Now, these books launching with 150 reviews aren't necessarily gaming the system or scammers. These are established authors who have a large ARC team, made primarily of fans who genuinely love that book and that author, and who get advanced copies to read so that they can review them when the book goes live. There's no scam there. They're just in a different space in their author career and have decided to do the work of growing and maintaining an ARC team. Very common in romance and UF.
It may not be a 'scam' in the most technical definition of the word, but what you've described above doesn't sound genuine either. I mean, as an outsider looking in - a non-author, non-self-publisher, if I were to see that many reviews and a high rating on a brand new title, I would assume - just as any random reader would - that these glowing reviews and high ratings came about because the product is just THAT good. As an outsider to this biz, it would make the thing more enticing from a buying perspective.
But, as someone who is in this business - I know - we all know about ARCs. And, if this is all coming from people pre-disposed to liking a thing, and have been curated as such. Well, okay, maybe that's not technically a scam, but it definitely smells. I mean, it undercuts what ratings and reviews are supposed to be in the first place, does it not? How is that not 'gaming' the system?
And, I get that it takes an author a while, and a lot of work to build up these lists, but obviously it's all being done for a purpose, and that is to dupe the general reading public into believing a certain product is of a certain quality when that might not necessarily be the case. And, it's being done to get some not-in-the-know person to spend money on their product. That comes across as skeevy to me.
Let something stand on its own and earn ratings and reviews based on actual product quality. If you're curating readers who've already liked something you've done in the past, and who - let's face it - will largely positively review whatever ARC you're providing them just out of politeness if nothing else... well, you're (general 'you', not YOU you) not playing above board in this instance.
The authors that do this are saying "this book is so good that it ALREADY has 150+ reviews, the overwhelming majority of which are very positive, 4-stars or higher" -
- when in reality that entire reaction/reception is manufactured to appear as such.
And, it's all being done in the name of having that social proof because obviously it dupes readers, obviously it works, and gets them to more readily click 'BUY'.
How can anyone be okay with this? Because it works? Because it makes indies money? Okay, great, but that's clearly greasy as it smacks of dishonesty.
This isn't directed at you personally, DmGuay. I appreciate any successful indie providing insight. I'm more railing against the practice generally. At the same time, however, I realize I'm tilting at windmills. It seems few care about the honesty part of the whole thing so long as it makes authors money.
I'm in the wrong business, I suppose, because it almost seems as if you want to be successful you have to engage in this kind of a thing. I'm hoping that isn't true, but I'm nothing if not cynical these days.
