Hmmmm.

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but I want to share this article about Amazon reviews.

If it takes you to the sign-in page, you can use "salon" and "tabletalk", respectively, to read.

The literary world is always much smaller and creepier than we think, even when we think it is quite small and creepy.

John, you said a mouthful. And how sad is it that I find everyone connected with this - from the NYTBR to Amazon to the ULA - creepy and off-putting?

"That anybody is allowed to come in and anonymously trash a book to me is absurd," said Mr. Rechy,

See -- this complaint strikes me as absurd. Is the problem the anonymity? Does it make a difference if I trash your book and sign my name? Do I have to pass a literacy quiz, or mail you a Xerox of my bachelor's degree? If the degree weren't in English, would you reject my comments out of hand?

It's a book. You've published it. If you're lucky, people you've never heard of are going to talk about it -- they're going to praise it, or trash it, or give it a fair but harsh critique. That's what publication entails: putting the book out there for the readers to do what they will with it.

If you're not lucky, readers won't care enough to talk about the book one way or another.

Cory Doctorow has a much healthier attitude toward negative Amazon reviews, I would say.

Is the problem the anonymity? Does it make a difference if I trash your book and sign my name?

I think a lot of people are worried by anonymous reviews, but like you, I don't really get it. What's the big deal? I have other issues with an anonymous review mindset (see below), but truth to tell, I'm far more aggravated by the fact that at a publication like PW, which unlike the occasional "reader from West Armpit" a bad review can break a writer, the reviews are handed off to a pool of anonymous reviewers. They can do a metric ton of damage, and they very often do. Yet a positive review doesn't necessarily help sales at all.

But speaking just for me, I personally don't understand why anyone genuinely reviewing a book, with no agenda other than to voice an opinion, would want to remain anonymous. Shit, I've been a book reviewer, and I can't imagine not signing my name. So, sign your name. You're brave enough, or feel strongly enough, to have written a scathing or glowing review? Why be afraid to say who you are? I just don't get that. It seems passive-aggressive in the extreme.

I see a very weird attitude a lot on readerville, where I'm a semi-regular: a writer will get an anonymous review that trashes their book, and every other author up there will spring into the fray: it must be someone you know. A former student? A girl you went to high school with? Someone who wrote a book with a similar theme that didn't get published?

The one thing no one seems willing to concede is that maybe, just maybe, someone genuinely didn't like the book.

But everything to do with that story really did creep me out.

I personally don't understand why anyone genuinely reviewing a book, with no agenda other than to voice an opinion, would want to remain anonymous.

Simple. On a very public forum like Amazon, I don't want thousands of strangers knowing my name and address.

See, that would be my first thought, not who I pissed off.

I don't want thousands of strangers knowing my name and address.

Ayup. I don't use my full name on the public internet, period. So any review by me is going to look like a pseud anyway.

Betsy, is there any reason you can't use an pseud? The objection from me is to "a reader from...."

I don't want thousands of strangers knowing my address either. But if I'm going to go to the trouble of writing and posting a review, it's presumably because I have a strong opinion about the work in question. And "a reader from a city in which there are eight million other readers and you'll never know who I am, neener" really does strike me as p/a. Why post the opinion in the first place? I don't understand the split in the mindset between "I have strong opinions and want the world to know about them" and "I don't want anyone to know who I am."

But that's just my own mindset. I really don't get it.

Anonymous reviews also don't get their email addresses harvested by spambots.