer auto-buy an author. For the record, I am buying fewer Avon historicals. If I am interested in one I now try to find it at the UBS.
Betty
AAR Sandy said: “”But the point is I don’t know. AVON doesn’t know. The fact that they make major business decisions from their guts without research to back up their assumptions is risky. Seriously so.””
I agree and if Avon has a faithful following that have been reading their titles for decades then common sense says that those readers are among their older ones and will eventually not be there anymore. If they want to addict a new generation, then they need to look at trends among the facebook, twitter, myspace crowd. Those readers are the future and they do everything on the internet. A business that does not look to the future is a business that may not have one.
“” I can’t know, but I suspect that might be right – if the splash on the cover reads ”the best romance this century’ – The Times, London’ wouldn’t that sell more books than ”the best romance this century’ – All about romance’?””
Absolutely. But that’s about as likely to happen as my cat being elected president of the United States.
Mainstream print reviews for romance novels are RARELY available — and then only for established authors. I’ve rarely seen them from very small papers (Anniston, Alabama) comes to mind as one I’ve seen a few times, but then you have to ask yourself if a quote from a paper the vast majority of the country has never seen would have more validity to readers than a Web site with more than 350,000 individual users every year.
But the point is I don’t know. AVON doesn’t know. The fact that they make major business decisions from their guts without research to back up their assumptions is risky. Seriously so.
And as the economy tightens — and if Avon quality continues to fluctuate from title to title as dramatically as it does now — readers will soon stop buying every Avon title. Consistency of product is critical to grow a brand.
@MMcA – I think you sum up the point with Avon well. I also got the impression that they think readers are more likely to recognize the names of the print reviewers. However, that’s also where it gets a little sticky because there really aren’t a lot of major print reviewers who cover romance.
Many (and probably the vast majority) of the major newspapers in the US don’t review romance. The main print review source for romance is Romantic Times magazine. There may be others out there, but RT is the only one I can find in bookstores with any regularity. RT can be a good source of information, but my sense is that they are more a cheerleader for the genre than a critical review publication. In their more recent issues, most of their reviews consist of just 2-3 sentences posted above a plot blurb.
Having read the interview, I thought all she meant was that quoting a review from somewhere like AAR on the book wouldn’t carry as much weight with the reader as a quoting a review from … and here I’m stuck because I don’t know the names of the big US print reviewers.
I can’t know, but I suspect that might be right – if the splash on the cover reads ”the best romance this century’ – The Times, London’ wouldn’t that sell more books than ”the best romance this century’ – All about romance’?
Because people who aren’t on the internet aren’t going to know who AAR are, whereas for those of us who visit here, we’ve already read the review, and bought the book. (Possibly bought it online, without ever seeing the cover quotes.)
It’s not a question of whether more people read The Times than AAR , or which reviews romance best – all those cover reviews do is flag it up to the casual browser that some worthwhile organisation thinks it’s worth them looking at this book rather than that book, and perhaps a quote from a traditional reviewer does still carry more weight at this point in time.
Almost like you’re selling your product by associating it with a brand people trust, and ‘The Times’ is a well established brand, which people recognise instantly, whereas internet review sites don’t yet have that level of brand recognition.
Or perhaps I misunderstood the point she was making.
I could almost say ditto on what Anon said.
(“”One comment: While there is a brand new generation of romance readers coming into romancelandia who checks out online sites, where Historicals are concerned (Avon’s mainstay) there are a lot of readers, and I mean A LOT, who have no need. These are readers who have been reading for decades, who go to the bookstore each month and buy up all the Avon romance titles for the month. Period. Just Avon Romance (among a few other favorites) regardless of author, storyline, title””… ) etc.
While I do think the internet community matters (I am in it) I think that the majority of readers do pick then books up from Wal Mart, Target etc. I think that is one reason that Harlequin does so well. I believe that the majority books are sold because of name recognition. And to an certain extent, brand recognition (like imprints). I think that where the book is sold (Wal Mart, etc) makes a much bigger impact than any review.
One of the other web pages had a discussion about series books about a week ago. Almost every reader commented on how they no longer read Evanovich. However if you look at her sales figures, her books do as well or better than Nora Roberts So there always seems to be a big discrepancy between what we are saying here, and then the sales results. That seems to support that we are a small community.
Not to negate our impact, but I don’t think the average customer spends a lot of time reading book boards. Again agreeing with Pathercrawl, if you are established author, then I don’t think that the internet impacts your sales figures that much at all. If you are new, then yes word of mouth is important and the internet helps.
“”While I love the Net for sourcing discounted books, new authors, and the like, I don’t take a lot of the reviews seriously.
In the first place, someone’s taste may be vastly different than my own.””
I agree that reviews are affected by the tastes of the reviewers, but that’s as true of the “”major traditional print reviewers”” favoured by Chen as it is of reviews published by the established online review sites such as AAR.
While I love the Net for sourcing discounted books, new authors, and the like, I don’t take a lot of the reviews seriously.
In the first place, someone’s taste may be vastly different than my own. After reading every single one of the In Death books by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts), I was highly disappointed with the last two because she chose to minimize the role of the major supporting players. While I was reading the reviews, I was a bit floored by those saying that they were as good as the previous books, and that others missed the problems Eve and Roarke were having two dozen books back. I liked the characters being developed, they didn’t.
In the second, I’ve noticed a trend on book sellers’ sites for the fans of an author/book to go in and gush like it’s the greatest piece of literature they’ve ever read. For example, on Amazon, I’ve seen hundreds of reviews that were marked “”helpful”” when they said little more than, “”I loved the book, a real page turner.”” Then when someone goes into great detail with the postives and negatives of the book, with a lean toward something like 3 stars, that review will be given few if any “”helpful”” points. There’s some serious agenda pushing at times, and I can’t really go by the reviews for that very reason.
Speaking as one of the older generation (I will be 60 in July). I read blogs and find new authors online all the time as do my friends.
I would have never found Rob Thurman, Sherry Thomas or Joanne Bourne without the reading about their books online.
If you done keep ahead of the pack, you will loose the race.
If I may put it not so politely maybe – they are fully of hooey!!!!!!! I buy almost all my books these days based on recommendations on either review sites or blogs. Mind you, I read very few Avon books so I do very little promoting on this particular publisher myself.
As others have stated, maybe they don’t see the advantages yet, but the internet will continue to grow as a source of finding good books. I’ve had a blog since early 2005 and I’ve seen such an explosion of new blogs over the past year. And while many tackle many different aspects of romance, their main focus in on books they’ve enjoyed and the desire to share.
The times – they are a’changing and if Avon were smart, they would be willing to look towards the future.