Today Mr. Moan is having a right old whinge about Amazon Reviews! Reviews that are so vital for the ongoing promotion and sales of any book ………
Ten, please, just ten: it’s enough to make Mr Moan even more angry.
MrandMrs50plus have been generous in allowing me space to promote my new book ‘Square Mile Tales’, an autobiography covering forty years working in the City (of London).
There are three stages in producing a book: writing it, marketing and awaiting readers’ opinions.
Amazon Reviews
The key to this last challenge is Amazon Reviews. The writer’s hope is that potential readers become aware of the book. Many will go to Amazon Books, key in the title or the name of the author, and there it is for purchase or download onto a Kindle. Within the promotion of the title, and actually under it, will be the Amazon star rating.
As I write ‘Square Mile Tales’ has eight reviews, comprising five, five-star and three four-star ratings. Here is an extract from one of the four-star reviews:
I enjoyed reminiscing over the turbulent financial markets and political scene of the 70s, 80s onwards. The author manages to bring humour into his tales of various aspects of his banking career in the Square Mile of London and on his Far Eastern travels. He’s met some interesting characters, some notorious, two now detained in prison in the US. Well worth a read.
Thank you, dear reader!
The Amazon Algorithm
But beneath the surface is a dark place. The control is the Amazon algorithm which is using artificial intelligence to maintain the fidelity of its reviews. Firstly, if the review is submitted by a purchaser from Amazon, it shows as a ‘verified purchaser’ and the algorithm likes that! It knows all the tricks and weeds out connected reviews (relations and friends of the author). The algorithm can trace ‘regular’ reviewers, who might be earning a fee for their comments. It also senses ‘genuine’ reviews as against those simply repeating the exercise to help the author. It can detect book clubs where a spate of submissions comes from the same area.
The reason it is so important to the author is that Amazon can choose to promote a book and will detect titles gathering momentum. The first challenge is to generate ten reviews and it is not easy. Competent reviewers are busy people and will have their own reading list. It is suicidal to push for reviews. I once ‘pushed’ my sister who retaliated by giving my latest title two stars and a comment ‘I can’t recommend this book’.
5 Star Reviews
As I write, searching Amazon every half hour for the latest summary, ‘Square Mile Tales’ has attracted eight reviews. I have a list of perhaps twenty people who have said they’ll buy and review it.
But the search for gold dust, the ninth and tenth reviews, and thus the initial target of ten, goes on, day in, day out.
Mr Moan has been banned by Amazon for persistent skullduggery but he remains angry as each review takes an eternity to arrive!
