Category: Uncategorized

With the recent controversy on the issue of reviews, triggered by Amazon’s decision to remove all of Christoph Fischer’s 1,700 reviews, it seems this is the issue of the day.

Contrary to popular belief, Amazon does not require that you’ve bought a book in order to review it. It does ask that you mention in your review if you haven’t, explaining how you came across it (usually with a simple “a copy was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review” statement at the end).

This myth is based on the fact that Amazon does require that you’ve bought at least one physical item from its shops before you’re allowed to place a review. This is to verify that you’re an actual human, with a valid physical address, instead of a robot, a troll or a spammer.

Now that’s been cleared, how can one go around securing these elusive reviews?

Book Reviewer…

Following my Call to Arms, a number of you responded by sharing with me your book marketing experience. I now have about a hundred responses by some fifty authors. Although some of the responses were expected, there were quite a few surprises in there for me.

Methodology

For anyone wishing to take a look at the raw data, you can download this Excel spreadsheet. I grouped the results according to whether the book was offered full-price, discounted or free. I also have a fourth category titled Other, that includes any entries where this was not specified.

To compare the various ad media, I came up with a number that represents the ratio between number of sales and cost of advertising. In other word, if you spent $1 and had one sale, then this number would be one. If you spent $1 and had two sales, the number would be two, etc.

Dear Readers

A few weeks ago I woke up to this message:

Hello from Amazon.com 

We are writing to inform you that we have removed your review privileges and suppressed all of your reviews. Any new reviews written will automatically be suppressed. We took this action because you have failed to comply with our review guidelines and manipulated product reviews. For detailed information on the guidelines, please visit: http://amazon.com/help/customer-reviews-guidelines.

Surprised and curious I asked them for clarification on the matter but have had no personal reply to my appeal. Amazon removed all of the reviews I wrote: 1700 of them without discussion or ‘trial’. Eventually I received this:

Hello, 

We’ve removed Customer Reviews left by your account because it’s come to our attention that you have violated our policies by manipulating Customer Reviews. Any attempt to manipulate ratings, feedback, or Customer Reviews is prohibited.

After reviewing your account, we’ve determined…

Image: unplag.com

As you may know, my day job is in web design, through my company, Istomedia. I often daydream about working as a full-time author, but that may have to wait until I’m a pensioner, it seems. Still, reading posts like this, from Unplag.com, anti-plagiarism online tools, make me realize just how lucky I am!

You see, it turns out that many big-name writers started from unbelievably weird and underpaid jobs not related to their writing careers at all.

Ken Kesey

Was inspired to write “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” after working as a janitor in a mental hospital and volunteering for a CIA study (Project MKULTRA) when studying. He and other students participating in the experiment were given LSD or mescaline and observed so researchers could see how they reacted while on psychedelic drugs. After that, Kesey decided to share his wretched experience.

Kurt Vonnegut

Was…

AUTHORS WHO “DEBUTED” AFTER 40

Magazines are full of “20 under 20” features, extolling the virtues of youth – but there are plenty of literary greats who didn’t get started until later in life.

Here are six of the most famous:

Samuel Clemens worked as a steamboat pilot, newspaper reporter and travel writer before he finally published his first novel. He adopted the penname Mark Twain, (steamboat slang for “12 feet of water”), at age 41, when he published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in 1876. He was 50 when The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published as the archetypal great American novel.

Daniel Defoe published his debut novel, Robinson Crusoe at 59. Earlier in life he worked as a merchant, selling wine and wool, but went bankrupt in 1703, at age 43. He then wrote several political pamphlets in support of King William III before he turned to novels.