What drives you to leave a review on Amazon?

Do you read the reviews before buying a book?

How do you feel about books that don’t have any reviews?

I’m a lurker on several different author forums and some authors seem to be obsessed with getting reviews on Amazon. Partly because many promotional sites require a minimum number of reviews with a minimum average rating to advertise. There also seems to be the assumption that more reviews equals more sales.

I haven’t been all that concerned with getting reviews, and I haven’t put much effort into pursuing them. I did paperback giveaways for Dang: Episode 1 and Dang: Episode 2 on Goodreads and through Rafflecopter last summer, but that was more for publicity than for reviews.

I would really like to here from readers on this. What is your opinion of reviews on Amazon?