I think the bigger concern isn’t whether a one-star rating is unfair to an author when it’s based on nothing to do with their work, but rather that the whole system of allowing non-moderated, universal-access rating is too easily abused to the point it becomes worthless. I noticed this a lot when I was recently looking for a new cel phone. There were a lot of one-star ‘this service/phone sucks!’ reviews that were no more than ‘this service/phone sucks!”. There were also a lot of 5-star reviews that were clearly posted by the PR department of the phone manufacturer or provider.

But. back to Amazon…

I sort of agree with @Josh too. It’s a corporate site not a free-speach site and Amazon should run it how they like. It’s then up to the consumer to decide if what they’re offering is worthwhile or not.

As for authors with a bunch of four-star ratings being slighted by angry Kindle mobs, they should maybe stop obsessing. Yeah it sucks, but so does having the guy at the book store trash your book because he hates the cover art. The answer is to go back to writing the next book or go out and pro-actively promote your current one.

Wow…sorry that’s all over the place. I really need some coffee.

I mean, the answer to like every problem on the Internet is that people should be more like you—oh my God I can’t believe I wrote that—but if that answer worked, there wouldn’t be any problems in the first place.

Yes, these reviews are dumb. But so are people who buy books based solely on the star-rating of anonymous-and-unqualified-past-having-the-capability-to-locate-amazon.com-on-the-internet critics, without delving any further into the context of those star ratings.

It sucks that authors are getting 1-star ratings that have nothing to do with the quality of their work. But does it matter? People say meaningless things on the internet all the time, and they are not immediately adopted by everyone as concrete fact. Consumers should be trusted to give the same weight to these reviews as they do to my Marshall McLuhan Was Probably Illiterate Tumblr.

I bought a printer yesterday. Before purchasing, I checked the user reviews. It had three 4-star reviews and one 0-star review. The 0-starrer judged it such because the wifi connection on his obviously defective model that could easily have been returned for a replacement did not work. I looked past the overall 3/5 star rating and read the actual reviews. Then I bought the printer.

I guess what I’m saying is that everyone should be more like me.

Consumer greed, like corporate greed, is a strange, irrational thing, and I feel for these authors. I hope readers have the sense to read the actual reviews to see exactly how useful they are, or aren’t, so they don’t miss out on some truly wonderful stories.