Are romance
readers the nicest people in the world? Or the smartest?
Lately the subject
of book reviews has come up a lot in writing world. The online writing board I
visit has writers agonizing over getting more reviews. They buy ads, beg
family, offer trades, whine, and cajole. One blog has writers complaining about
bad reviews, while another has readers complaining about writers complaining
about bad reviews. Is your head spinning yet? Mine is.
On the other hand,
a writer friend is worrying about her lack of reviews, but her sales are sky
high. She wonders how she can tell if people are enjoying the book or not. I
wonder how I get sales like hers.
So what is going
on? Are reviews important or not?
I have a theory.
(I always have a theory, because I have an out-of-control imagination.) When I
used to work in advertising, we had focus groups of consumers to try out
product marketing ideas. There were certain consumers who were called heavy
users. For example, the beer focus group was shown a new beer, and the guys
(yes, they were always guys) said, “I’d try a case of that.” A case meant 24
beers, which they were going to drink over a weekend. By themselves. I leave it
to your own out-of-control imagination to visualize what these guys looked
like.
Romance is a huge
category. In fact, many romance readers may not even consider themselves that since the genre is sometimes belittled. So most readers have subcategory
preferences, ones that fit their interests, like suspense, historical, chick
lit, vampires, young adult, on and on. I read a lot of hockey romances, because
I’m interested in hockey and relationships. And I can usually tell from the
sample if I’m going to like it or not. If the sample is not enough, I might
look at the reviews, but I usually look at the bad ones first. To paraphrase
Tolstoy: all good reviews are alike, but bad reviews are interesting in their own
ways. In fact, a bad review may tip me off to something I may like in a book.
Like reviews that complain about bad language or an unhappy ending, which are
not things that bother me at all. Therefore, the good reviews are not necessary
for me to make a purchase.
But let’s get back
to those heavy users, but not beer drinkers—romance readers. (Although they may
well be doing both at the same time. Personally, I visualize reading a romance with wine and chocolate.) If you’re reading three or more books a week,
you are already an expert. You can probably scan a sample in two minutes and
decide yay or nay. You have a list of authors whose books you like, and you pick a new one up automatically. You may even download books based on the
cover, the subject only (like a hockey romance, pretty please) or because a
friend recommended it. Reviews may not be important to those readers.
Really, it’s like
anything. If you know about wines, you can pick out a good, low-priced wine by tasting it or even from the label. Similarly, heavy-user romance
readers know what they enjoy and can pick out books accordingly. If the books are
good, they’ll pick up all the author’s other books as well. They are smart that
way, they don’t need reviews, good or bad, because they have self-knowledge.
In addition,
romance readers seem to be a lot more tolerant than normal people. I’ve read
reviews where readers complained a lot about the book, but then turned around
and said they’d read the sequel. It’s the equivalent of having bad service at a
restaurant, but being willing to give the place another try, something that
nice people do. (Or people who live in a place where there aren’t a lot of
restaurants.) And nice readers are also willing to give new/indie authors a
chance. They don’t know the writer, but the synopsis looks intriguing enough,
so one-click and the book is bought.
So why are all
these writers worrying about reviews? I suspect that they write books in other
categories where the readers are not so smart or so nice.
