Tanenhaus Scouts Browse Amazon As We Speak

After reading the Los Angeles Times article on folks who review for Amazon, one thing comes through loud and clear: people who work in print media are coping with a major threat to their self-esteem.

"There have been so many cutbacks on coverage of books in the mainstream press, they're probably desperate for any coverage they can get," [Laura] Miller said. "Ask an author, would they rather have positive reviews on Amazon or a positive review in the New York Times Book Review. The status is not the same."

I'm an author, and I'll tell you: a kind word from the Gray Lady would be nice, but I'd be willing to trade it in if people who checked out my book on Amazon would always see four or five stars attached to it. (Caveat: all of the books I've had published so far have been for hire and for contractual reasons don't have my name on the cover.)

Thomas Kunkel at the American Journalism Review isn't any more impressed than Laura Miller:

"You have no real guarantee that the person is bringing any kind of knowledge or expertise to his opinion.... In most major newspapers and major magazines that have serious book reviewing, you can pretty well guarantee ... that the person doing the book reviewing has some expertise in the subject being discussed, and they know the author's previous works and the genre and that sort of thing."

But Caroline Leavitt is one author who puts stock in her customer reviews, because "they're really from the heart. It'll be, 'Oh, I stayed up all night,' or 'This is a piece of garbage.' It's a true response." And that, I think, is the crux of the matter: customer "reviews" are, more often than not, visceral emotional reactions rather than contemplative analysis...and therein lies their appeal. People want to know how a book's going to make them feel, because nobody particularly wants to feel bad, and most print reviewers, caught up in the intellectual quality of a book's content, don't address that issue. And thanks to the "I'm OK, You're OK" school of thinking, it no longer matters if you have "knowledge" or "expertise" to back up your opinion; all opinions are inherently equal because they're all authentic expressions of our feelings. (Hey, I don't have to like the conditions, I just have to describe them.)

Of course, you still have to wonder how much self-awareness some of these Amazon reviewers possess. "I tend to be able to analyze books really efficiently," says Rebecca Johnson, who has one of the highest credibility rankings among customers. "Authors say I'm insightful and I have a gift for extracting the essence of a book." Gee, that couldn't possibly be because every single review you post is positive, could it? But when she adds, "I feel like I'm part of the reviewing community," she's absolutely right. Because the party got way bigger, and while folks like Kunkel and Miller are hiding out over by the buffet table snarking about who let in all the riffraff, eventually nobody's going to notice their absence out on the dance floor. I can strain these metaphors all day if I have to, you know...