Peer-to-peer book reviews fill a niche
Social-networking websites that connect people through their taste in literature are gaining in popularity – and publishers are starting to take notice.
from the June 15, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
"To reach the declining numbers of people who are reading, you have to use perhaps some unconventional methods," says Al Greco, a marketing professor at Fordham University in New York and a senior researcher with The Institute for Publishing Research. He calls the peer-to-peer reviews a very powerful form of word-of-mouth marketing, but notes that it's early still to say what role they'll play in the literary landscape.
The potential for websites like Goodreads, LibraryThing, www.whatsonmybookshelf.com, and www.shelfari.com, to reach readers across all demographics is certainly promising. LibraryThing has 205,000 members and 14 million books catalogued. (Mr. Spalding likes to say that if it were a bricks-and-mortar library its collection would surpass Yale University's.) Shelfari, which was launched last year and doesn't disclose numbers beyond saying its users are in the tens of thousands, recently received funding from Amazon.com. [Editor's note: The original version misstated the URL for a web site.]
Web designs differ by site, but they all let members list and then rate or review books they've read and share their critiques with friends and other members.
"The new generation doesn't want to read book reviews from people they don't know," says Goodreads' Chandler. "They want to read book reviews from their friends."
Much as publishing houses may hope for only positive reviews for their strategically placed books, it's clear some users enjoy panning a terrible read as much as lauding a favorite. "Le Divorce," a work of romantic fiction by Diane Johnson, is the second lowest-rated book on Goodreads. One user's two-word review simply states: "Le Disappointment." She recommends it for: "No one."
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