(Cross-posted from Ko-fi)
As you may have heard (possibly here), Amazon is cracking the whip on Associates. We now have to meet a sales quota every six months. Since the sales quota counts only use of specific links, as in specific copies of books, it appears to me that at no time in over ten years of Amazon Association have I ever met the quota.
One trusted e-friend told me she clicked on a link I'd posted to a product she'd specifically mentioned looking for--a paint set for a child. She browsed around Amazon and had a wonderful time, letting the child choose a different paint set and ordering stuff for other family members as well. Credit to my Amazon account for those sales? Zero--because it's all handled by computer and my link went to the page for the paint set she didn't buy.
At the time I laughed it off. I was posting reviews of books I had for sale in the real world. Reviews drove real-world sales for me, so any Amazon sales were bonuses.
Now, I need to see use of the links in order to resume posting the links. And also, Amazon decided a few years ago to display reviews only from customers who bought the stuff we reviewed online using credit cards. (I use prepaid giftcards. Some clients pay me in giftcards.)
I had given some publishers good reviews. Terse for Amazon, terser for Goodreads, full-length on my blog. I sold long-form reviews to review sites. One publisher told me, repeatedly, that a little more "literary" warbling than I normally do when writing online ought to get my reviews into print at the Kenyon Review or New Yorker. (Meh. Lots of competition.) And then Amazon made all of them disappear.
Though, frankly, they did need to do something. Amazon sells a lot of books and, although I've reviewed some rare ones, their space for reviews of successful new books does tend to fill fast.
However, for religious reasons, I don't do credit cards. And I think, if enough money were involved to justify a lawsuit, Amazon's demand for credit cards would count as religious discrimination.
So...after reviewing some online messages from publishers and fellow writers, I think I've thought of a work-around that will comply with current rules and laws.
1. You will be a legitimate author/publisher of a book that's available in the United States in English, French, or Spanish. (If you want a review that makes intuitive sense on Amazon, that does not begin with "This is not my native language so I'm not sure...", it should be English.) And you or your employer will have a credit card. And you will be able to afford to buy a copy, even if you already had the review copy you sent me.
2. You will have sent me the book, and I will have read it. Galleys are fine. Copy-editing fees depend on the job; some galleys need lots of changes, some are ready to go. I'm tagging Andrei Codrescu because, years ago, I started flagging errors in a galley and didn't have enough online time to finish the book: Hello, Andrei and friends and fans, for the next year I should be able to go online whenever weather conditions permit. And I can do copy-editing in Word.
This does not guarantee a rave review. I may think the premise of your speculative fiction is too unlikely to be even funny, or I would not personally eat anything made from your recipes, or your assumptions about "politically conservative" people are at least three generations out of date. But guess what? There are review sites, like the printed Washington Post Book World, that don't do really unfavorable reviews, although the Post has printed some overall-favorable reviews that included harsh criticism. Why? Because, if a reviewer thinks a book is really vile, and posts or publishes a review to that effect, people will buy it just to see if it's possible for the book to be as bad as the reviewer said. At my web site my policy is to post reviews that encourage living writers. Only at Goodreads, where the books have pages and reviews no matter how vile they are, have I posted anything about books I physically received, read, and burned. But I have posted comments on older books with titles like "Vindictive Review" or "Book Rant," where they seemed applicable--for books I was willing to sell while expressing disapproval--and two things happened: (1) they got five times the page views my normal book reviews did, and (2) I didn't have to store those books any more. Critical reviews sell books.
So it's up to you whether you want to pay for a critical review, if that's all I can offer. I would not recommend taking the trouble to get a critical review on Amazon. But a critical review on my blog is not going to hurt sales of your book.
Normally, my reaction to books is pretty bland; I've read a lot of books already. I don't claim that I loved all of them. I've taken a vow not to blather about "luminous prose." I'm more likely to write about the kind of person who would want this book to be their only gift from you this year, and leave it to readers to notice how different that person might be from me. Most novels and short story collections inspire terse reactions from me, and terse is best for Amazon.
3. So if you want a terse review on Amazon, a chattier review (with tangents and divagations) on Blogspot with an Amazon link, and the possibility of a 2500-word review at a paying review site, you would e-mail me to schedule a rendezvous on the banks of the Big River. (For brand-new books, this should be on the day of release--I've blogged about the galley system, but most non-writers haven't read that blog post and distrust pre-publication reviews. I can explain about them on my site.) I would then change my Amazon password and send you a new Amazon password, valid for the next ten minutes. You would use this password to log in, buy the book with your credit card, and have Amazon send it somewhere--as it might be to the next reviewer on your list, or to someone who prefers a Kindle edition. You would then log out, and I would then change the password.
4. Sooner or later somebody's going to try to abuse this system just because it is there. Hacking into my accounts has never enabled anyone to steal any money; I don't have e-money. This has not kept literally hundreds of attempts from being made. People want to hack into personal, not-for-profit blogs (like my Live Journal) just to change a word and gloat that "I wuz ere." What happens then? They're not going to get more than US$100. Bezos can afford to have them hunted down. I will think very bad thoughts about them while changing the digits in my account. You, the one with the credit card, are the one who has to worry about intelligent hackers. Since I won't have your credit card digits, you don't have to worry about me.
5. However, there are review sites, like Metastellar for speculative fiction, that specifically encourage reviews that can include things like "The author is a good e-friend." There are sites, like Twitter, that specifically encourage writers and readers to follow each other, interact, tweet about our health and families and forthcoming new books and so on, which makes it easy to become good long-term e-friends. Sending me a review copy shows trust and builds warm fuzzy feelings. This is a point authors and publishers should consider. Read blogs! Bond with emergent authors! Even someone who blogs about being homeless can help you!
Some of my Tweeps (Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Jonah Goldberg) already have hordes of fans squabbling for position on Amazon's book pages. Others (Jim Geraghty was the one who mentioned it yesterday) are wondering why their sales numbers are out of proportion to their Amazon review pages. Feel free to recommend this system to other friends if it works for you. I'm eager to try it out during the holiday shopping season.
E-mail: PriscillaKing2020@outlook
Books: Boxholder, P.O. Box 322, Gate City, Virginia, 24251-0322
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