why so few reviews?

I just finished and reviewed Reading 5X5 x2: Duets. I know I am quite late, but sometimes it is difficult to manage to do everything... But the weird thing I noticed is that my review was only the third one (and I was relieved to see that the second one was posted two days ago: I was not the only one to arrive late!)

I never dug into the reviews, but I had the impression that most people should write them, if they want to keep having the chance to win ER copies. With 50 copies given away, there should have been at least 20 reviews or so. Does anybody have an idea of why so few reviews are posted?

People never got the book?

People are slow readers?

People are reading other things?

People are lazy?

People are cheaters?

People are dead from the virus?

People are buried under their personal Mount TBR?

Well, I have ideas. But first I'm going to complain about losing my original answer. I had gathered data from the LT Early Reviewers books that I had been awarded and was writing a summary when I hit something on the keyboard that took me to the previous page. I hurriedly hit the forward button on my browser, but when this page loaded again, everything I had typed was gone. I don't usually work from my desktop computer, because it's painful. Today, it's especially frustrating.

What I remember is that the number of reviews ranged from 2/100 (2%) to 20/20 (100%) for all public reviews on LT compared to LT ER copies offered. The books with the most reviews were physical editions of children's picture books. All ebooks, YA novels, and adult anthologies have fewer reviews overall.

The book that has only two reviews out of 100 also is listed only by seven members on this site. Not even 10% of the accounts that were awarded the book have it in their catalogues. That's a novel I think needed assistance from a strong editor before publication, so I wonder if members took a look and decided not to bother doing anything more. However, the book has a rating of 4.5 stars on Amazon.com out of nine ratings.

I suspect that the books that are the easiest to read are reviewed the most often. Books that don't arrive when expected (as in, getting caught up in Spam filters, being emailed late, requiring an application that displays the book pages well, etc.) and that take longer to read (1,200 pages vs. 24 pages) might be set aside, forgotten. Also, despite how negative reviews make no difference to our chances for future ER awards, reviewers seem unlikely to share reactions to books they don't like. They would rather decrease their chances of being awarded ER copies again than to come up with at least 25 words about a work they would give a low rating.

>2 Bookmarque: I deeply wish for death-from-virus to not be a significant factor. Fortunately, I didn't see a decrease in reviewing from last year when looking at what's submitted here.

This one was in the July bunch, so probably not sent out until sometime in August. Assuming it was sent out in a timely manner (which is not always the case), I still don't think any of the reviews are "late". People don't always read ER books the second they arrive.

This discussion also has me interested in basic descriptive statistics on the LTER / LTMR offerings, most especially on how many reviews are posted, and broken out as suggested >3 aspirit: (format, certainly, but also by genre or perhaps original publication date).

I would expect the reviews to copies offered ratio to be lower for ebooks than print books because you are more likely to not receive an ebook than a print book, due to how various internet providers deal with attachments, links, etc.

I've received most of the books I've won, but the three that I never received were all e-books.

Probably the guilt factor is a bit higher for a physical book than an e-book. There's a vague feeling that the publisher invested more in sending you a physical book than an ebook, even though it's not entirely true.

>3 aspirit: really nice analysis! (My own ratings range from 2 to 5 stars, since I give 1 star only to a book which I really despise. I think that besides the vote it is more important to explain in the review what I found good and bad)

>4 lilithcat: I received the book on July 30 (I admitted I am late - ER rules say that we have 45 days to review it, and I managed to publish it after 80 days...)

>6 tealadytoo: This could happen, indeed. Probably it would be better to compute the ratio "reviews / people who added the book" (which in this case amounts to 100%...) It's also true that at least for the kind of books I read the publishers are usually the same ones; so last week I directly asked Black Rose Writing to send me again Where Magic and Science Collide, from the July batch too :-)

It is, as you say, difficult to do everything. More so now, for many of us, than it usually is. Perhaps you should extend the same courtesy to the other readers/reviewers that you ask us to extend to you, and assume that they're just late, not deadbeats. I'd wait until an ER book is a year or so old before looking at review rates to see how many people truly fail to review their ER books.

>7 .mau.:

ER rules say that we have 45 days to review it,

Actually, it's twice that: After 90 days from when you won the book, a failure to write a review may be counted against you. But if you write the review 100 days after you won it, the sky will not fall.

>3 aspirit: FWIW, my quick analysis was of fourteen books awarded in batches from January 2019 through March 2020. I skipped the most recent batches with an assumption those wouldn't be as interesting and didn't have anything in the middle months. That means I shouldn't have made any assertion about how reviews look pre-pandemic vs. now.

>8 lorax: Actually, I am just puzzled. If I were a publisher, I could be worried or disappointed... or maybe they take into account a low rate of reviews.

I looked at some book I won in 2019: Bright Morning Star is in 23 libraries with 11 reviews, average vote 4 1/2; Cosmic Fever has 7 members and 2 reviews, average vote 3; Life on Mars has two members and 1 review (mine); The Shapes of Strangers 8 members and 5 reviews, average vote 3 1/2; Mysteries in Time 10 members and 5 reviews, average vote 3.

So maybe it's just SF and fantasy books which were sent to few people!

>11 .mau.: do you mind sharing how many were offered? You can go to https://www.librarything.com/er_requests.php?program=earlyreview, click on the title, and see the number of copies available.

I believe that, usually, all available copies are sent. How many are received is a different issue. It's just that LibraryThing used to reject publishers who repeatedly did not send out the promised books. I figure that when the system says 100 copies are available, then with 150 requests, the publisher attempts to send out all 100 copies. But maybe not?

Though I feel this should be obvious, I'll say it anyway: I'm not looking to shame anyone. I'm only curious about what happens in the program.

When I first started getting ER books I was conscientious about reviewing quickly, but a couple of years ago, I got really behind. There were various reasons, ranging from forgetting I had them (mostly e-books) to needing input from the family expert on the topic (a car repair manual - I don't request anything I can't review 100% myself anymore!) to having trouble finishing the book. I had some that were over 2 years late. Not all of the ones I'd received - some still got reviewed promptly, but scattered titles.

In early 2020 I went through the list, and there were 7 or 8 outstanding unreviewed, so I read everything that had been missed, re-read anything I couldn't remember well enough to review, and just did it. In the process I discovered that I HAD reviewed one of the unreviewed books but put the review on the wrong title, so I fixed that. By April I was caught up, and I'm back to being prompt with reviews. The only one I have outstanding now is the one from September 2020 that I haven't received yet.

I've been very prompt on some reviews, reasonably prompt on others, and very late on a few. After I caught up on my last couple of long overdue reviews, I made a personal rule that I would not request any books until I posted the review for ones already awarded. I don't get as many books but it works for me as I have built in a reward for completing a review--I get to ask for more books.

There's certainly an issue with titles not being combined properly sometimes, but I doubt it's the case for 17/20 copies - although if the non-ER title was popular it would attract more copies than the real one.

I've given ER books 1/2 star before. They're easy reviews to write. It's the 3* ones that are tricky - it was okish sort of good enough, it's hard to say why something doesn't sparkle. I suspect it is that though, that many ER books just aren't that good. I did the sums a while ago and they're worse than an average LT book.

Given the way the calculations run, I wouldn't be too surprised if not all 100 copies of something got assigned to people. If only 150 people picked it, a large number of those will have picked all the books on the list (based on other ER threads), and so will have 'won' something they're more suitable to review. And if you didn't pick it, you wouldn't be assigned it even if there are copies leftover. Only LT staff would know how often that happens.

Although I've not received more ebooks, than physical, I've requested a lot (vastly) more ebooks, and in proportion it's physical books that are more likely to be not delivered.

I am interested if there's more data crunching to look at.

>12 aspirit: For Bright Morning Star, only 25 copies were offered, so 23 members are nearly equivalent to the whole batch. (ok, maybe someone bought the book for herself)
Cosmic Fever was requested by 80 people out of 100 available copies; Life on Mars by 68 out of 100 copies; The Shape of Strangers had 25 copies, Mysteries in Time had 100.

Remember that all of these are ebooks.

I've had times where I've just legitimately forgot, and one where I had a lot of trouble actually getting the stupid book. My latest issues was trying to make the ebook format work in a way I could actually read it.

I tend to be later with ebooks than print, but then, I tend to get ebooks sooner since it's email and not post, so I expect the time frame is roughly the same. I've so far reviewed everything I've gotten save the for most recent (need to get it off my computer and onto something readable) and the one book I never received from (I think) last march.

May also be that if a deadline isn't hard enforced, then it becomes easier to ignore, so there might be a lot of intended reviews that just haven't arrived yet.

I need to write two reviews today. One goes from a 4* to a 2* just because of the language. I hate to give a 3* or less to books I win because I know the authors work hard.
E-books do not stare at me like a paper book so I forget about them.

test

>18 mnleona: Reviews aren't really for the authors. They are really for other readers who need honest opinions on whether the book is worth their money and time.

On the other hand when I give a bad rating (for a non-ER book) I do feel I owe the author an explanation.

>18 mnleona:

I hate to give a 3* or less to books I win because I know the authors work hard.

I think it is a disservice to the reader to give a book a better review or rating just because the author might have worked hard. It's misleading.

>20 MarthaJeanne: and >21 lilithcat: You are right. I like to read reviews because they help me make up my own mind if I want to read.

I always prefer to give a thoughtful review, and that's what I like to read as well. A star rating can say that something is good (or bad) but not in what way. It's like reviewing a burger. I'd like to know if the eater is down-rating a burger because it had tomatoes on it rather than the patty being too dry, or is up-rating it because it had a pile of extra sauce.

EDIT: that said, I forgot about the ebook again. Dammit.