tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.comments2015-11-28T10:50:31.537-08:00Anne R. Allen's BlogAnne R. Allenhttps://plus.google.com/109431137525704036122noreply@blogger.comBlogger16488125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-16707677272878911412015-11-28T10:50:31.537-08:002015-11-28T10:50:31.537-08:00Thanks for the tip to disconnect from Goodreads as...Thanks for the tip to disconnect from Goodreads as well as breaking the Amazon/FB &amp; Twitter links. Here&#39;s how to disconnect your Facebook and Goodreads accounts: you can do it here: https://www.goodreads.com/user/edit?tab=apps. <br /><br />If you are connected, at the very bottom next to your name it will say &quot;disconnect&quot; in pale gray. Click it and Goodreads won&#39;t know who your FB friends are.Anne R. Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02420000168356370825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-41866886738074983362015-11-27T14:35:23.947-08:002015-11-27T14:35:23.947-08:00Phyl--Goodreads has actually improved since the Zo...Phyl--Goodreads has actually improved since the Zon bought it. They kicked out a lot of the most toxic bullies. But it&#39;s still not an author-friendly environment. The reason I mentioned putting your review there is it&#39;s less likely to be removed. They don&#39;t use the same algos as the Zon.<br /><br />But it&#39;s even better to put a duplicate review on Kobo, B and N, iTunes, or whatever. If you are a reviewer who puts time into writing reviews, it&#39;s kind of heartbreaking to have them lost forever.<br /><br />As an author, I think it&#39;s important to spread a wide net these days. That means getting a professionally formatted epub file as well as a mobi (Kindle) file. Epub files are what all the other retailers use. I believe Scrivener will format for epub if you don&#39;t want to pay a formatter. If you put it on Smashwords, they distribute to a lot of the other retailers. D2D also does a great job of distribution. Anne R. Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02420000168356370825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-63341942473982535302015-11-27T14:28:36.293-08:002015-11-27T14:28:36.293-08:00Ryan--I&#39;m with you. I don&#39;t do enough revi...Ryan--I&#39;m with you. I don&#39;t do enough review soliciting (which means I can probably never get a BookBub ad.) Once in a while I go check and I&#39;m over the moon if some random stranger has left a positive review. I&#39;ve only queried a few book bloggers, but that usually doesn&#39;t result in a review, so I mostly just leave it all to chance. But I don&#39;t actually advise that. I think authors who take the time to research reviewers and query them get more and better reviews. But like you, I hate &quot;soliciting.&quot; Anne R. Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02420000168356370825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-48806135512603079542015-11-27T12:00:03.491-08:002015-11-27T12:00:03.491-08:00But now that GoodReads has been bought by Amazon (...But now that GoodReads has been bought by Amazon (happened in 2013), I no longer support reviews either place. As small as I am, anyone I ask to write a review for me is a person whose review would be rejected by Amazon TOS/TOU. So although it&#39;s slow and painful, I ask readers who like my stuff to tell others directly to buy my stuff. I don&#39;t ask for Amazon or Goodreads reviews anymore. <br />Thanks to your article, though, I will look into putting my books on iTunes and Google Play. I have not liked the [process] Amazon used to format my books for Kindle, so I either need to hire someone who just does that or put more time and effort into doing it correctly myself. My books are not flying off the shelves, but I&#39;m running the cross country marathon, not the 100M dash. Phyl Campbellhttp://www.phylcampbell.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-493590564786724772015-11-27T11:16:29.913-08:002015-11-27T11:16:29.913-08:00I&#39;ve never had any of my Amazon reviews taken ...I&#39;ve never had any of my Amazon reviews taken down...the reviews I&#39;ve left. But I&#39;ve never exchanged reviews with authors before either. As for the reviews people have left for me, I honestly couldn&#39;t tell you whether any have been taken down or not. I never checked and I don&#39;t read reviews often. Unless someone points a review out to me, I&#39;m pretty much clueless about reviews for my own books. I obviously fall short in that department compared to some of these authors who are so aggressive with promotion, but I&#39;m just thrilled anyone took the time to leave a review that was unsolicited. I think that&#39;s the part about reviews I don&#39;t like the most...solicited reviews. Not that they are wrong. I just prefer random unsolicited reviews. ryan fieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13361694356025572544noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-451362759543843612015-11-26T11:22:56.974-08:002015-11-26T11:22:56.974-08:00Al--Thanks much for your explanation. You did bett...Al--Thanks much for your explanation. You did better than I did (I&#39;m running back and forth basting a turkey) As you say, Amazon&#39;s ranking reports RETAIL sales at the Amazon store--not WHOLESALE sales of paper and audio books which are then sold in other bookstores (whether local indie stores, B &amp; N, or iTunes) That makes sense. <br /><br />And customer reviews are supposed to be reviews by actual Amazon customers. That&#39;s perfectly fair. In fact, it&#39;s more than fair since you don&#39;t have to have bought that specific book. You just have to have purchased something from Amazon at some time. I review on Amazon UK, too, since I was a customer there when I lived in England. <br /><br />William may have been talking about the priority they&#39;re planning to give to &quot;verified customer&quot; reviews--which can be gamed. It would be nice if they&#39;d consider banning reviews of books that have been returned unread by that customer, but that could be a slippery slope.<br /><br />Anne R. Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02420000168356370825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-48624355158775218002015-11-26T10:42:35.503-08:002015-11-26T10:42:35.503-08:00William, Excellent comments.I wonder if Amazon do...William,<br /><br />Excellent comments.I wonder if Amazon doesn&#39;t count books sold through Creatspace because those would often be bulk sales to the author and distribution to bookstores. One of the perceived weaknesses in the various best seller lists is that they can be gamed by large bulk purchases. By limiting what they count in their sales rankings to individual retail purchases by consumers, Amazon makes it harder to game the system and the rankings better reflect what readers are actually buying at the time. But I can see how that doesn&#39;t adequately reflect what is going on for an author like you whose sales are weighted more heavily to paper than the average indie.<br /><br />As for accepting reviews from &quot;non-online readers,&quot; Amazon calls those reviews &quot;customer reviews&quot; for a reason. However, anyone who has an Amazon account and has purchased at least one item using that account can review anything in the store. I wanted to post my book reviews to Amazon UK site. So I setup an account and sent a UK friend a 5 pound gift certificate. That&#39;s all it took to be able to post reviews there. It isn&#39;t a high threshold. If they allowed anyone to post reviews without even the minimal requirement they have, I&#39;m afraid the negative issues they have with phony reviews would get much worse as a result.BooksAndPalshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16119670940383926570noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-76943407237919683152015-11-26T10:20:13.367-08:002015-11-26T10:20:13.367-08:00William--Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I agre...William--Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I agree that it would be a whole lot better if CreateSpace sales counted in our overall sales ranking. I wish Audible sales did too. They&#39;re both owned by Amazon, but they&#39;re treated as separate entities. (Create Space distributes to Barnes and Noble and Audible distributes to iTunes) It might be a lot more complicated to include them than with their present system. They probably don&#39;t have much incentive to change. After all, they&#39;re worried about customers, not vendors. And no big corporation cares about what&#39;s fair to vendors, unfortunately. <br /><br />I think we have to spread a wider net and give less importance to Amazon. Focus on other retailers for ebooks. Urge your readers to review on iTunes, Kobo, or Google Play.<br /><br />If you can get some of those readers who buy your paper books to review locally--say in an entertainment weekly or a local website--that may make more sales than an Amazon review.<br /><br />I think a lot of writers who went indie early on started to think of Amazon as being super indie-friendly. As indeed they were. But Amazon doesn&#39;t need indies now they have their own imprints. Anne R. Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02420000168356370825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-5776622007117513592015-11-26T10:07:32.465-08:002015-11-26T10:07:32.465-08:00Nancy--That guy was John Locke. I don&#39;t blame ...Nancy--That guy was John Locke. I don&#39;t blame you for forgetting his name. He&#39;s not mentioned much any more. 5 years ago, Amazon was an indie&#39;s playground and almost anybody who had a half-way decent book could make money there. And like the guy on Goodreads, even people who had rotten books could make a few sales. Now Amazon no longer needs indies because indies are in competition with their own imprints. It is definitely time to spread a wider net. Anne R. Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02420000168356370825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-81301767177796263562015-11-26T09:52:37.792-08:002015-11-26T09:52:37.792-08:00Anne, I have been a published author for nearly fo...Anne, I have been a published author for nearly forty years., I got my start by self-publishing in the early &#39;90s before the Internet and Amazon made it easy. Since then, I have had nine books published through “traditional” publishers and as many self-published. I took great interest in your blog post as I also find Amazon’s review tyranny to be oppressive. (I now write dystopia fiction, so everything seems dire.)<br />In regard to your post, I have about 2000 Facebook “friends”—mostly authors, but many readers and “real” friends as well. Some of them would never say a bad word about me, while others…well, they’re brutally honest, so discounting “friends” as reviewers is (as you said) unfair. <br />I have another reviews-related issue which might not have been mentioned in the 110 comments (I did not read them all). I wrote a letter to Jeff Bezos about it and I include the meat of that correspondence here: <br /><br />Mr Bezos, I have an issue: A significant number of my books are sold through local independent bookstores and author events—probably over 70%. I buy books from CreateSpace at wholesale and distribute to my retailers or sell them myself. For example, the bookstore at the Underground Tour in Seattle bought 30 books (from me) and I sold over 60 books in Everett at the Authors and Autographs show. Unfortunately, none of these sales were reflected in the book&#39;s Amazon rankings—apparently because they were not sold by Amazon online. This does not seem fair. Amazon is still making money on these sales, so I think my book’s (and every author&#39;s) sales rankings should reflect all copies sold by Amazon—either online or through distribution—even if the distributor is the author.<br />Marketing is one of the toughest jobs an independent publisher/author has to face. New titles are sold to people based on other readers’ recommendations and the sales ranking places popular books higher in the list of books shown to potential readers. Of course you know this. So do we. Getting a bump in our ranking pushes up national (and international) recognition and visibility. It’s vitally important. A highly-ranked book is easier to market to a mainstream publisher or at least make the authors upcoming works more attractive to these publishers. <br />I have also found (based on first-hand reports from readers) Amazon won’t always accept reviews from non-online readers. Again, this does not seem to work either in my or Amazon’s best interest. I have a growing list of fans who would like to share their enthusiasm for my books, and thus help Amazon (and me) make more money on increased sales. <br /><br />Yes, I think Amazon (in their own interest) needs to review how reviews are handled. Thanks for raising these issues. I have posted a meme to encourage my readers to petition Amazon to deal with these issues.<br /><br />Thanks for the forum. William VaughnWilliam Vaughnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09999519069211073160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-44655119734369072832015-11-26T09:35:52.899-08:002015-11-26T09:35:52.899-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.William Vaughnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09999519069211073160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-32489525815229652652015-11-25T23:33:32.123-08:002015-11-25T23:33:32.123-08:00Hello Anne, nice to meet you. I have long wondered...Hello Anne, nice to meet you.<br />I have long wondered about the guy who was a best seller, posted often about how he did it and then sold a book on how he did it. A big part of that were hundreds of Beta readers he paid and who left a review. I don&#39;t remember his name but you probably know. I have left reviews for authors that I am friends with and a few have done the same for me. I already copied those reviews to my blog. I&#39;ve also had people leave a review that started, &quot;I never read this book because it looked stupid.&quot; I admit to laughing at that. The worst review I ever got was my first one on Goodreads. As it turned out, he was also a writer who was angry because all his reviews trashed his book. He didn&#39;t learn the rules of writing or pay for an editor. I think this is a little scary since it is going to extremes. I only publish on Amazon, it&#39;s time to change that.<br />NancyN. R. Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02174506528962095858noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-70721110012643004952015-11-25T15:39:40.515-08:002015-11-25T15:39:40.515-08:00Beth--Right now, the shadows is probably the safes...Beth--Right now, the shadows is probably the safest place to be! But do copy your reviews, just in case. They&#39;re also in your Author Central account. Sometimes the deleted ones will stay at Author Central. Anne R. Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02420000168356370825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-22729780859051135442015-11-25T15:00:04.614-08:002015-11-25T15:00:04.614-08:00I just checked and haven&#39;t lost any reviews. I...I just checked and haven&#39;t lost any reviews. I will copy them. Thanks for this. My little book is living in the shadows in more ways than one!!Beth Havey@Boomer Highwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370208314250622800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-70346290056208487022015-11-25T09:49:51.334-08:002015-11-25T09:49:51.334-08:00Samantha--I think it would be useful to add that y...Samantha--I think it would be useful to add that you&#39;re a veteran ghostwriter with X-number of successfully published books. Especially for agents. Anne R. Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02420000168356370825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-57118661706382006982015-11-25T09:44:49.367-08:002015-11-25T09:44:49.367-08:00Piper--I agree that staying exclusive with the Zon...Piper--I agree that staying exclusive with the Zon is not in an author&#39;s best interest (unless they are with an Amazon imprint.) Amazon&#39;s market share is shrinking. More and more readers are reading on tablets and phones. Getting into iTunes, Google Play and international sites is the way to go these days. I&#39;m not sure Amazon needs us any more, and they may deliberately be working to get rid of indies, but other sites like Smashwords and D2D can get you into many other retailers. I think that&#39;s the future. Anne R. Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02420000168356370825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-29253389105323705832015-11-25T09:39:13.910-08:002015-11-25T09:39:13.910-08:00Joelle--I agree that this policy is misguided. The...Joelle--I agree that this policy is misguided. They want &quot;fair&quot; reviews but they aren&#39;t fair if the reviewer hasn&#39;t read the book. But remember that when Amazon started with KDP, they needed indies. Now they are a major publisher and indies are the competition. They do not need indies (or trad pubbed books) as much as they used to. Anne R. Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02420000168356370825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-19717376280452864612015-11-25T09:36:15.228-08:002015-11-25T09:36:15.228-08:00Veronica--With ebooks, it IS possible to see if so...Veronica--With ebooks, it IS possible to see if somebody has read a book, but they can&#39;t do it with paper books. I guess that would be their argument. I wish they would at least urge people to read some of the book before reviewing, but that is very much against their policy, which allows people to say &quot;I would never read this book,&quot; and give it one star. Anne R. Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02420000168356370825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-30280735050988877812015-11-25T05:10:27.390-08:002015-11-25T05:10:27.390-08:00That&#39;s terrible! New writers make a lot of ...That&#39;s terrible! <br /><br />New writers make a lot of mistakes (most of us could write a book about that). We generally stumble on the bad advice first before finding sites like yours. <br /><br /> I haven&#39;t asked for a paid review, hoping people would read my book and be fair about their opinion. But I had considered seeking a professional review when I could afford it. Now, I&#39;m not so sure I want one.<br /><br />Never did I think that people would use the review section to retaliate against another person or that Amazon would ever allow these kind of reviews to stay on a site. A grieving mother shouldn&#39;t have to see those reviews littering the reviews from people who have read her book.<br /><br />If you&#39;re an Indie Author, you&#39;re using social media to advertise. People who like your book will follow you! To remove a review simply because the writer knows the person on social media is discrimination against Indie authors.<br /><br />Every one of my reviews came from people who are intelligent and don&#39;t just spit out sparklies if that&#39;s not what they feel. My book will appeal to a narrow range of people and I fully expect a review to reflect that someday. As long as it&#39;s an honest opinion, that&#39;s the way I like it.<br /><br />In fact, Amazon might be interested to know that I met an acquaintance while shopping who had started reading my book. She liked the writing style but just couldn&#39;t get into it because it wasn&#39;t her preferred genre. I thanked her for letting me know and encouraged her to share her opinion for other readers. Am I going to be kicked off Amazon for asking her to do that?<br /><br />To say I&#39;m appalled that Amazon would be so mindless about which reviews to purge is an understatement. Joelle LeGendre, Floridabornehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15680521502937614860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-56599985008811961952015-11-25T00:26:20.696-08:002015-11-25T00:26:20.696-08:00I was wondering if I should include the fact that ...I was wondering if I should include the fact that I&#39;m a ghostwriter with 2 published ghost written series? Does it effect the reader view of me that I can&#39;t list the names of the series or will it help ad credibility to my bio for potential agents?Samantha Perrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14442830579131648683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-85832426795831861052015-11-25T00:25:42.680-08:002015-11-25T00:25:42.680-08:00I would much more welcome the curate reviews based...I would much more welcome the curate reviews based on the buyer actually reading the book, as opposed to having some online connection to the writer. That would make a lot more sense, and it&#39;s technically absolutely do-able.Veronica Sicoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03741318844378921184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-41551021792239548942015-11-24T22:03:56.391-08:002015-11-24T22:03:56.391-08:00Thanks Anne and William - you both make excellent ...Thanks Anne and William - you both make excellent points in the post and here in comments. One can hope that sufficient complaints will (eventually) penetrate the Zon&#39;s intractability, but I wouldn&#39;t hold my breath. <br /><br />I sincerely believe the only way they will be forced to reconsider such blunt, unrefined policies is if authors have the courage to speak with their actions - by not tying themselves to the Zon apron strings with exclusivity, and by using mutltiple platforms to sell their work. <br /><br />The more authors who can shout out their success with such a strategy all across the Indieverse, the more other Indies will let go their fears and dependency on Amazon, the better other platforms will then work for them as readers also discover the world beyoned Zon - and then finally perhaps someone at Zon HQ will have a rethink!Piper McDermothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601455867413178175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-12673992857646535822015-11-24T18:40:16.573-08:002015-11-24T18:40:16.573-08:00Maggie--Thanks much for posting to the K-boards. T...Maggie--Thanks much for posting to the K-boards. This may be old hat to them. I think the first things I heard about the &quot;know the author&quot; review purge came from there. It did get picked up by the Passive Voice today, where there&#39;s a lively discussion. Anne R. Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02420000168356370825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-831642547706916042015-11-24T18:36:17.235-08:002015-11-24T18:36:17.235-08:00Anne, I&#39;ve checked kboards (Writers&#39; Cafe)...Anne, I&#39;ve checked kboards (Writers&#39; Cafe) several times today to see if someone there had posted a link to this article. But no ... so I started a new thread about it with a link almost two hours ago. So far, just over 100 views, but no comments! <br /><br />I am surprised nobody there is discussing it, given the numerous and voluble threads kboards has on Amazon reviews, many of which are speculation. You&#39;d think they would be all over this one!Maggie Danahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09397320196343147825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385052143211121638.post-61253633875279214812015-11-24T12:37:13.192-08:002015-11-24T12:37:13.192-08:00S. J. The vendor designation isn&#39;t an opinion....S. J. The vendor designation isn&#39;t an opinion. It&#39;s a fact that Amazon puts an author in that category. As authors we are vendors in direct competition with their own publishing imprints. But if we contact them as customers, not as authors, we&#39;re more likely to get results. Anne R. Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02420000168356370825noreply@blogger.com
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