HOW AMAZON ’ S TEAM OF OLD-SCHOOL BOOK REVIEWERS INFLUENCES WHAT WE READ INFORMATION FROM A SEATTLE TIMES ARTICLE BY ANGEL GONZALES
Have you ever wondered how much influence the reviews on Amazon have on the sales of your books ? Of course you have , and nothing is more frustrating than trying to get them . You see books with thousands of reviews and although your sales are okay , it ’ s like pulling the proverbial “ hen ’ s teeth ” to get reviews . Worse yet , something has flagged my account , and they will NEVER accept one of my reviews even though they keep sending me requests to review books I ’ ve read . Go figure .
Angel Gonzales writes : “ In a company driven by engineers and run by algorithms and metrics , Amazon ’ s small group of book editors is an anomaly of sorts . But through the Amazon Book Review and other methods , it ’ s trying to build Amazon ’ s presence and influence in the world of literary culture .”
He goes on to say that Amazon ’ s small team of literary types read books , write about them and rank them according to quality . The question most authors would ask , particularly self-published authors who are growing in numbers every day , is “ How do I get them to review my book ?”
These editors produce Amazon Book Review , an online offering similar to literary supplements newspapers have been putting out for more than a century . They also put together frequent lists of recommendations prominently displayed on Amazon ’ s bookstore .
According to Gonzales , apparently , the book-editor team focuses on traditional publishing versus the fire hose of self-published Kindle works Amazon has enabled .
A literary agent who didn ’ t want to be identified certainly thinks their picks have an impact on sales or can put a book on the radar of other literati although it is hard to measure .
While there is no hard and fast answer about grabbing the attention of this team of editors , some suggestions would be to work your tail off to get reviews because with many , many positive reviews your book is more likely to be noticed . No guarantees , but there is an old adage that the squeaky wheel gets the oil .
Several papers covered this topic , but if you want to read the full article by Angel Gonzales , just click here .
WRITERS ’ TRICKS OF THE TRADE
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19
JULY-AUGUST 2016