How do you know if a book review is real or fake on Amazon? The New York Times explored the world of paid book reviews in a long article this weekend, showing how hard it can be to spot a paid review.
Check it out: “[Researcher Bing Liu] estimates that about one-third of all consumer reviews on the Internet are fake. Yet it is all but impossible to tell when reviews were written by the marketers or retailers (or by the authors themselves under pseudonyms), by customers (who might get a deal from a merchant for giving a good score) or by a hired third-party service.”
While paying for book reviews creates the illusion of a perfect book, true bestsellers will generate a wide range responses from readers. To prove this point, we collected ten bestselling books with 150 one-star reviews on Amazon. Follow the links below to read one-star reviews of some beloved books…
One-Star Reviews for Bestselling Books
1. Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James (3,665 one-star reviews)
2. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (717 one-star reviews)
3. A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin (456 one-star reviews)
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (432 one-star reviews)
5. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (248 one-star reviews)
6. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (262 one-star reviews)
7. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (194 one-star reviews)
8. The Help by Kathryn Stockett (183 one-star reviews)
9. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (174 one-star reviews)
10. The Confession by John Grisham(166 one-star-review)