How Negative Book Reviews Impact Book Sales

mhpbooks.com:

Bill Morris at The Millions drew our attention to this Marketing Science research paper that explores the impact of negative New York Times book reviews on sales. Here’s a taste of the mathematical model used to analyze the impact of the negative reviews on sales:

Read the whole story: mhpbooks.com

Comments

[DebtNavigation]

11:31 AM on 03/17/2011

I've heard there is no such thing as bad press. And I think that for some books having a famous antagonist (such as a reviewer well known for being past their prime) would possibly be a good things. I would probably much prefer that for my book "Debt Hope: Down and Dirty Survival Strategies" than to just have it ignored. Maybe if Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman would just call it poison! But the problem there is that their advice is fine for people whose problems are not so bad, my book is for people who they would view as lost causes ... so we really are trying to appeal to markets that don't have a lot of overlap. And any paper that allowed me a positive review ... would find itself desperately trying to fill ad pages where Capital One used to be.

[Claudia Huggs]

09:30 AM on 03/17/2011

the negative book reviews might increase the sales one time but what about the long term effects they have on the author and his upcoming books? Its certainly not good, i won't like to read the negative book reviews about my favorite authors, i would write good reviews (like I do on bookchums.com) of the authors whom i love but if they failt to write good books, certainly i will write bad reviews but those will be honest reviews nothing for publicity.

[BlackJAC]

12:13 AM on 03/17/2011

According to Hallie Ephron, who's both a novelist and a book critic, a bad review says more about the reviewer than what they're reviewing.  Further, there's a pattern of critics being people who tried their hand at the game themselves only to fail at it.

[texlib2112]

10:23 PM on 03/16/2011

I must say I love the New York Times Book Review as part of my Sunday reading with my hot cup of tea in the morning. However, I do read the reviews, but I do not base my decision to buy or not to buy a book on review in a paper.

[BlueZoo]

05:01 PM on 03/16/2011

If you buy a book based on good or bad reviews, then there's not much hope for you! The only time to look at reviews is if you're buying a cookbook and, even then, you should be wary!

[leftheaded]

05:18 PM on 03/16/2011

Huh? There are certain critics I know I can count on. With so many books out every week, how on earth do you plan to navigate them? Yours is a silly comment.