Kindle and Nook readers bash high e-book pricing with angry one-star reviews
1–10 of 78 posts
Re: Kindle and Nook readers bash high e-book pricing with angry one-star reviews
#2This is why I hate the 'star' review system. It very often leads to users trying to 'punish' the maker of the product, and creates an incorrect perception that the product itself is flawed. This might be a great book, but someone browsing through titles will only see that it has a 1-star rating and assume it sucks. I really think there'd be a lot of potential in some sort of hybrid review system that could weed out these sorts of garbage reviews.
Re: Kindle and Nook readers bash high e-book pricing with angry one-star reviews
#3Don't kill the messenger?
Re: Kindle and Nook readers bash high e-book pricing with angry one-star reviews
#4What I find funny is that this would have never happened if they charged the standard $9.99 e-book price (which in itself is absolutely too much for e-books).
The $5 difference is causing quite a stir which I am sure is not worth it in the long run.
Re: Kindle and Nook readers bash high e-book pricing with angry one-star reviews
#5This is why I hate the 'star' review system. It very often leads to users trying to 'punish' the maker of the product, and creates an incorrect perception that the product itself is flawed. This might be a great book, but someone browsing through titles will only see that it has a 1-star rating and assume it sucks. I really think there'd be a lot of potential in some sort of hybrid review system that could weed out t…
Well they review it as 1-star saying in essence that it is poor in terms of value for money, while throwing some flak at the publisher for not selling it cheaper. Im not sure what you could hate there - or why you would want to remove it.
If someone found something is poor value for money I'd rather know it before I buy. That kind of reviews saved me from a few bad purchases already.
I do agree there must be some part of "activist reviews" there too, not that they are worth the trouble of weeding them out.
Re: Kindle and Nook readers bash high e-book pricing with angry one-star reviews
#6I have no probelem with people leaving 1* reviews without reading the book, just like I have no problem with Amazon removing those reviews (and only those reviews). Yes they are annoying, but they are also one of the few visible ways to protest. While "not buying the book" will probably be effective in the long term, an indivudial non-purchase isn't going to be noticed by anyone.
A similar situation to this frequently arises when big games are released on Steam. Amazon then gets flooded by 1* reviews from people who can't get Steam to work properly on release day or something.
I also find the opposite very annoying: when fans rate something as 5* before it's even released.
Re: Kindle and Nook readers bash high e-book pricing with angry one-star reviews
#7This is why I hate the 'star' review system. It very often leads to users trying to 'punish' the maker of the product, and creates an incorrect perception that the product itself is flawed. This might be a great book, but someone browsing through titles will only see that it has a 1-star rating and assume it sucks. I really think there'd be a lot of potential in some sort of hybrid review system that could weed out t…
Pricing is an important factor in a purchase decision, so shouldn't it be a valid factor in a review?
A 1-star review saying it's completely overpriced, while not perfect, is still better than reviews I see in the app store like "Amazing app, love it! 1/5" or "Pretty cool app, but it crashes on load and I can't use it, 4/5" (and those are the intelligible ones).
Re: Kindle and Nook readers bash high e-book pricing with angry one-star reviews
#8Perhaps they should be more honest that this is temporary, "early access" pricing. Perhaps they should say "The Fifth Witness: Electronic Early Access Edition, $15", and promise "The Fifth Witness: Electronic Mass Market Edition, $7". After all, early access is a reasonable thing to charge money for.
I also seem to recall reading elsewhere that authors get a much bigger cut of hardback sales than they do of mass market paperback sales. Perhaps this should be advertised more prominently?
Re: Kindle and Nook readers bash high e-book pricing with angry one-star reviews
#9This is why I hate the 'star' review system. It very often leads to users trying to 'punish' the maker of the product, and creates an incorrect perception that the product itself is flawed. This might be a great book, but someone browsing through titles will only see that it has a 1-star rating and assume it sucks. I really think there'd be a lot of potential in some sort of hybrid review system that could weed out t…
I haven't gotten any direct numbers from them, but the authors of technical books that I've talked to have told me that your Amazon sales are proportional to the number of reviews, not the rating associated with the product. They claim that just getting more reviews is important and always worth comping review copies to people you know will write a review, even if they are not all 4/5-star reviews.
If I had to guess, most people only click on items with high numbers of reviews, read the "top 3 most useful," and then make their purchase decision from those, rather than the long tail of rants from either the easily-bribed or disillusioned masses. These voters may inadvertently be steering people to the Kindle version by inflating the number of reviews associated with it over the hardcover.
Re: Kindle and Nook readers bash high e-book pricing with angry one-star reviews
#10What I find funny is that this would have never happened if they charged the standard $9.99 e-book price (which in itself is absolutely too much for e-books). The $5 difference is causing quite a stir which I am sure is not worth it in the long run.
Why is $10 too much for an ebook ? - surely it depends on the value of the content inside it.
Valuing a book by it's physical properties is a practice that's gone on for far too long. Lots of technical books are full of "padding" and duplication because no-one will buy a 50 page book which concisely provides the useful information for $10-$20. It waste a huge amount of time both of the author and the readers.