really? huh. I've sold many, many books. (I still have thousands in my father's garage) and I've written a book. When you sell books (that you haven't written) you have the same problem of selling anything else; some people just want to complain, and eh, sometimes my packaging legitimately wasn't great, and sometimes the mail system messes up. It happens. You can't maintain a 100% positive rating; even if you are perfect (and you aren't) some people just don't give 100% ratings. And really, if you think you are perfect? that the five stars are being unfairly denied to you? you should probably look inward. Thinking that you are perfect, I think, reflects an attitude that probably leads to more negative ratings than you would otherwise get.

I don't really see the generational thing, though; some people are just nasty by nature. Others think they can get a better deal by being nasty, but the largest group of potentially nasty people is only nasty to you if they feel you are being nasty to them. And that group is usually fairly easy to calm. (I mean, there will always be the first group, and you can't do anything about that, and the second group is also pretty difficult to deal with. But the third group is where you get numbers, and I think they are pretty okay.)

Really, just showing some humanity and genuinely acknowledging your mistakes almost always disarms the third group (and sometimes the second and first.)