Amazon is Publishing Reviews? Will You be Next?

You may already know that book reviews can be extremely sweet, or bitter as a mouthful of moth balls. You may also know that a bad review can sit on your book page, festering, scaring readers away until it falls out of sight. But did you know there are some reviews that can be posted to the "Editorial Review" section of your Amazon book page without your consent?

And did you further realize that these reviews are posted via Amazon at the very top of your page… before your product description?

The real kicker is, it doesn't matter if the review is good or bad, once it's published, there's nothing you can do about it.

How do I know this? I was helping an author spruce up his book page this week. I did my thing and saved the changes and told him that the updates should show up in a day or two as usual. They didn't. I didn't understand. I went to his Amazon page and noticed that there were two reviews posted at the TOP. In fact, the product description was pushed out of sight because of the length of the reviews.

I was pleased that one review was a starred review, but the first review was extremely critical. The Good review was published by Booklist and the bad review was posted by Publishers Weekly.

What shocked me more than the fact that the author had a bad review on his page, was that the review wasn't even accessable in the author's "Author Central" account. This is supposed to be the page where an author and/or publisher can access the complete book information, and make changes after intial publication.

I told the author that I couldn't delete that review if it wasn't in his book details. I told him to contact Amazon and have them remove it. Keep in mind, I believe in freedom of opinion, but not on the product description page! That's where the author should be able to pitch his book. The review section should be where reviews are posted.

Here's Amazon's reply to my writer friend:
"My name is Chantel from Author Central.

Publishers Weekly [reviews] are considered licensed content, provided to Amazon.com and owned by the publication. In order to keep Editorial Reviews objective and informative, we rely on many sources to provide content for this section. The reviews may be positive or negative; that is not a factor in our decision. We work to create a diversity of opinion on our site, and this may include negative reviews, when they arise.

While we're glad to offer you the option to add to this section or to correct typos, licensed reviews already appearing on your book's Product Detail page cannot be removed or moved to a different place on the Detail page."

Wow! That's a big deal!

Has this happened to you? Have you submitted your book to these sites for review? If you did, you better hope that they like it because a review by a reputable publication posted at THE TOP OF YOUR PRODUCT PAGE can be as damaging as a shot in your book's head. And you could be next.

If you have experience this, did you resolve it? If so I'd love to know what transpired. Here's a little bit of information (taken from each website) about two of the publications that Amazon is using for this valuable "content". Like I said, I'm all for diversity of opinion, and I'm all for Amazon finding professional methods of weeding out books that are not what they say they are, or riddled with gross errors and poorly edited material. But I think they should be a little more courteous to the author/publisher and let the reader find out what the story is about before they post any review good or bad.

Publishers Weekly is the international journal of book publishing and bookselling, including business news, reviews and bestseller lists  targeted at publishers, booksellers, librarians and literary agents.

Booklist, the magazine the New York Times calls "an acquisitions bible for public and school librarians nationwide," is the review journal of the American Library Association. It recommends works of fiction, nonfiction, children's books, reference books, and media to its 30,000 institutional and personal subscribers. In-house editors and contributing reviewers from around the country review more than 7,500 books each year, most before publication.

Here's an update on The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe: I am getting the book back from Neal Hock (editor) tonight, and will make corrections and format this week. That means it shoul be available in digital formats this weekend. I will make it available in all ebook formats and sell it on B&N, Amazon and Smashwords for now. BOOM!

Jeff Bennington is the author of Twisted Vengeance, Reunion, and Creepy

CreateSpace or Lightning Source???

Are you an indie author preparing to publish your latest and greatest work of art? Your masterpiece? Your baby? If so I want to applaud you and congratulate you for accomplishing one of life’s greatest feats. Lots of people talk about writing a book...you are one of the few who actually did it!

But wait!

Before you ship your precious baby off to LuLu or CreateSpace, did you get your little darling professionally edited? I hope so! Is the cover art up to snuff? It better be! What about the interior? Is your PDF perfect? Are your ebook paragraph indentions and chapter headings in the right place? I sure hope so.

Have you thought about using Lightning Source as your printer? Huh? Who? Lightning Source, L-i-g-h-t….oh, never mind! Lightning-Source is one the biggest and best printers for small and independent publishers…and if your an indie author, that means you! After much debate and research I’ve decided that there is no better choice.


DISCLAIMER:

If you're interested in selling digital books only and paperback books via Amazon & B&N, than Create-Space or LuLu is probably the best place to go for your print copies. They’re quick, cheap, easy and come with a FREE ISBN. But if you want to sell books to brick-n-mortar stores or have a book signing at your local B&N or Books-a-Million, you better go with Lightning Source. 


Don't let CS or LULU fool you into thinking advanced distribution means you can sell in stores...You can't!       


Here's a few things you need to know that CS & LuLu won't tell you.

•      Lulu and CS, do not offer the industry standard wholesale discount of 40-55% to retailers. They offer more like 25%, which is not high enough to get into stores. I tried having a book signing 10 miles from my house with a B-a-M and they flat refused, because my book did not offer a 40% discount through Baker & Taylor. I had no idea! I thought I had paid for full distribution. WRONG!

•      Another major stopper is the issue of “Returns”. If you want to get your book into stores, you have to offer returns (be willing to pay the bookstore back the wholesale price of the book if they don’t sell). Some local stores and B & N’s might let you place a book on consignment…but maybe not. Most stores demand that your book be returnable, especially if they want to buy it through their distributor.

•      Lightning Source, allows you to do both. You can choose the wholesale discount and the method of taking returns. You can pick a 25, 40, or 50% wholesale margain! And, you don’t have to feel embarrassed when you tell your local bookstore manager that your book is non-returnable.

•      At lightning Source, you are the publisher, no longer giving Create-Space 60% of your wholesale margin. You do, however, have to provide a print ready cover (front-back-spline) and interior PDF’s. But fear not, if you can’t learn to do this yourself, there are many affordable folks out there who will format your interior for $99 and create a polished cover for around $300 or less (I paid $40 to have an artist add the back cover to my front cover that I designed. That’s extra, but a great incentive to learn how to make a good cover! If you were planning to sell in stores, it could be worth the expense. Besides, $300 is cheaper than the going rate for many self-publishing companies who offer custom covers.

•             Lightning Source will also upload your book to Amazon and B&N and other sources for you. Best of all, you get ALL the publisher's profit! You have to do a little more work, but it’s worth it.

•      Lightning Source offers great service! You get to talk with a real person. So if you have questions, you just dial a number and POW! there’s a live person BAM! on the line SMACK! waiting to help. (How'd you like the Batman reference?)

•     Lightning Source is cheap. A $75 set up fee and a $12 a year renewable print fee. That may sound like more than the $0 for Lulu and CreateSpace' $39 Advanced Distribution Channel. You'll have to buy your own ISBN, which can cost up to $125, or as little as $1, depends on how many you buy, but you will be the publisher. Period.

Listen, if you want to go indie, and go all the way, you have to think like a publisher...become a publisher and LEARN everything that goes with it. 

• You have do what they do. 
• Get Arc’s (advance reading copies) and send them out to reviewers. 
• You have to take your time and plan a blog tour, contests, giveaways! 

Publishing isn’t just about writing a book and having it magically appear on Amazon. There’s a reason the process takes 2 years in the Pub industry. Even if you publish an eBook, you should still take your time, get it edited, polish your cover and publicize and get reviews first.

If you think of self-publishing is a business, indie authors will always have a much leaner structure. You only have to report to yourself and your readers; you owe them that much. Anyway, you can get that book out their quickly, professionally, and with the same quality and wholesale policies as the big boys, but ONLY through Lightning Source.

I used Lightning Source with REUNION and it's only cost me about $100 to get my cover assembled. 


I used CS to get an initial proof of the interior and Cover art. They did a great job, but in the end, I’m going to publish more books (Act of Vengeance in October 2011), and I’d like to be professional and match publishers pricing, discounts and returnability. 


We indies have a stigma of poor quality to overcome. It’s time we take the bull by the horns, create our own destiny and do this right! 

Mistakes I've made in Publishing

Like many indie authors, I've made mistakes... and I've payed for them, dearly.

I learned a lot about the book biz after publishing my first novel, Killing the Giants, with Outskirts Press in 2008-2009. Of course, I didn't really have a choice in the matter - I didn't know diddly squat to begin with. All in all, I payed about $1500 to get that gem of mine in print... and my left eye still shakes and jerks every time I think about it. Yeah, big mistakes have a way of creating new bodily ticks!

But why has that experience damaged my optical nervous system, you ask? Simple. I hadn't heard much about going indie and I didn't know anything about the Kindle at that point, and after a long, disappointing run with agents and publishers, I finally gave in to my impatientness. Besides, I wanted that book darn it! And I just knew the rest of the world did too!

So what did I learn about the "self-publishing" world that is so disappointing? Here's a list of some of the things I know now.

• Don't get in a hurry. This seems to be the second biggest mistake authors make, and self-publishing companies rush you through the process, because they want to publish as many books as possible. I rushed the whole process, even to the point of neglecting to get a professional edit. If you want your book to succeed, you have to take the time to get it edited, and plan for a longer pre-release schedule (more on that to come). Slow down and do this right.

• Only spend money on the essentials. No one should pay to publish when you can epublish for free. That sounds so simple, but it's true. The publishing world is changing so fast it just about makes my head spin, and so why would you want to invest your $$$ in publishing a print copy of your book, when technology in 2011 allows you to go online for free with Kindle/Smashwords publishing and/or Createspace/Lightening Source? You don't have to. All of these sites have excellent tutorials and customer forums that will help you format your interior and or provide you with names of people who will do it for you for next to nothing ($35-99). Good formatting is vital, but you don't have to sell off your body parts to get it done.

• ePublishing makes great training. If you are working on your first book, and have tried the agent/publisher routine, you should definitely take advantage of these low cost publishing options. Then as you grow your audience and your platform, you can spend more on cover, design etc.

• Cover art is massively over priced ($299-$599). Although the first step to getting someone to buy your book is through good cover art, I've learned to make pretty decent covers by using picnik.com and it has cost me $0. I've seen some book covers professionally designed and wanted to puke! I felt so bad that someone payed for junk. I did - it came with my "package". But now, all you need is a picture that fits with your book and lots of practice. Picnik.com has an array of cool tools that will make a good cover. You can always spend more later on your next masterpiece.

• Do pay for the most important things. If you are no good at cover design or formatting, you should pay for those things, including editing (the number one thing authors fail to do). They are that important.

• Don't pay for Amazon add-ons. I payed extra to get my book in the Kindle edition and to get the "Look inside" option. Duh! It is all FREE. I was too scared to investigate and figure out how to format my book, so I payed about $299 for those "services". Nuf, said. That was stupid. Lesson learned.

• Don't pay for reviews or a blog tour. I've sent out about 45 review/blog tour requests and to my surprise, the blogger/reviewers are graciously accepting to review my book AND do an interview/guest blog spot. This cost me zero, but would have cost at least $299 if had someone else arrange it. 

• Allow time for Reviews and a blog tour, because no amount of local media and local book signings will give you near as much exposure as a blog tour. The fact is, a good book signing will net maybe 5-10 book sales. You should do book signings and book release parties, but they are only good for building local hype, and will not help near as much as a blog tour where book buyers are waiting to hear specifically about your genre. Again, don't get in a hurry to publish...take your time and plan to get reviews before you publish. You can even use some of the review blurbs on the back cover! Here's a link to a long list of reviewers.

• Plan a release date. This is the number one way to get a major jolt in intial book sales. After all the reviews and guest blogging and Q & A sessions, you'll have a gazillion readers standing in line to buy your books. So why not have an online book signing/release party the day you release your book? You'll get a much better initial rating with a sudden leap in book sales, which will in turn, create more visibility through the ranking systems. The authors of Machine of Death accomplished this with great success. Of course the authors already had a following, but if you utilize a blog/review tour, you can do it too. Also you can use the same Press release site the self-publishing sites use to post a press release. They don't pay anything, why should you?

• Get Social Media. Get involved in Facebook and Twitter and blogging. Don't always talk about your book. Share other valuable information dealing with the content of your book or writing or reading, but get people to listen to you and just be yourself. People like buying from writers they know and trust.

Mainly, I've come to the conclusion that I can do almost everything I payed for, with more passion, greater attention to detail, and at or near zero cost (with the exception of time).  There are other things I've learned, but I think I've demonstrated enough of my stupididy for one day. My pride can only take so much abuse, you know.

But what about you? What have you learned that could help the unsuspecting  author ready to cash in his life savings to publish his or her latest and greatest masterpiece? Got any more ideas? Share them and comment vigorously! BOOM!