All told I’ve received around 20 items to date (4 items received per month.) I’ve given three one star reviews, a few two star, and several three and fourr star. Only two five star. If it’s a food product, I’ll have my wife try it as well, and include both our opinoins. There’s been stuff I hated — but she loved.

I don’t post my reviews utill I’ve had the product for a few weeks and used it daily. Books — not until I’ve read the entire thing.

I’m honest, take photos when helpful, and actually use / read / install everything I order.

RPI: I am sort of irri­tated that my name has “vine voice” attached for all of my older, non-​Vine reviews, though.

@RPI That is rather annoying and somewhat misleading. Why would they do that, I wonder? No way to filter out those other, older reviews and distinguish them from the Vine reviews?

Amazon is very hands-off about it, and so far it looks very much on the up and up. I don’t plan to write my first Vine review any differently than I write my other reviews. I am sort of irritated that my name has “vine voice” attached for all of my older, non-Vine reviews, though.

RPI

I know it is trendy again to attack Amazon and reviewers there, but like anything else, there is good work there as well. The bottom line is that one needs to look at the body of work done by the reviewer to see if the reviews have any validity.

Kevin R. Tipple

Book Reviews and more at http://kevintipplescorner.blogspot.com/

The Carpathian Shadows: Book Two
E-Book http://www.booksforabuck.com/sfpages/sf_08/carpathian_shadows2.html
PRINT http://www.amazon.com/

Take Vine reviews with a grain of salt, just as you would with any review. I think that the people who simply write garbage to get free stuff will be shuffled out, while people who are willing to write reviews as a service to Amazon’s customers will become more obvious.

But what about the others? It’s true, there are a lot of them out there, so it makes it frustrating when you write a review yourself and it is immediately engulfed by a sea of others. But most of the ones I’ve seen show at least as much thought given to the item as the typical review. As I’ve said before, I can understand people not reading any reviews, but why only the vine ones?

I, too, am a Vine Reviewer and I actually read the books that I receive. I also give the review the attention it deserves. Many people, inappropriately, give a one or two liner review — which is a waste of time. Some complain about the product rather than give true insight about what the book is about.

Another abuse I have heard of is Viners actually selling the products on Ebay without even opening up the product and using it. That is unethical but I am sure that is a small percentage of members that I feel is outright criminal and outlandish.

However, these cases are a small sect of the Vine population. I am not one of them.

Each review should be read and judgment made upon the review — BUT don’t think that the credibility of ALL reviewers is in question. Blanket statements only show your lack of seeing both views and lack of understanding of the program.

Supposedly, we were invited based on our review history with Amazon, but we aren’t really sure what criteria was used. Not all of the ‘Top’ reviewers were invited, and some were invited that ranked in the thousands.

Amazon asks us to submit honest, fair reviews of the items we receive from the Vine program, and they have said they will not edit any of our reviews, although they still fall under the normal review guidelines, of course.

As far as how it is decided what items get reviewed and what don’t, that really is up to the manufacturers and publishers participating in the program. Those companies offer Amazon a number of items each month for review and they are posted to the ‘Viners’ each month on the 3rd and 4th Thursday of the month. Amazon simply accepts those items and posts the list of available products to review for the Vine members, they don’t actually select what items will be offered for review. We select up to two items from each newsletter for review, and if we get the items we select, they are shipped to us. The items offered include books, CDs, movies, electronics, food items, household goods, health and beauty products, etc.

I’ve personally found some great things there — my new favorite beef jerky was sent to me through this program. I’ve also found some duds and rated them accordingly.

We’ve had some people that have ‘gamed’ the system, and when it was discovered, Amazon has revised the Vine progam to deter this kind of activity. It isn’t perfect, but the schemers will always find a way.

I think you’ll find that there are as many conscientious reviewers within the Vine program as there are outside of it. Hopefully, the honest reviewers outnumber the other kind. Unfortunately, as in all areas of life, you’ll find all kinds in the group.

I read Vine reviews the same way I do normal ones — I use my own common sense, and I tend to gravitate towards reviewers whose opinion I have found aligned with my own in the past. Or at least those who offer enough supporting information regarding their opinion for me to determine if I will share their view of that product.

I should have taken a little more time with my comment. Thanks for your kind and thoughtful reply. And I tend to agree with you on Harriet too — just didn’t want to step on any toes.

And, maybe it’s just me, but before I plop down $10–40 on a book, I want to know something about it. I prefer to browse it in a bookstore to reading reviews, but in my opinion the reviews are the second-best thing.

OTOH, if you use reviews in general but not from Vine, I don’t see the logic in that at all. I can write a bogus review about any book at all, ARC or not; Harriet Klausner is not even a Vine reviewer. (BTW, I don’t have a big problem with her reviews, but many others do.)

I scored my ARC at BEA, and have since gotten two more in at work (my library system is large enough that I do receive some ARCs). St. Martin’s has really been promoting the heck out of these books, and since Heartsick hit the NY Times list, I’d say it’s working. It will be interesting to see if Sweetheart debuts on the list.