Readers! I couldn’t quite let you go! I still think about you all the time, still write to you constantly in my head. But I confess, this isn’t an ordinary post. It’s an ask.
I need a book review. An Amazon book review.
Many of you have read me for years. You bought my first novel and read it, and honestly, that is enough. It is enough. Yet I’m asking for one more thing.
A word about Amazon. I don’t love Amazon. I feel this massive online retailer is part of the problem with our culture, not the solution. Also, I don’t like the super rich as a rule. But for very small publishers and unknown authors, Amazon is what we have to work with. Here’s what I mean:
In the nineties, during college and after, I worked in independent bookstores. This was the age of massive acquisitions in publishing; smaller presses and even not-so-small-but-still-independent publishers were acquired by huge, often foreign holding companies, leaving most of book publishing in the hands of what is now known as The Big Five: Penguin/Random House, Hachette Group, Harper Collins, Macmillan, Simon and Shuster.
Also in the nineties came the rise of the bookstore chain and Amazon. Brick and Mortar stores like the ones employing me could hear their own death tolls. I delivered lots of impassioned talks to readers and book clubs about the value of small stores and how much they mean to authors, especially unknown authors like me. The chains were bullied by the publishing conglomerates to push the titles these massive companies wanted pushed. Unknown authors had only the fragile bookseller to help them, in a very old fashioned way: read and tell others.
Fast forward a couple decades to my debut with a small publisher, the terrific and wildly independent Elixir Press in Denver, Colorado, run by a woman with advanced MS. She has consistently put out four books a year for twenty years. With MS. She works with Small Press Distribution (SPD) to distribute her titles. As you may guess, SPD is also small and independent, based in Berkeley, the mecca of all things independent and courageous. But because they are small, they cannot offer the discounts and free shipping that larger distributors can. Most independent bookstores use a distributor called Ingram. In fact I’d guess over ninety percent of indie bookstores use Ingram. As is true whenever most stores use one company, that company has a lot of power.
All this is to explain my heartbreak and frustration when I hit up over fifty (FIFTY) indie bookstores about stocking my novel and well over ninety percent said No. We cannot get that title. They were friendly and they had great stores. Just as they were years ago, most were run by women. Several of these stores I visited in person, standing across the counter, talking about my book. It felt a lot like begging. They were sorry, but their answer was no.
I still love small bookstores, but I learned that they don’t all take chances on books distributed by a hippie outfit in Berkeley. They simply cannot afford to.
Which brings me back to Amazon. I am left with Amazon.
And that brings me to you. I thought of you because, as I said earlier, I’m always thinking of you. I sent a request to everyone in my Gmail contacts list and then thought I’d write to you.
Amazon runs on a mysterious algorithm. I’ve been told by book publishers and distributors that no one really understands how the algorithm works. But it revolves around book reviews. A key number seems to be fifty. Books with fifty reviews or more move up in the system, so to speak. They show up on the “You Might Also Like” page when people put similar titles in their cart. Reviews help the robots move titles up the ranking system.
Here’s what you need to know if you want to write a review of The Wolf Tone.
- The process will take ten minutes of your time.
- You will need to sign in to your account.
- You will then register as a reviewer. This will allow you to review all products, not just books. Consider if you want your name to be seen. Personally, mine is “A Montana Reader”
- Give it a star rating. Five stars gets the most attention
- Write a sentence or two in the box field. This can be as simple as “An unexpected gem.” or “This book rocked my world.” Specific “keywords” help, like this: “This book covers classical music, medical marijuana and the complexities of parenting.” Speak about the prose, the character you liked best and why. Or simply say: I loved this book.
- What NOT to say: that we are in a book group together, that you’ve known me for years or that you really want to help your friend or that you know my mother. That will flag the robot and the review will be removed
- Hit submit
- You can cut and paste the reviews onto Goodreads as well. Did you know Amazon owns Goodreads? But only Amazon sells books.
Again, that link. Just click right here.
I sincerely thank you for your efforts to support me and independent literature and independent artists everywhere. You are a patron of the arts and that is no small thing.
review completed!
Will do this today!
Done, Christy!