Amazon reviews - quality vs quantity

[Jo Zebedee]

and why things are very confused.

How do you get your book promoted by Amazon? One way is to get reviews. Now, if you're anything like I used to be, before I became jaded and gnarled and grumpy, you'd think the rating you give that review matters, right?

Maybe less than we think.

I noticed, near the top of several of charts, some books which were selling well yet had woeful reviews. One practically had the reviewers jumping up and down and telling people not to waste money on this book, and it was still selling.

Why?

Allegedly (can anyone confirm this?) once a book has 50 reviews on Amazon they promote it. And if Amazon get behind a book, that's a make or break deal, particularly for indie authors.

Faced with that paradigm - is it any wonder authors are prepared to pay for fake reviews? An author could have many reviews (I have 23 on Inish with a 4.9 ranking - which is really high) with great feedback and yet they're invisible.

Honestly, there's days were taking up macrame looks good.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

How do you get your book promoted by Amazon?

Sell lots ON ONE DAY to get up ranking in your section. Then Amazon will make your book appear more often.

Oddly have people view your book as well as other books!

We seem to help each other!

See whose book is getting advertised at the bottom?
It's there every day.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Honestly, there's days were taking up macrame looks good.

No, don't go there. Keep writing!

At least eBooks don't get pulped!

 

[Ogma]

The rumour is that at about 50 sales, you start appearing on other books' also bought lists, but the key thing (as I understand it) is it's also boughts of similar popularity level.

Maybe I'm wrong but I would imagine that the books with bad reviews either had a lot of high review scores as well, are controversial/notorious in some way or by authors with a large fanbase and with other more popular books. Or they coming off a promotion.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I think reviews only count when someone is actually reading the book page. The Ranking is on sales, not reviews, with weighting toward most recent sales. It's madness to pay for promotion as "word of mouth" sells more. In traditional publishing, the promotion is only for the release "jump start".

 

[Susan Boulton]

The one thing that bugs me about Amazon reviews is that each country's reviews are separate, yes there is a link way down the page, but I wish all the reviews on all the Amazon sites were on the same page.

Also goes for the Amazon Author pages, I had to complete one for Amazon.co.uk and one for Amazon.com. It seems they create an Amazon author page on one, when you create a page on the other, but don't transfer the details. They will put the anthologies you are in on your Author page if you request it, but not feed it through to the anthologies themselves.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I had to complete one for Amazon.co.uk and one for Amazon.com.

There are five places you need to create them. Though the Japanese one seems to automatically have some of the US stuff. My existing amazon log in works on France, UK (which inexplicably is also Ireland), German and USA Author pages, but not on Japan. The buttons are in same place if you can't read French and German. A German person said to only use English if the book is only in English, though no harm to have a "proper" translation below the English. Google translate will only make the Germans laugh.

The USA page has extras such as blog sync (paste in the RSS URL of your blog, click on the ".))" icon on your blog page address bar if you don't know it, (for wordpress it's the website/domain with /feed/ on the end) and Author / Editor comments / Inside and rear flap etc.

 

[Gary Compton]

See whose book is getting advertised at the bottom?

View attachment 28914

I think that's because you've viewed SOA, Ray. Their cookies are tracking what you look at.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think that's because you've viewed SOA, Ray. Their cookies are tracking what you look at.

No, not on the other pages also purchased/looked at section. As far as I can tell, it's done by what sales match (certainly, I get lots of stuff on mine I've never looked at.) It's most likely because a load of Chronners have looked at both.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I think that's because you've viewed SOA, Ray.

I hadn't, (sorry!) I did afterwards.
(i did buy book 1 though!)

It's most likely because a load of Chronners have looked at both.

Yes, obviously. There are two kinds of separate things "Other people viewed" and "other people purchased".

My point is that the more "chronners" that are on Amazon even just looking helps all of us sell to people that are not Chronners ... Like if there are 20 of us as wannabe authors, then someone is more likely to see titles of all twenty by finding only one of us, when 100s of general Chronners have browsed all the titles?

 

[Parson]

I'm not so sure that there isn't also a wild card involved. I've sometimes had books recommended to me that left me baffled as to why. They don't fit a genre I or my wife read and they are not likely very popular, sometimes having less than 10 reviews. --- I was under the impression that some authors were paying to get on the recommended list without any evidence other than logic to back up the suspicion.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Jo, I was just pondering this.

It seems a bit difficult to remedy (obviously we can ask for reviews but beyond paying, which is dubious, they can't be guaranteed/compelled). I do like the idea of sites that help guide readers to books, and, whilst these do exist, there's a limited scope for that to be successful (because there are so many books and the sites are usually done for free, in spare time).

Hmm.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

@Parson - you can buy amazon ads so that might be it.

@thaddeus6th - have a look at library thing website, it's interesting,

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I do like the idea of sites that help guide readers to books,

Goodreads?

Anyway, I'm convinced that reviews only matter when someone is landed on the page, not for rank. Also Mark Coker of Smashwords says word of mouth, not adverts sells books, he thinks money is better spent on professional editing and a good cover.
Adverts are important for trad publishing leading up to launch, because if there isn't a launch period shifting of the books then in a couple of months they are remaindered or pulped (limited space on retail shelves*). The e-Book + POD paper isn't like that. It can "sit" on the shelves forever and build slowly via word of mouth.

(*Jo knows well how long retail will give space to book not selling enough!)

 

[millymollymo]

As I understand it through working for others (not just the book side) : reviews do count as does the ranking system, even Kindle Unlimited 'helps'. Amazon UK uses a different algorithms to Amazon US based on how statistics and how we are known to shop.
A range of personal reviews is better than just a collection of 5 stars with a breakdown of development, structure and page layout flaws. "Did this review help" feedback improves things for the buyer too and so it all adds up.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

reviews do count as does the ranking system

But much less than sales.

 

[millymollymo]

But much less than sales.

Relying on sales alone isn't enough. That's like throwing a half dozen SEO focused words into your blog and hoping to get a page one result with Google. It might in a few months if a reader happened to search for it, directly. From that point it's no different than writing the manuscript and calling it a book, or purchasing a motherboard and calling it a PC.
It's a job half done.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Relying on sales alone isn't enough.

Agreed.
But at the end of the day that's what buys the bread and word of mouth from happy readers sells books. Most books are bought by recommendations from family, friends, or people that folks think they have a connection to on forums or social media (i.e. comment on each others posts, not spam)

 

[millymollymo]

Word of mouth (goodwill, loyal fan base) doesn't come from an algorithm, nor fit in one. I dread the day when/if I have to start worrying about it.

 

[Ursa major]

A German person said to only use English if the book is only in English

I can see that some Germans who speak (and read) English well may not want to read a whole novel that written in English, but it seems silly not to offer those who would be prepared to read a novel in English the opportunity to do so (even if they're perfectly capable of looking on Amazon's US and UK sites for such books).

As long as it's made perfectly clear that the book is in English, and not in German, there shouldn't be a problem.


EDIT: Oops! Did he mean that the German Amazon page should only be written in English if the book is not in German?