5 Reasons You Need RABBLE!
NYT Book Reviews are irrelevant – You NEED Rabble instead. As I write this blog post, Amazon lists ninety-one thousand, seven hundred ninety-eight (91,798) books in the “new releases, last 30 days” section. The NYT has eleven reviews on their books webpage.* The LA Times doesn’t mind making you scroll through all twenty-one of theirs; the Washington Post, sixteen; and the Wall Street Journal – kings of the scroll down – one hundred eighty-nine. Collectively, 91,600 short (give or take).
Goodreads? Sure, there are reviews there. Many of them are honest, thoughtful and well written. But even when I look at the reviews of my book, I wonder: How many were written by a jealous writer trying to leap-frog me on Amazon’s rankings? (I know of one.) How many were written by people who wrote a review of a book they won through one of Goodreads’ ubiquitous giveaways, but don’t really like the genre and really shouldn’t be reviewing it?
Why bother reading reviews anyway? You only buy books that were recommended to you by a friend, right? Surveys have proven that we buy books via peer pressure. You still want to know if your brother-in-law’s favorite book is another eye-rolling tale about strippers and whiskey before you plunk down your cash.
Where do you turn?
Is there a reliable review mechanism? You know that no publisher, retailer or author (traditional or independent) has an economic incentive to give you an honest opinion about the content. And you can’t expect Amazon to create a verified review process. Nor can you expect the newspapers to keep up with the tsunami of books coming at them from all sides.
You need a review site that pulls together vetted and reliable sources into one place. And you need someone you TRUST to make it happen. Someone like Amy Edelman, who opened IndieReader.com in 2007.
YOU NEED RABBLE. Amy told me that Rabble is “a website that will aggregate trusted, verified reviews into consensus, like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes.” All she needs to make it happen is for you and a few of your friends to back the project with a few dollars on Kickstarter.
Look at your bookshelf, ask yourself, “How much did I blow on books last year?” and put in half that much. (Unless you’re a grumpy old man who doesn’t like any of them anyway, then double it and quit whining.) If you’re like me, maybe a fraction of what you spent on books. But you know in your heart that having reliable reviews is something worth backing.
- If you believe intelligent book reviews play an important role in the world, BACK THIS PROJECT.
- Do you distrust reviews on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads and elsewhere? BACK THIS PROJECT.
- Ever look at the 3,000 reviews on a hit like “Wool” and wonder which one you should read? BACK THIS PROJECT.
- Tired of reading 5 star reviews that say little about the book or have too many spoilers? BACK THIS PROJECT.
- Do you want one place that you can trust to give you an aggregated review? BACK THIS PROJECT.
Amy Edelman is a hardworking entrepreneur who is the only person capable of creating this kind of resource. As a reader, you need Rabble. As an author, you need Rabble. Get behind it for $1 or $1,000 or $10,000, whatever you do -
Tweet it, blog it, Facebook it – Spread the Word!
NOTE: I am not connected to or compensated by, financially or otherwise, Amy or her project. My ONLY interest in this project is knowing the overwhelming need for it in the marketplace. Yes, I am a backer and have put my money where my mouth is.
Join me.
Peace, Seeley
* Plus, they’re mostly intellectual or literary books which represent a very small percentage of what readers buy. I mean, really, who reads crap like James Joyce anyway? “He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains.” Really. Thrice? Gimme a break.
Category: Publishing, Reviews
Seeley: I have to say when I first read about Rabble, I was intrigued, but I haven’t seen enough information and details to understand how it will be any different, or enough different, than what is out there now. I have a great deal of respect for Amy and what she’s done at Indie Reader. But from what I can gather on Rabble it’s not much more than a small collection of “professional” review sites/people that are brought together in one place. That still leaves a few big problems: one is that it is a small collection. Nowhere near enough to handle the huge numbers of books that are vying for reviews; and secondly, there is still an issue with who is doing the reviewing, and how much weight each ‘source’ has on an individual book. Even if each book could get five professional reviews from Rabble sources, that still means 20% of your ranking is determined by one person. A person who might not like your character, or your use of language, or anything else. I understand the system we have now isn’t working well, but I’m not sure this is the solution. At least, not until I get a lot more data.
Jim, I’m honored you stopped by! I think we’re in a review-wilderness now and need a way out. This is the only credible scenario on the horizon, and Amy is the only credible indie-supporter making an effort. I think her plan is worthy of support:
-As with all things Indie-2013, the landscape is evolving too quickly to give too many details because there’s a good chance they’ll be irrelevant in a few weeks. However, she has spelled out enough.
-She plans to aggregate from many review sites, not just a few.(see Rotten Tomatoes)
-Aggregated means that one review will not ruin a single book. The fact that they will be vetted reviewers means you won’t get the whackos who don’t understand your genre weighing down your curve.
-No, there’s no way to handle 91,000 books a month. Not even the amazing Amy could pull that off. I would imagine starting with top sellers and then growing it from there. You gotta start somewhere.
-Rabble will aggregate existing reviews, not create its own. Again, take a look at the Rotten Tomatoes site. Rabble would pull from well known, respected sites like NYT and SeeleyJames (hey, it’s possible) and offer links to each. At the top would be an aggregated score and summary. Since they’re serious reviewers, the result would be reliable.
All it takes is $5-10 each and we can find out. Tiny investment compared to what you and I spend on books each month. Tell your friends!
Seeley: I agree something needs to be done. I agree that Amy has done a wonderful job; in fact, Indie Reader gave my book a tremendous review. I have high hopes for Rabble, but without knowing more, I’m not convinced it is “The” answer yet.
As to Rotten Tomatoes, while it sometimes does it’s job, there are many other times when it fails miserably. I looked up one that I remembered–Phantom of the Opera. Rotten Tomatoes critics had scored it 33% (reviews were horrible) but the people (385,000 of them) rated it 86%. After a few more, similar experiences with Rotten Tomatoes, I stopped using them.
And if Rabble is going to be geared toward the best sellers, what makes it different than what’s available now? All the best sellers can get reviews on blogs, by Amazon reviewers, by the well-known Goodreads reviewers etc…
This is not me I’m arguing for. I’ve been able to get a lot of reviews for my books, and I’m happy with that. But many, many authors, and not just Indies, struggle getting reviews. As you know, that even affects how an author can market a book. A lot of the promotion sites wont’ take a book unless it has a certain number of reviews and is rated above a certain point. This makes people want to try and game the system even more.
Reviews by professionals are nice. They’d be wonderful if we could get lots of them, but the numbers are against that. As you pointed out there are far too many books and far too few professional reviewers. I’d be far more excited if Amy could figure out a way to validate the reviews of the masses. That’s something I could get worked up about.