Amazon asked me to rate my own book . . . What’s a writer to do? by Deborah Batterman
The other day I get an e-mail from Amazon that is so LOL-worthy I nearly choke —How many stars would you give SHOES HAIR NAILS?
For a very brief moment I’m tempted. I would hardly be the first writer to give a few stars (oh, don’t be modest – go for 5) to my own work. An article by Christopher Howse in The Telegraph reminds us that Walt Whitman dubbed himself “An American bard at last!” in a review of Leaves of Grass. Yes, he was ridiculed for the grandiose self-review, much in the way that best-selling author RJ Ellroy is taking heat for posting reviews of his work, under a pseudonym. Rather than dismissing the extremes writers may go to for a little attention, Howse asks whether sock puppetry is really “one of the ‘graver’ online transgressions, along with the fomenting of racial hatred, bullying, outraging public decency, the marketing of fake pharmaceuticals and the trafficking of children.”
Hard to argue with a perspective like that. Muriel Gray, writing for The Guardian, is a little more tongue-in-cheek, but no less clear about the hypocrisy suggested by the Ellroy scandal. “Selling books in a crowded and fragmented marketplace is by necessity becoming a dark art,” she writes. Her remedy? “Authors’ contracts should insist they compose and post at least one secret online review of their book, with a royalty increase if it goes undetected for longer than six months.”
On the other end of the spectrum are the ‘serious’ critics/reviewers, ones like Peter Stothard, editor of The Times Literary Supplement (TLS), who created a bit of a furor with his suggestion that the rise of blogging may be detrimental to literature. “It is wonderful that there are so many blogs and websites devoted to books,” he says. “but to be a critic is to be importantly different than those sharing their own taste.” In a recent post by Claire McAlpine on her always enlightening book blog, Word by Word, she responds to Stothard’s remarks with a list of ten things equally if not more harmful to literature.
Even if Stodhard’s commentary is a bit short-sighted, he touches a nerve. What draws me to some book blogs more than others is the sensibility underscoring the choice of books reviewed and the insights certain reviewers bring to the discussion in that ever-expanding (virtual) book club Cyberspace makes possible. Book blogging is indeed a labor of love, one riddled with a touch of irony in that the reward -- i.e., reading the book -- precedes the work of rating, reviewing, sharing thoughts. Any suggestion that there are too many book blogs to count (so many that, like books themselves, they can be categorized by genre) is beside the point.
But even the best of reviewers is subject to some subjectivity. Open the same book on two different days, in two different moods, and you may not even remember what it was that you didn’t like about the book. Which brings up what I see as a valid distinction between what we call book reviews and those of the ‘I liked it/didn’t like it’ variety that might better be called reader responses. Maybe Lev Grossman is right in his suggestion that in our post-Amazon and GoodReads era, “it’s much harder to maintain a stable, abstract idea of what literary value or greatness or what-have-you means – not in the face of all those stars.” Not that things were better in the “oppressive” old days, he says. “But short of resurrecting and solving aesthetics, the least we should do is consider trying to move beyond doing the sucks/rocks debate a million times a day on the Internet and talk more about what it means to say that a book sucks.”
Once in a while I do book exchanges with other writers. It's a sharing of sorts, buying each other's books, no strings attached. Quickly after reading my short story collection, one writer/friend sent me an e-mail telling me how much she loved it and how she thought more people needed to know about. So she posted a review that was as glorious as it was thoughtful. I wanted to gift a copy to a friend of her choice as a thank you. She asked me, instead, to review her latest book. She had no expectation of a quid pro quo 5**** review (which did a little to diminish my worries -- i.e., what if I didn't think her book was good?). “Reviews sell,” she said. As I turns out, I found her book rich and wonderful. Another writer who gave me a glowing review didn't ask me to review her book, but I certainly read it. What I found was a story with heart, not to mention some intrigue to the characters and the time frame/settings in which they’re placed, but in need of at least one more structural revision. I wrestled with whether to add a review, in the end, deciding that sometimes no stars really are better than two or three.
Back to me and my invitation to self-review. The reason for the e-mail was as clear as it was humorous: When I send someone a Kindle edition of my own book, I need to purchase a copy via Amazon. So, yes, I suppose that makes me a little guilty of skewing sales (please tell me you’re laughing). And when you buy a book on Amazon, those automated follow-up e-mails make no distinction between writer and reader. As a writer, I have some options at my disposal to bring up my ranking: pay for reviews (ugh), write one myself (maybe not), continue pitching my book to review blogs, beg friends to post reviews. Meditate and pray that the universe will eventually reward me. As a reader, I can choose to remain silent on books that strike me as missing the pulse and voice essential to good narrative while I make a point of singing the praises of books I want everyone I know to know about.
Photograph copyright © Christine Boyka Kluge
