Jul 25 2013

Publishing Is not a Dog-Eat-Dog Business

I debated with myself whether or not this article would be worth writing. I feel that the majority of writers already realize this, and the minority who exhibit the dog-eat-dog mentality aren’t likely to read this article – and, if they do, be influenced by it. Then I considered that it may provide a little reassurance to the majority, if nothing else. So I have written this article with this possible benefit in mind.

Unfortunately, there are a few unscrupulous authors and publishers out there who incorrectly believe that they can become more successful by making their colleagues look worse by planting negative reviews on similar titles and other unethical practices. We see it happen occasionally. Most of the one-star reviews are from actual customers who simply didn’t like the book, but a few are actually from competing authors or publishers – sometimes directly, and sometimes indirectly by persuading or even paying others to do it for them.

We know it happens from the times that that the author was caught red-handed. Reviews have been removed, accounts have been suspended, and a couple of such authors have been featured in high-profile articles.

Let me stress again that the vast majority of authors do not behave this way. Most authors – both indies and traditionally published – are much more ethical than this. Most authors support one another. I don’t mean to suggest a bad image for authors or books in any way. I hope that you will keep in mind that the vast majority of authors behave professionally and supportively and that almost all books provide much value to readers, and not let the behavior of a few bad eggs adversely affect your image of books and publishing at large.

What I really want to point out is why the dog-eat-dog approach is foolish in the publishing industry: Similar books are generally much more complementary than competitive. Buyers usually buy multiple books (if not all at once, then over a period of months or years). It’s usually not a case of, “Should I buy Book A or Book B?” but, “Where can I find more books like Book A?”

Similar titles help one another through Customer Also Bought lists, word-of-mouth referrals, etc.

If an author succeeds in hurting sales of similar titles by blasting the competition, this author is very likely shooting himself or herself in the foot. Every time a customer buys a similar title, that author’s book shows up as a suggested add-on. So hurting the sales of one book tends to hurt the sales of similar books.

Similar titles tend to feed off of each other’s successes.

Another important point is that a negative review sometimes actually helps sales, instead of hurting them. This is a second reason that the unethical dog-eating-other-dogs mentality is likely to backfire.

No author wants to receive a bad review. But sometimes they help sales rather than hurt them. First of all, every review adds to the total number of reviews. More reviews is a sign of greater popularity. Second of all, a negative review among good reviews may help to provide balance. Occasionally, a negative review does hurt sales, but many times it doesn’t.

We must also give credit to the customer. Shoppers can often tell that there is something funny about an unethical review. If they suspect that the competition has blasted a book, customers are inclined to feel supportive toward the poor author who was blasted. They might even buy the book when they otherwise wouldn’t have.

If a customer recently read the book and was about to post a negative review, upon seeing a harsh negative review already there, the customer often reconsiders this. Thus, a malicious one-star review might not result in more negative reviews, just more obviously malicious ones. When customers see a harsh negative review, sometimes they post a positive review when otherwise they wouldn’t have reviewed the book.

Of course, it takes much time for the author to see what effect, if any, a review has. Occasionally, bad reviews do deter sales. It’s just that the assumption that a bad review will always deter sales is clearly false; sometimes it does, but often it doesn’t.

The vast majority of authors who are scrupulous have a great deal of support on their side. Those few unscrupulous dog-eat-dog authors are missing out on this wonderful opportunity.

Most authors help one another in various ways:

We discuss ideas with other writers for writing better, marketing better, publishing better, etc.
We provide support through comments and emails.
We share recommendations for cover artists, editors, etc.
We reveal tricks of the trade to authors we interact with and trust.
We support one another emotionally.
We offer advice from our experience.
We give critical feedback when it is solicited.
We buy, read, and review many books.
And much, much more.

The self-publishing community is very supportive and resourceful. It’s an amazing team to be on. The community is far stronger than a stray dog going around eating other dogs.

Finally, a few bad authors shouldn’t be casting a bad image for dogs. When I think of dogs, I think of wonderful, furry, loving creatures, who win your love with sad eyes, slurp your face with a salivating tongue, stand up on hind legs and throw their front paws on your chest, and faithfully follow you wherever you go. We could learn a lot by studying the natural goodness exhibited by the vast majority of dogs. 🙂

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Jul 13 2013

Amazon Customer Book Reviews: Author Controversies

Most authors are customers, too.

As customers, we want to see actual reviews written by actual customers, find a variety of balanced opinions, and be able to trust Amazon’s customer review system.

As authors, we see the benefits of having more customer reviews. Of course, we always cross our fingers that the reviews will be positive. However, we realize that we can’t please everybody, and we know that what’s good for the customer is good for authors and publishers, too.

If the reviews aren’t balanced or if customers aren’t able to trust the review system, then the system isn’t benefiting anyone – customers, authors, publishers, or Amazon.

Authors write many book reviews. That’s because authors are readers, too, and nobody understands how important reviews are more than authors.

So it’s important for authors to understand what is or isn’t allowed, and why.

Violations can lead to deleted reviews, loss of review privileges, account suspensions, books being unpublished, etc.

(1) Review Swapping: Jack reviews Jill’s book and Jill reviews Jack’s book.

Unfortunately, Amazon doesn’t spell it out by saying, “Review swapping is not allowed.”

But it can be deduced from the guidelines (see References 1-3) as follows:

You’re not allowed to offer compensation for writing a review. If Jack offers to write a review of Jill’s book in exchange for a review of Jack’s book, then Jack is offering Jill compensation. This is a clear violation of the guidelines.

Amazon may catch it (perhaps through cross-referencing). If not, customers who observe it may report it to Amazon. There are stories of authors who have lost reviews and privileges.

What’s wrong with this? Doesn’t the I’ll-scratch-your-back-if-you-scratch-my-back idea seem unscrupulous? How would this look to a customer who noticed what was going on? It doesn’t matter that the reviews could, in principle, be written objectively. The problem is that the review is written with compensation in mind, which provides an incentive for writing an unbiased review. It’s the incentive that matters, not the intent (incentive is also much more clear).

It is possible for a review swap to come about in other ways. For example, Jack might review Jill’s book. Jill checks out Jack’s profile and discovers that Jack is an author. Jill reads Jack’s book and reviews it. They didn’t agree to scratch each other’s backs. But how would Amazon know the difference? It still looks like a review swap.

If another author reviews your book, you might feel like reciprocating. But then it will look like a review swap. Instead, pay it forward: That is, read a book by someone you don’t know, and review that book.

Of course, it’s possible for two authors to review each other’s books and not even know it, especially if they don’t use their real names on their review profiles. The chances of this happening accidentally, however, are very slim. It still looks like a review swap to Amazon.

There is yet another way for a review swap to come about. Jack is an author who knows Jill. Jack asks Jill to read and review his book. Jill does. Months later, Jill has written a book. Naturally, Jill wants Jack to return the favor. Doesn’t this still look like a review swap?

(2) Advance Review Copies: Dave gives out free copies of his book, hoping to receive some reviews.

This may be legitimate. This is the one exception to compensating reviewers: Authors or publishers may give one free copy of the book to each potential reviewer. Publishers often have mailing lists for advance review copies. Goodreads has a giveaway program to help authors distribute advance review copies for print books.

However, there are restrictions:

You must make it clear that you welcome all feedback – positive or negative. For example, you’re not allowed to give a free book in exchange just for a good review.
You can only offer one free book. You can’t offer products, discounts, entries into a contest, bonus material, etc. as an incentive for writing the review.
You can’t tell the reviewer what to write, tell the reviewer to write a review if the feedback is positive but just email you any negative comments instead, etc.
The book must be given free up front; it can’t be contingent upon writing the review.

Giving out advance review copies encourages more reviews. More customer reviews is good for everyone, but only if they are unbiased.

Note that such reviews won’t show as Amazon Verified Purchases. (There is a possible exception. For example, if your book is free through KDP Select and the reviewer downloads your book when it’s free, and the reviewer checks the box to mark it as an Amazon Verified Purchase.)

(3) The Friend and Family Plan: Jane asks her many family members and friends to review her book.

If all authors did this, most of the reviews would be biased. Amazon can’t say that it’s only allowed if the reviews are unbiased: How can Amazon tell, in general? They can’t.

So instead, Amazon has guidelines for what is or isn’t allowed:

Definitely, anyone who shares a household with the author isn’t allowed to review the book.
Close friends aren’t allowed to review the book. (What makes friends ‘close’? Good question.) This surely includes close family members who don’t live with the author, too.
Anyone who has a financial interest in the book isn’t allowed to review it: spouse, children, publisher, editor, cover designer, etc. (Even if the cover designer doesn’t receive a percentage of royalties, the success of the book may help the cover designer through referrals.)
Obviously, the author isn’t allowed to review the author’s own book.
You’re not allowed to post reviews on behalf of others. For example, if you sell a book to someone in person who has no internet access, if they ask you to review the book on their behalf, you’re not allowed to do it.

Amazon blocks and deletes reviews that are suspected of being on the friend and family plan. They may have a program that checks for common addresses, IP addresses, etc.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/05/amazon-removes-book-reviews

In addition to Amazon, there are external parties checking reviews. For example, there are people publishing research who are examining the writing style of multiple reviewers to see if they may have been written by the same person, scrutinizing books with many reviews but only a few sales, etc. There are published cases of review abuse that have been discovered and exposed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/23/historian-orlando-figes-amazon-reviews-rivals

(4) Dogs Eating Dogs: Bob slams the competition by giving them negative reviews.

Authors are not allowed to review similar titles. This very clear from the guideline that says you can’t review a book if you have a financial interest in it. So if Bob gives Eric a bad review and that bad review might improve the sales of Bob’s book, that review is in violation of Amazon’s policies. You’re not allowed to slam the competition.

Aside from being unscrupulous, it’s just plain foolish to slam the competition. Most books are more complementary than competitive. Customers usually buy multiple books that are similar (if not all at once, then spread over time). It’s usually not Book A or Book B; it’s often both. So if you do something to cause similar books’ sales to decline, it might hurt your own book’s sales through Customers Also Bought and other marketing associations.

You’re also not allowed to give positive reviews of similar titles, since a good review of a similar book might improve the sales of your book through Customers Also Bought lists.

(5) Paid Reviews: Cindy pays Jeff to write a review of her book.

This clearly violates the rule about receiving compensation, with one exception.

Editorial reviews, such as Kirkus reviews, may be paid for. These appear as editorial reviews, however, and not as customer reviews. There is a separate section for editorial reviews, and they can be added through AuthorCentral. Editorial reviews don’t necessarily need to be written by editors and experts in the field, as explained in Note 4 of Reference 3.

https://authorcentral.amazon.com

Note: All of the names used to illustrate examples (Jack, Jill, Dave, etc.) are all fictitious. These names do not refer to actual people. If there happen to be authors with those names who have done the things described (or have been accused by others of doing so or who may have done related or similar things), it is purely coincidental.

References

1. Kindle Direct Publishing Newsletter, May 2013, Volume 26, Featured Resource, “Q & A on Amazon’s Customer Review Policies.”

http://hosted-p0.vresp.com/816983/84997531d8/ARCHIVE

2. Amazon.com: Customer Reviews Submission Guidelines.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/community-help/customer-reviews-guidelines

3. Customer Reviews Guidelines Frequently Asked Questions from Authors

http://www.amazon.com/gp/community-help/customer-review-guidelines-faqs-from-authors

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Jul 7 2013

Benefits of Publishing a Paperback

It’s easy to publish an e-book with Kindle, Kobo, Smashwords, and other e-publishers. It’s also easy to publish a paperback with CreateSpace or Ingram Spark, for example.¹

Well, either way, there is some formatting to do, and you might need a little help at the end. It’s generally not too bad. Most authors feel that one or the other is much easier. Those who visualize perfect formatting of pages tend to get a little frustrated with the reflowable formatting of e-books – i.e. there are no pages. Those who favor the e-book formatting tend to get frustrated with headers, page numbers, and other features unique to pages. But it’s manageable, especially with perseverance and all the free help available from other authors.

There are benefits of publishing in both formats. If you just publish in your preferred format, you save yourself from having to deal with the format you don’t like, but you also lose out on some of these benefits.

For one, both paperbacks and e-books sell frequently at booksellers across the globe every day. Many customers prefer to hold a book in their hands and turn the pages, while others prefer to read e-books on their favorite electronic devices. If you only offer your book in one format, you are narrowing your audience.

It depends in part on the genre. Nonfiction how-to guides are often handy to have in your hands when you need them, and there is plenty of room to jot down notes. Fiction geared toward an audience who embraces the digital age is apt to be preferred in e-book format. However, there will still be customers who prefer the book in the alternate format.

Note that you may publish both a paperback through CreateSpace and an e-book through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) even if you enroll your book in the KDP Select program. Although KDP Select enrollment requires your e-book to be published exclusively with KDP, you are allowed to publish print editions of the book while enrolled in KDP Select. I have several books enrolled in KDP Select and also available as paperbacks through CreateSpace, and so do many other authors.²

Many authors, especially in fiction, feel that it’s only worthwhile to publish an e-book because the price will be much lower. Why bother formatting a paperback edition at a higher price?

Some customers only buy hard copies. If your book is only available as an e-book, you may be losing some customers. Even if your book will primarily sell as an e-book, all sales are valuable. It’s not just the royalty you’re missing out on. The more customers who read your book, the greater the chance for word-of-mouth recommendations and reviews. Maximize your exposure.
At Amazon, your Kindle edition will show as a discount off of your paperback list price if the two editions are linked together.³ So if your Kindle edition is $4.99 and your paperback is $9.98, even if you never sell one paperback, the effect of publishing it is that your Kindle edition will look like it’s on sale for 50% off. This way, the presence of your paperback edition may inspire a few e-book sales.
If you sell a paperback book, you’re eligible to take advantage of the GoodReads giveaway program (http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/new) within six months of publication. Giving away one or more copies (10 is recommended) is a good way to help build buzz for your book. There is a chance that one or more recipients will leave a review for your book (but, of course, there is no guarantee, and no guarantee that the review will be favorable).⁴ This is the indie author’s opportunity to compete with traditional publishers who send out advance review copies. Of course, you can also comprise a mailing list and send out advance review copies like they do. You can even print ADVANCE REVIEW COPY across the cover, if you wish.
You can sell the paperback book in person. Since you can buy author copies for cheap from CreateSpace, it allows you to offer a healthy discount while still drawing a fair royalty. This opens up opportunities for selling your book directly to local stores (not just bookstores, but other local stores that sell books). You can sell directly from your website or in person. This improves your overall visibility. You can even sell special editions.
The printed proof is handy for editing. No matter how many times you view your book digitally, you’re sure to find more typos when you read the printed proof.
A paperback book is an important part of your press release package. You might use then when contacting a local newspaper, bookstore, or library, for example.
If you don’t have a paperback, you’re missing out on a possible marketing opportunity. Have you ever seen someone reading a book on a bus on in a plane? If the cover catches your interest, you might just ask if the book is good. This is word-of-mouth sales potential. If you give away copies of your book to friends and family, give them paperback editions, especially if they are likely to read in public places (“Guess what: I’m going on a trip this weekend,” “Really? How would you like a free book?”).
Every time someone sees a paperback lying around the house, it reminds them to read it. Sometimes books are purchased, but not read; sometimes people read books, but don’t finish them; and sometimes people intend to review books, but forget to do it. Seeing the paperback is a constant reminder, whereas an e-book can become buried behind other e-books on an electronic device. I’m not saying to publish in paperback only, just that this is one more possible benefit of having a paperback in addition to an e-book.
A well-formatted, visually appealing paperback tends to make a favorable impression on the reader. It may put the reader in a good frame of mind while reading.

Notes:

1. CreateSpace is an Amazon company. Ingram Spark is a new print-on-demand service from Ingram, the major distributor to bookstores. I’m a loyal CreateSpace author. Amazon gave me my opportunity, and I’m quite grateful for it. However, Ingram Spark has some merit, too. Another option is Lulu. Finally, Lightning Source may have a few advantages of Ingram Spark, especially for the small publisher. It’s also possible to mix and match. For example, use CreateSpace for Amazon and Ingram Spark for possible bookstore distribution, or use CreateSpace for paperback and Lightning Source for hardcover.

https://www.createspace.com/

https://ingramspark.com/

http://www.lulu.com/us/en

https://www1.lightningsource.com/default.aspx

2. You are allowed to publish a paperback through CreateSpace and enroll in KDP Select at the same time. However, you’re not allowed to publish an e-book through Kobo, Nook, Smashwords, or anywhere else while your book is enrolled in KDP Select. On the other hand, if you don’t enroll in KDP Select, you may publish your e-book with Kindle and anywhere else, too.

3. Your Kindle edition and paperback edition should link together automatically within a few days provided that the title and author are spelled and punctuated identically. If you have a subtitle for the paperback, use a colon to separate the title and subtitle at KDP. If the two editions don’t automatically link within a couple of days, there is a specific place to request this on the KDP Help forum. Click the link below (then you may need to login to KDP), choose Product Page, and select Linking Print and Kindle Editions. Go to your product pages and copy/paste the ISBN and ASIN into the designated fields.

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/contact-us

4. A recipient of a free book at the GoodReads program may choose to rate or review your book at GoodReads and may also choose to review your book at Amazon. Recipients might not review your book at all, and the review will not necessarily be favorable. Note that if the recipient reviews your book at GoodReads, it won’t show as an Amazon Verified Purchase.

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Jul 4 2013

Self-Publishing Freedom (My Story)

Today is the Fourth of July, Independence Day, here in the United States. So it seems appropriate to write about some form of freedom today.

This post is far more personal than usual. But it relates to self-publishing and freedom.

I have been writing avidly for over twenty years, but I only published my first book in 2008. I had considered publishing my first book around 1990.

Back in 1990, publishing wasn’t nearly as easy. To put things in perspective, in 1990, I had a beat up old typewriter and a computer that was basically a fancy word processor. No internet, no email, hardly any memory. Still typed with two spaces, not one, after a period.

That didn’t stop me from writing, though. But compared to today, publishing was a far greater challenge.

I didn’t realize that self-publishing was possible then. Well, for me, it wasn’t. I didn’t have the money to order a thousand or more books up front and didn’t even have a garage in which to store them. Even if I did, how was I going to sell them? I wouldn’t have self-published in 1990 if I had known how to do it.

The idea of publishing also seemed much more intimidating twenty years ago than it does now.

I had no idea how to get published. I didn’t know any published writers. So what did I do?

Went to the bookstore, of course. Compared to today, there weren’t nearly as many books about how to get published. I wound up spending an arm and a leg on a huge book called Writer’s Market.

That book was intimidating, too. Partly, because it was enormous. Also, it seemed very formal. And it emphasized the importance of query letters and book proposals. And self-addressed, stamped envelopes; the good old SASE.

First, you browse through all of the publishers listed in Writer’s Market. The places where you really want to publish your book have closed doors. Most of the big boys weren’t looking for first-time authors. And they didn’t want to hear from the author, they wanted to work with your agent.

Big dilemma: Should you search for a publisher or an agent? And was it worth going through some small publisher whom you’ve never heard of before?

I wrote frequently. Nonfiction, mostly math and science. Short stories. I loved writing. I had no shortage of creative ideas back then. I felt sure that a publisher would be interested in one of them.

But contacting a publisher, that was the hurdle. Which idea to present? You have to choose wisely.

You’d hate to write the whole book, then never get published. You’d hate to write a hundred page book proposal and not have anything to show for it thirty rejection letters and one year later. You could write a whole book while all that time was being wasted.

It didn’t seem very efficient. Just imagine what first-time authors could do if they could just focus on writing.

And what if they stole your idea, or your whole book? Maybe this was rare, but I had heard stories. True or not, those stories scare you. Our books are our babies. We must protect them.

Writing didn’t seem very practical, so I was studying physics. I wrote my homework as if I were writing a textbook. I didn’t just put the math together. I wrote sentences in between the lines, explaining the steps. I numbered figures and wrote captions below them.

If I couldn’t get my writing published, maybe I could publish a textbook someday. I was practicing for it.

In the late 1990’s, I made a variety of math worksheets. Mostly arithmetic. It was for family. I formatted the problems to fit on the page and provided room to work in. At the time, I wasn’t thinking about making a math workbook. But the way they were formatted, a math workbook could easily be made from them.

I started teaching as a graduate assistant in 1994. I loved typing up handouts, from syllabi to problems to lab manuals to notes to supplemental material.

By 2000, I had written numerous short stories, a few books, several math worksheets, tons of lecture notes and other handouts, and a very long dissertation for my Master’s thesis in physics. In the next few years, I would add another long dissertation for my Ph.D. thesis and publish a half-dozen articles on the collider phenomenology of large extra dimensions.

I started writing complete lab manuals for physics in 2003 and put together a book of creative physics problems. I typed all of my lecture notes.

Did I mention that I was a very avid writer? I have always loved writing. And I have always been organized and efficient. Plus, I can’t sit still for long. I have to do something. One thing you can do regardless of the weather (thunderstorms, ice, rain, snow, hail, too hot and humid – doesn’t matter) is write. So I wrote. And I wrote an awful lot.

There was also a very lonely period of my life in there. A couple of years where there was nothing else to do but write. Writing will always be there for you.

But what was I going to do with all of my writing? Fortunately, I was able to share it with students. Would that be it, or would there be more?

I decided to see if I could get some of my writing published. I had always enjoyed contemplating the fourth dimension, ever since I discovered Rudy Rucker’s book on the subject. Then when I was working on my Ph.D. in particle physics, the subject of large extra dimensions just started to become popular. It was a match made in heaven.

Thus, my first serious book, for which I became determined to publish, would be a book on the fourth dimension. At first, I called it Searching for Extra Dimensions. Later, it turned into The Visual Guide to the Fourth Dimension. And it grew into two separate volumes.

I made a serious search for a publisher or agent when this book was more than half finished. I wrote several drafts of query letters and book proposals. I even sent some out.

Rejection is painful. It’s not just being rejected. It’s often what they say when they reject it.

I had a Ph.D. in particle physics. I had published a half-dozen papers on the collider physics of large extra dimensions. I taught physics to eleventh- and twelfth-grade geniuses at a specialized school for math and science. I had been explaining difficult math and physics concepts to students for 15 years. I had contemplated a fourth dimension of space since I was a teenager. Was I not qualified to write a popular book on the subject of the fourth dimension?

Apparently not. I submitted a hundred page book proposal, including a sample of the book. I had even made a cover myself where the title looked four-dimensional. The cover featured a three-dimensional construction of a four-dimensional tesseract. In color. I thought this cool cover would give it an edge over all of the dry nonfiction science book proposals out there.

The publisher could have been open and honest from the beginning and saved me a great deal of time. There was only one page on that proposal that seemed to matter: My resume. Why ask for a book proposal when there is only one page of interest?

I taught physics to gifted students at one of the premier high schools in the country. Students from around the state came to this school, living in a dorm while attending. These kids earned a ton of scholarship money. Many went to top universities and thrived there. The physics course I taught to those high school students was more rigorous than any university course I have ever taught.

But to the editor, it was no different than any other high school.

So I had written a book on the fourth dimension, but didn’t know what I was going to do with it. My publishing dreams had been smashed, shattered, crushed…

Then, one day in 2008, I logged onto Amazon as I often did. I have been a loyal customer for a long time. I loved books, and with the used book prices, I could afford to buy more books from Amazon. And I could buy more books by reselling some of my used books; the ones I was willing to part with, anyway.

I can’t remember why I scrolled down to the bottom of Amazon’s homepage. I just did. And then I noticed it. In small letters. Self-publish with us.

What does that mean? Self-publish with whom?

That’s when I discovered CreateSpace.

CreateSpace offered me the freedom to self-publish. With no up-front cost. Without having a thousand books stored in my garage. And to have my book available on Amazon. It seemed too good to be true.

The freedom to write and publish regardless of my resume.
The freedom not to have to cater my book to the needs or expectations of an editor.
The freedom to write my book the way I want.
The freedom to focus on writing the book, not query letters or book proposals.

I had to learn how to format my own manuscript, convert to PDF, make my own cover, market my book, and a thousand other things I could never have imagined.

But it was worth it. I’d rather invest my time and effort perfecting my own book and getting it out there than to put all of that time into query letters and book proposals. Self-publishing is a sure thing; your time won’t be wasted. Your book will be available. It might not sell, but it will be published.

I decided that I needed some experience before I published my work on the fourth dimension. I had made some sheets for keeping track of golf statistics in the past. So I made a few books like The Golf Stats Log Book. These were easy to make, especially since I had made several worksheets like these in the past. They were useful for me, so I figured they could be helpful for other golfers. I turned these into books, formatting the interiors and making covers for them. This was good practice for my book on the fourth dimension.

I published several books in 2008, including the first volume of my book on extra dimensions. It was really cool to find my books on Amazon. To see my book in print. To show friends and family. To send my books to friends and family. To sell my first book. To get a sales rank.

Would these books sell? Every author has the fantasy of selling hundreds of copies per day and eventually becoming a bestseller. Before you publish your first book, you already have a fancy sports car and beautiful mansion picked out, right?

Well, you read something about advances that publishers pay. You were dreaming of tens of thousands of dollars up front if you traditionally published. Dreaming. Because they’re more likely to pay that to celebrities and already highly successful authors. You might get a modest advance, and that might be all you get. You were also thinking that if you sold 50,000 copies or more, you’d get 15% of the royalties. Hoping. Dreaming.

So when you self-publish, you have that advance (that you never got) and that huge royalty check (that you never got) in your mind. You’re comparing with what you had hoped for.

But you also have to be realistic. You’re not sure you’ll sell any books at all.

What would a reasonable expectation be? Maybe, if I could buy a car? Maybe, if after 10 years, the total royalties would be good enough that I would stop wondering if traditional publishing would have paid better? Maybe.

$200 per month would be $2400 per year. That wouldn’t be much after one year, but after 10 years, that would be pretty big. And if sales held steady, your book becomes a retirement plan. Well, we can dream; there are no guarantees.

I started publishing in July of 2008. From August, 2008 thru February, 2009, sales were dismal. Just a few copies here and there. I should have quit, right? It clearly wasn’t working out. My books weren’t being discovered. They weren’t selling. No reviews.

But I didn’t give up. I knew that I just needed to give it time. I was confident in my book on the fourth dimension. There had to be other people like myself who appreciated this subject, who would enjoy some cool concepts and diagrams from my book.

And I kept writing. I had ideas for other books, and worked on those. I have since discovered that most indie authors employ this trick: Keep yourself busy writing to keep your mind off everything else. There is also the hope that the next book will do better. And it should, because you’re wiser and more experienced.

Then in March, 2009, it happened. All of a sudden, out of the clear blue, people were starting to buy my books. I released Volume 2 of my extra dimensions book in March. That did it.

Maybe people were waiting for both volumes to be out. Maybe somebody reviewed my book. (One reader had contacted me by email, asking me when Volume 2 would be out. Was he a book reviewer? I always wondered, but never investigated.) The second book related to string theory, so it was in the string theory category at Amazon. In March, Volume 2 showed up in the New Releases section of Amazon. Maybe there were a lot of readers checking out new releases in string theory back then. Most string theory readers probably didn’t know about self-publishing in early 2009, and so wouldn’t have realized that my book wasn’t traditionally published. Maybe Volume 1 had finally sold enough copies to gain visibility through Customer Also Bought lists. Who knows?

But whatever happened, it was amazing. Prior to March, 2009, I had never made $100 in royalties in a single month. In March, 2009, I almost busted a $1000. I took a snapshot of my sales rank on Amazon. It peaked at about 5,000 and held onto this for several days.

So I took my family out to dinner to celebrate. Thinking, finally. This is awesome. I started having more of those fantasies of being a successful author. That’s when sales started to drop off somewhat. Why does a little celebration kill your own sales? Are we not allowed to celebrate for an hour? Really? After months and months of hard work?

But even after sales had stopped skyrocketing, they still came. Not as frequent as the first two weeks of March, but far, far better than they had before. And they have steadily grown from that point forward. If you keep publishing books, your sales can grow. Similar titles may help one another.

In the summer of 2009, I got an idea. I could make a series of math workbooks. Heck, I had already made math worksheets several years before. Thus started my Improve Your Math Fluency Series. These math workbooks have been among my most successful books. And they help students improve their math skills. I’m a teacher at heart. For me, helping others learn is the most important thing. Here, I had a chance to do this through writing and publishing.

I’ve learned a great deal about writing, formatting, cover design, and especially marketing. I had been a salesman for 9 years while working my way through college, so I knew something about marketing. But marketing books is different.

With what I know now, I would do things differently. I would have marketed more from the beginning. I was fortunate. I published nonfiction and I had qualifications. I had also had years of experience of trying to format pages to look like books, including drawing illustrations on the computer. I have learned much, much more about marketing, and started marketing my own books more and more.

I can’t help my former self. But now that I have achieved some modest success, I can help others. They had a great concept in that movie, Pay It Forward. I see it in action frequently in the self-publishing industry – i.e. experienced authors helping new authors. New authors are fortunate to find a lot of support from others. There is more and more free material to help authors learn about formatting, marketing, editing, and so on. And there are many helpful authors in the self-publishing community forums. It makes me smile to see all of the helping hands.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_It_Forward

I try to see the good. It’s easy to see the bad. It’s more challenging to find the good. Look for it. It’s more rewarding than looking for the bad. And it helps you stay positive. And it helps improve the ratio of bad to good. If you have a chance to help fix the bad, even a little, then try it. But don’t dwell on the bad.

Amazon, CreateSpace, and Kindle Direct Publishing have given me the freedom to self-publish. Amazon gave me my chance. And I’m forever grateful for that.

I have a writing voice, and my voice has been heard. It might be a whisper, but it’s a voice nonetheless.

And WordPress. I’m glad I finally discovered WordPress. I love it. 🙂

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Jul 3 2013

Amazon > Books > Browse > Categories > Argh!

Categories: Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em!

As a reader looking for books, categories are a necessity to help organize millions of books.

As an author hoping to sell books, categories are a necessity to help customers find them.

But categories can sure be frustrating from both ends! And it’s not just at Amazon. It’s all online booksellers. And a book may be listed in different categories on different websites…

Example > One > Begin

Suppose that your child is struggling with phonics. So you decide to search for a phonics workbook.

Obviously, at Amazon, you would click Books > Children’s Books. At this point, things already become interesting.

At the top of the screen at the left, it says “Shop by Category.” But where it says this, these are actually age groups, and not categories. The real categories are much further down (on my screen, I actually have to scroll down to find them – so you might not even discover those categories). What we mean by categories are things like mystery, education, and humor, right?

But it’s useful to narrow the search by age. At least, it seems like it should be. If your child is 7 years old, it makes sense to choose the 6-8 years range. That will help filter out all of the irrelevant books, right?

Oh, but it will also filter out some of the relevant books. Only some of the books in Children’s Books are categorized by age range. Many books are not.

Most customers won’t realize this. Those who do face a dilemma: See only some of the books in the right age group, or see many books from all of the age groups? Well, you could do two separate searches…

You can select the age group and a category, but that will only catch books that show up both ways; this loses even more results.

You want to filter the results; otherwise you have way too many to sort through. But what you really want is to keep the relevant results, and just filter out the irrelevant ones. The funny thing is that there are irrelevant results in virtually every search on Amazon, while a few highly relevant results are generally excluded.

Suppose we decide to search the categories down below (i.e. not the age group). If you’re looking for the Reference category, you might have trouble finding it: It’s under Education & Reference, so you have to look for E, not R. A lot of categories are merged together like this. For example, if you want Fantasy, look for S because it’s under Science Fiction.

Here’s a trick question for you: Which category would you choose for Mathematics? The correct answer is Science, Nature, & How It Works.

What’s more interesting is that the categories change periodically. It’s really fun to find a category that you know you used to use, but isn’t there any longer!

In this example, we’re looking for a phonics workbook. You could pick Education, but you might select Activities (thinking it’s a workbook). For some types of books, the choice can be quite difficult.

Let’s go with Education & Reference. Note that Reference is one of the categories within Reference. Why not just give it its own category to make it easier to find? If you pick Science Fiction & Fantasy, it splits into separate Science Fiction and Fantasy categories. Why not eliminate the middleman?

Which subject do you think we should choose? If this were Family Feud, I bet English would be a good answer. Do you agree? Well, that’s only the correct answer if English is the child’s second language. What do you pick if it’s the child’s first language? It must be under Reading & Writing.

Now we get to choose from Composition, Grammar, Handwriting, and Vocabulary.

Wait a minute! Did we make a wrong turn somewhere? Who stole Phonics?

If you want to sort through the Vocabulary & Spelling category, all I can say is, “Good luck!” Why? Because you get to browse through 1,222 books to find out if any of them actually relate to Phonics.

You know what makes this task even more fun? There are only 12 search results showing on each page. Hey, it’s only 100 pages. It could be worse.

Maybe the category wasn’t the best idea. Maybe we should just type a keyword.

So we start typing Phonics Workbook into the search field, and we see some other options, like Phonics Workbook Kindergarten. Hmm, maybe we should click on one of those more specific searches.

Well, if you’d like to filter out books published through CreateSpace, that will do the trick because they place a 25-character limit (including spaces) on keywords. Ironically, those same authors can publish the same books (well, probably not workbooks) on Kindle, where there is no limit on the character count of a keyword. The paperback and ebook editions can then be linked together. Go figure!

Another issue is that the publisher can only choose so many keywords, like Phonics, Phonics Book, Phonics for Kids, Phonics Workbook Grade 2, etc. CreateSpace, for example, only allows publishers to select up to 5 relevant keywords. Kindle, in comparison, allows up to 7. Why the disparity?

So when you search by a keyword, it’s possible for a relevant book not to show up in the search.

It’s also possible for a highly irrelevant book to show up in the search. As long as it has the same keyword as you searched for, it will show up.

Of course, Amazon’s algorithm must decide in what order to display the results. Let’s not open yet another can of worms…

Example > One > End

That example illustrates some of the fun that customers experience while searching for books.

Authors and publishers experience a similar sort of fun when publishing books.

Example > Two > Begin

Suppose that you wrote play that contains a bit of murder, satire, and romance. Okay. Which category would you choose when it comes time to publish?

Let’s explore Amazon. You can’t even get passed Books before you come across a tough decision.

Maybe it should be listed as a play for people looking for plays. If so, where are they? Well, you might find them under Literature & Fiction > Drama. At least, you’ll find Shakespeare there. Hey, this book kind of sounds like one of Shakespeare’s works. Makes you wonder how anyone would find his books if he lived in the 21st century! (Okay, I won’t debate that his greatness would prevail even in our times. But suppose you wanted to write something kind of like Shakespeare’s works, but without that same level of genius. Where would you put it?)

Do you really think people will be sorting through dramas looking for new plays that include murder, satire, and romance? (Remember, we’re talking about the book I proposed in this example, and not one of Shakespeare’s books. I just remarked that one of his books could have a similar issue. If you want his books, just type Shakespeare in the search field. It helps a bit to have a famous name. How would such a book get discovered without that big name?)

The category Plays doesn’t appear to exist.

There are many nonexistent categories. Like Phonics (see Example > One). That’s a problem for customers who are looking for such books, and a problem for publishers who sell those books.

It has some murder and some romance. We could throw it in Romantic Suspense. But if it’s anything like Shakespeare, that’s certainly not what those customers will be looking for in that category.

The same goes for Romantic Comedy. You don’t have to worry about that, however. Although there are many romantic comedies, there is no such category. It’s not under Romance, nor is it under Comedy.

Maybe it’s more of a suspense. Or does it fall under Humor for the satire.

It’s a tough decision.

And you have to pick one. Well, if you publish with CreateSpace, you can contact support and politely request that a second browse category be added for your book at Amazon. Compare with Kindle, where you can choose two up front.

Then the categories that you get to choose often don’t match the actual categories at Amazon. CreateSpace presents the BISAC categories, which aren’t the same. This definitely adds to the fun.

Speaking of fun, it gets even better.

Sometimes, your book automatically appears in three or more categories, even though you can only choose one or two. Your book can appear in categories that you don’t even select, all without you knowing.

And this can be a problem.

More is better, right? Not always.

If your book is Fantasy, but buyers see it listed under Science Fiction when they check out the book’s detail page, they might decide it’s not what they were looking for. Similarly, a buyer who is looking for a suspense might be deterred to see a book listed in romance, too.

If a book is good fit for one genre, that’s the only place it should appear so as not to create any buyer confusion. Confused shoppers tend to not buy the book.

Example > Two > End

The real answer for the author’s concerns is marketing. This will be far more effective than relying on customers to discover your book among millions through category or keyword searches. And if your marketing effort pays off, the sales that are generated may improve your book’s visibility.

But what is the solution to the poor customer’s dilemma with categories? Online booksellers are highly customer-oriented, are they not?

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Jun 29 2013

Authors: Are You Clockwatchers?

A clockwatcher is someone who frequently looks at the time. An employee might do this on the job, constantly checking to see if it’s time for break, lunch, or punching out. Someone who wears a watch can fall into the habit of glancing at it.

An author may be a watcher of a different sort.

If you’re an author, you may be a:

royalty clockwatcher. Do you check your royalty report several times per day? (Hey, you might have sold a book in the last minute. You never know. Better go check, just in case.)
sales rank or review clockwatcher. Do you check your book’s detail page at Amazon a few times per day to monitor the sales rank and see if there are any new reviews or comments?
media clockwatcher. Do you check your views, followers, reblogs, and comments throughout the day at a website, blog, or social media? (Of course! What else would we do?)
writing clockwatcher. Do you check your word count every few minutes as you type? Whether your goal is 5,000 words or 100,000 words, you like to see where you are.
reading clockwatcher. Do you check your page count, chapter count, or percentage of ebook read frequently as you read? (Doesn’t that distract you from the story? Or is it a sign that the story didn’t engage your attention enough?)
community clockwatcher. Do you closely monitor posts and comments at any community discussion forums?

Checking royalty reports can be tedious. If you publish with CreateSpace, Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and so on, you have several different reports to check.

Even checking the KDP royalty report is interesting. There is a separate report for each country. By the time you finish checking every report, you might as well start over because you might have sold something since you started. 🙂

The best way to check on sales rank and customer reviews at Amazon is through your Author Page via AuthorCentral. There is a little delay in reporting reviews to AuthorCentral, but it’s worth the wait. If you have multiple books, all of the reviews are collected together on a single page and you can monitor the sales ranks for all of the books together. You’ll also find author rank and Bookscan data for print sales.

https://authorcentral.amazon.com

https://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk

Note that searching for your own book on Amazon (rather than getting there from AuthorCentral or a bookmark) may not be a good thing to do every day. If you use keywords to search for your book and don’t buy the book, this could send a message to Amazon’s algorithm that your book isn’t relevant to that search. Amazon’s algorithm changes periodically, so even if that’s not the case now, someday it may be.

It seems like it would make sense for the algorithm to order search results based on what’s most likely to be purchased, then what’s most likely to be clicked, then what’s most likely not even to be clicked. But the algorithm doesn’t always do what authors or customer expect. Also note that Amazon may display search results differently for you than for other customers, as different customers have different interests (so if you search for your book by keywords and it seems to move up in the search on your screen and shows up on your homepage next time, this may be different for other customers – certainly, there homepages will have vastly different recommendations than yours).

Frequently clockwatching probably isn’t a healthy activity for authors. Go write instead, for your book, blog, or whatever. Go do some marketing. Get out of the house and exercise. Interact with your target audience. These things would be much better use of your time.

Look, even if a sale of your book did just report five minutes ago, it will still be on your report tomorrow. Why do you need to check it now? (You do, don’t you?)

The more frequently you check your reports, the more likely you will be disappointed. The longer you wait to check your reports, the more likely you are to notice several sales at the same sitting. And if there are no sales, you’re only disappointed once, not the twenty times you might have checked the report in the same period.

Monitoring reviews closely is a bad idea, too. Take time between looking for possible reviews. When you do see a review, wait a few days and digest it. Try not to comment on the review, blog about the review, or mention the review. It looks more professional, for one. It lets you calm down and avoid reacting emotionally, for another. Reacting emotionally, in public, can lead to disastrous results. A few days after first seeing the review, reread it calmly, looking to see if any criticism may help you as a write or your book, and discard the rest. Remember, the review is for other shoppers, not for the author. Even though you’re personally attached to your book, try not to take the reviews personally. This means good reviews or bad ones.

A single review may not significantly impact your sales, and sometimes it has the opposite effect compared to what you expect. You have to wait a few weeks to really gauge the effect. Just be patient. (Easy to say, easy to hear, hard to do.)

Blogging and social media are more likely to supply you with some positive data. At least, you’re more likely to have a few views than you are to have a few sales or a few reviews. But the mind begins to compare. If you’re used to getting 30 views per day, and suddenly you get 10 views, it might seem like a bit of a downer. (So what do we do? Add five new posts!)

Like any other bad habit, such as nail-biting, even if you know that clockwatching is bad for you, you might still do it. 🙂 At least, it’s probably better than many other bad habits.

Everything you check – from royalties to website views – will have ups and downs. Don’t let your emotions ride this roller coaster.

Remember, happiness comes from within.

If your happiness is dependent upon a royalty report or any other data, that information is controlling your emotions and will often prevent you from being happy.

I stopped wearing a watch several years go. But I don’t know if I can stop carrying a cell phone. 🙂

By the way, Clockwatchers is the title of a movie released in 1997. These department store employees were frequently watching the clock.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clockwatchers

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Jun 13 2013

How Would You Improve Amazon?

Imagine you suddenly have the job of Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon. Well, even then, you couldn’t do anything you wanted.

So let’s go a step further and grab a magic wand. That’s better. Now you can do anything. Wave your wand a couple of times to test it out.

If you could do it, what would you change at Amazon in order to improve it?

Don’t be selfish here. Don’t just think about bad reviews that you’d like to make vanish or advertisements for your book if you’re an author, or how to make products free for you as a consumer.

I’m not asking how you would make Amazon better for you alone. I’m asking how you would make Amazon better for everyone.

Not just customers. Giving everything away for free would greatly benefit the customers. For a few days, until the company went bankrupt. If you want Amazon to benefit customers in the long run, you must balance what’s best for both the consumers and the business.

Okay. Spend a few moments in fantasy land. Do absolutely anything to Amazon that you want with your magic wand. Then when you return to reality, think about changes that may be beneficial to all.

What would you like to change?

(1) The Amazon Customer Review System

Almost everyone who is familiar with customer reviews on Amazon can write down a few things that they don’t like about them.

Not everyone is in agreement on what should be changed, though. Authors, readers, product owners, editors, publishers. There are some conflicting perspectives here. Even just among customers.

If there is one feature of reviews that we can all agree on, perhaps it’s spitefulness. Some reviews are downright nasty. There are reviews that slander the author, but don’t even mention the book.

You’d think that Amazon would remove such spiteful reviews, right? It even says right there in the terms and conditions that spite is not allowed. But when spiteful reviews are reported – by the author or even a customer – much of the time Amazon simply responds to say that they understand your concern, but this review doesn’t violate the terms and conditions.

Huh?

Evidently, a reviewer must be blatantly spiteful in order to warrant removal of the review.

How is this in Amazon’s best interest? That spitefulness is very negative. Wouldn’t Amazon create a more positive ambiance by removing that spite? By not removing it, they’re actually encouraging such behavior.

Would customers prefer to see the spite remain or be removed? Does such spitefulness help to brand Amazon’s image with a negative shopping environment? How does this help buyers determine which product to buy? How does it help Amazon sell products?

Maybe you can think of some reason to keep it.

I’ll suggest a couple of possibilities. For one, the spiteful reviews are mostly one and two star reviews. If you wave your magic wand and delete all of the spiteful reviews, millions of one and two star reviews will suddenly vanish. Some products, which only have a few reviews, will suddenly seem better liked than they actually are. The customer who loathed a product so much that he was very spiteful when he wrote the review did cast a vote when he gave it one star. Maybe Amazon wants to retain those votes of one or two stars associated with the spiteful reviews (perhaps there is a reason for this).

If Amazon would like to preserve the one star vote, it could be done while still removing the spite. Just edit out (or delete) the spiteful comments instead of the entire review.

Now we run into another possibility. Manpower. Amazon doesn’t have one of those magic wands to wave and quickly zap away all of the spite.

Remember, we’re not thinking of how to improve Amazon just for customers. We want to find changes that will improve Amazon for everyone. That means not going out of business.

How much would it cost Amazon to monitor the customer review system more closely than they already do? That’s what it would take to deal with spitefulness. Let alone other issues with reviews.

With the advent of self-publishing, there are presently hundreds of thousands of authors who feel that they have a bad review that should be removed for one reason or another. Some have multiple books and numerous reviews that they feel strongly about. Add to this number the legitimate reviews that clearly aren’t violations that some authors would also request to be removed.

Amazon already receives a staggering number of requests from authors for reviews to be removed. This occurs with the current policy in place. That is, it’s well-known that Amazon very rarely removes customer reviews, even when they’re fairly spiteful. Yet, they still receive a ton of requests every day.

Imagine how many, many, many, many, let’s add a few more many’s just for effect (but it may be realistic) more requests Amazon would receive if instead it were well-known that Amazon would remove a review if it were just mildly spiteful. Even if the requests didn’t crash the server, the manpower it would take to attend to these requests would be incredible.

Every day, there are numerous posts online on blogs, community forums, and elsewhere describing unfair customer reviews at Amazon. Bear in mind that the majority of authors don’t write posts about bad reviews because doing so would hurt their own author image and would help brand the image of self-publishing as unprofessional.

Have you ever seen an author get in a long debate with a reviewer using the comment system? It’s very unprofessional, but that’s not the point. My point is that, unfortunately, some authors tend to get highly emotional about reviews and find it difficult to stop arguing about them.

So just imagine those authors communicating with Amazon. They request to have a bad review removed. Amazon says no. They respond to Amazon in a long email. This would go back and forth for an eternity, just like they do in the comments, right?

Nope. Amazon learned not to waste resources on possibly endless communications. Amazon tells the author on their second response that they won’t be able to investigate the matter any further. That is, if the author sends a subsequent request, it will be ignored.

Consider that Amazon has this action in place. It suggests that manpower is already an issue. So is it worth the possible investment to deal with spite? Maybe this is one reason that it hasn’t already been done.

Maybe you can think of a way to deal with spite affordably. Perhaps there is a way.

(Amazon already responds to the request to say that they’ve looked at the review, and understand your concerns, but can’t remove the review. How much more work would it be to remove it? A lot. Because word would spread and the requests would pile up immensely.)

What about other changes to the customer review system?

We could eliminate shill reviews and sock puppets. That is, generating fake reviews to make a product seem better than it actually is. Actually, Amazon has already made this change to some extent. Amazon automatically blocks a very large number of reviews and has removed thousands – perhaps millions – of such reviews. This change was affordable, as a computer program could check for correlations between IP addresses and other information in their database between accounts. It may have removed some legitimate reviews, too, but overall the customer experience has been tremendously improved.

But there is still some review abuse, especially negative reviews that arise from jealousy of some sort (rival authors, ex-boyfriends). Can you think of a way to eliminate this?

A common suggestion is to require all reviews to be Amazon Verified Purchases. Why isn’t this done already? There may be reasons for it.

First of all, there are already millions of reviews that are unverified. Would you like to remove all of those? Perhaps those could be left there, and just impose this on new ones. There are still other issues.

Publishers send out a large number of advance review copies. Publishers provide big business for Amazon. It’s probably not good business for Amazon to prevent the recipients of advance review copies from reviewing books on Amazon, as they would all show as unverified purchases.

What about customers who buy the product elsewhere? A bestselling book might sell many more copies in bookstores than on Amazon. Bestselling authors – and Amazon, too – want all of those customers to be eligible to review the books on Amazon.

What about eBooks? Well, customers don’t have to use Kindle to read eBooks, but Amazon still allows them to post reviews. They can be gifted and lent, too.

But maybe there is one aspect of this that most of us would agree on. Amazon has made it clear that customers can review products even if they’ve never seen or used them.

What?

Does this seem crazy to you? Imagine that you invented a machine and one of the first customers left a review saying, “I didn’t buy this, but just looking at it I can tell it wouldn’t work.” Okay, nobody who reads the review is going to take it seriously, but it does affect the average star value.

When a customer clearly states in the review that he or she hasn’t read the book or used the product, maybe those reviews could be removed. Wouldn’t this be a small improvement?

Amazon’s customer review system isn’t perfect, but it is pretty effective at soliciting opinions, and it does provide shoppers with diverse information that they can consider. Most of us may agree that it’s better than no reviews at all.

There may be other ways to improve the system. Remember, cost is a factor. You might want to hire external companies to leave neutral reviews instead of customer reviews, but with tens of millions of products, is that feasible?

I have a few suggestions. I’ve heard a few others express similar ideas. Maybe you have some other ideas that haven’t been addressed.

When you finish reading an eBook on Kindle, why can’t you type your review right then and there? Wouldn’t that be convenient? Why can’t you click on the book on the device and find a quick and easy place to post the review? I have the Kindle in front of me. I’m in the mood to review the book. It’s on my mind. But I must be inconvenienced to login to Amazon, which I would rather do on my pc. How many customers were ready to leave a review, but decided against it out of inconvenience?

I’ve typed reviews and stopped when I saw the preview, thinking I was done. I wonder how many other customers haven’t finished the review process, not realizing that they had to check the preview and approve it? Oops! Or maybe they rated it when they reached the end of a Kindle eBook, thinking that was a review? There may be a little room for improvement here.

How about separating the rating from the reviews? That is, let customers rate the book without reviewing it, like they can do at Goodreads. Some customers can put a number on a book, but feel uncomfortable describing it in words (including reaching the minimum word count).

If you want to drastically increase the frequency of customer reviews, offer a penny for every review. Or make it a nickel, dime, or a percent if you really want to see tons of reviews on Amazon. I bet many authors wouldn’t mind this being subtracted from their royalties to help encourage more reviews. But the discount (off a future purchase, perhaps) might inspire more sales.

(2) Self-Publishing Quality Control

First, let me say that I put this here because it’s a popular issue, not because I personally am in favor of this. I’ll try to show the pros and cons, and you can decide for yourself. Or maybe you will think of better ideas that I’ve left out.

If you could wave a magic wand to remove every book that doesn’t meet a minimum degree of editing, formatting, and writing, would you do it? As long as it’s a magic wand, rather than removing these books, maybe you could just make them magically look more professional.

But we can’t fix them with magic. It would take an insane amount of manpower to format and edit them. It would take an insane amount of manpower just to screen them. So just hiring a very large editing team isn’t feasible.

Amazon could charge a publishing fee to cover the cost. Some people would be in favor of this. But many people would also be against it. Currently, Amazon is free. Amazon has done an amazing thing, opening the doors of publishing to everybody. Amazon has an abundance of support from the self-publishing community for this. These authors – and their family, friends, and acquaintances – don’t just write books, most of them read books, too. Imposing an inhibitive fee may not be good for business in the grand scheme of things.

Even an optional fee has an issue. By being free, Amazon is differentiated from vanity presses.

Free publishing gives Amazon an unbelievable selection.

There are some books with formatting, editing, writing, and even storyline issues. These books are a problem for customers and also adversely affect the image of Kindle, Amazon, and self-publishing.

But how bad is the problem? I don’t mean this as a percentage of books. I mean that most customers check out the description, reviews, and Look Inside and generally are able to avoid such books. Those who don’t are apt to learn to do this through experience. These books tend to have lousy sales ranks. So are they selling enough to be so concerned about? Perhaps a few years ago when Kindle and self-publishing were newer, more customers were coming across such books. Perhaps it was a bigger problem before Amazon’s program started removing and blocking most of the shill reviews and sock puppets. Perhaps it’s not such a problem now. Especially, in terms of cost-benefit analysis. Or maybe you have a better suggestion.

Self-published authors have a strong incentive to improve their books as much as possible, as this will greatly improve their chances of success.

Also, customers can report formatting issues. This helps Amazon catch some of the more serious problems. They actually suspend sales of eBooks until the issues are resolved.

(3) Order of Search Results and Categories

This might be something to consider. Most book categories have thousands of books even in the final subcategory, yet only a dozen books show on the page. If you type a search, you sometimes receive interesting results. Obviously, Amazon wants to order the search results based on what consumers are most likely to buy as well as what is likely to please the customer. But it seems like there could be a better way to sort through tens of millions of products to find what you’re looking for. And there may be ways for people to abuse the system (i.e. to get their products to show higher in the search without merit). Fortunately, Amazon doesn’t publish their algorithm, and may revise it, which makes it harder to abuse.

Amazon is probably considering this on an ongoing basis. Categories have changed over the years, and they have probably revised the program which determines the order of search results. They have also added filters, like “most reviews,” so you can see which books have been reviewed most (whereas searching by the highest customer review would put a book with a single five star review ahead of a book that has hundreds of reviews that are mostly five stars); that’s a small improvement. Can you think of other ways to improve this?

(4) Other Changes

I selected a few popular topics to discuss. Maybe you can think of other areas where Amazon could be improved.

Some of the changes I’ve mentioned I have suggested to Amazon (not all at once). Feel free to send your own suggestions to Amazon. The more times Amazon receives the same suggestion, the more likely they are to realize that there is a demand for it. They claim to welcome feedback, and that customer feedback is invaluable. So apparently this is encouraged.

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Jun 12 2013

How to Save Memory on Repeated Pictures in a Kindle eBook

There are a few advantages of minimizing the file size of an eBook:

The minimum Kindle price depends on the converted .mobi file size (available on the second page of publishing with Kindle Direct Publishing). The list price can only be 99 cents to $1.98 if the file size is under 3 MB and between $1.99 and $2.98 if the file size is between 3 MB and 10 MB. Authors intending to price their books under $2.99 (for which the royalty will be 35%) need to be aware of these limits.
Each eBook publisher has a maximum file size. For example, Amazon’s Kindle is 50 MB, Sony’s Reader is 5 MB. If a file is a little above these limits, reducing the file size allows it to be published as a single volume.
The eBook takes up room on the customer’s device. Some customers may be reluctant to buy eBooks with larger file sizes. Large files also take longer to download, especially on older devices. Depending upon the formatting, they might also be more susceptible to file problems.

Books with images tend to have larger file sizes. Compressing the images is the simplest way to reduce file size.

https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/fighting-words-picture-compression/

For Kindle, gray lines tend to show on one or more edges of the pictures when using Microsoft Word unless the file is saved as web page, filtered. After doing this, find the file in the saved folder, right-click the file, choose Send To, and select Compressed (Zipped) Folder. Then find the folder of picture files with the same filename and copy/paste it into the zipped folder. Upload this zipped folder to KDP. This should remove those gray lines.

(When using Word, insert the picture using Insert > Picture and select the file. Then right-click the picture, choose Size, and change Width to 100%. If the picture doesn’t fit on the screen, don’t worry – it will fit on the device, which you can check in the preview. Place each picture on its own line and wrapped In Line With Text.)

If pictures are repeated in a Microsoft Word file, this wastes memory. Suppose, for example, a book features a decorative page border. A one-a-day book (of quotations, for example) might stand out by featuring a visually appealing wide, short border. But even if the picture size is small, with 365 such images, the overall file size may be significant. As another example, consider a book of shuffled flashcards, where there are several copies of each picture.

There is a simple way to avoid adding to the overall file size when pictures are repeated:

First, don’t copy/paste the image in Word. Just insert each different picture once. Where you want to insert a copy of a picture, put a short note, like PIC14. Then later on you can use find and replace.
Next, open the filtered webpage (described in a previous paragraph) before making the compressed (zipped) folder in Notepad. Don’t edit this file in Word because Word will probably mess up the HTML.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to know any HTML or programming.
Find the actual pictures in the HTML file. The code will look something like this:

The actual code may look different. It may have <p> tags instead of <h1> tags and it may have other statements not shown here.
If there is a statement like id=”Picture 19″, remove it. This is superfluous. But if you copy/paste the picture code with the id number, then the same id number will be used twice. Avoid this problem by removing it.
Copy the code for your picture, from <h1> to </h1> (or <p> to </p>).
Use find and replace to change things like PIC14 (which you should have placed on its own line) to the code for the actual picture. You should have something like <h1>PIC14</h1> (or with <p>’s).
Repeat this process for any other pictures that are repeated.
Preview your eBook carefully before you publish. If you make any mistakes, this is your opportunity to catch them before your customers do. 🙂

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Jun 7 2013

Why We Should Love Self-Published Authors

There are many reasons to be thankful for self-published authors.

Unfortunately, some people – most notably, some discussion forums – like to stress the features of the worst indie books. But the worst books don’t define self-publishing; the best books do. Many more people are reading the best indie books because they sell much more frequently than the worst books.

Perhaps if we focus on the benefits of self-published books, and spend some time marketing features that make the best indie books stand out, this will help to improve the image of self-publishing and help to offset some of the negative marketing out there.

(Any self-published authors who may be advertising negative aspects of self-published books are actually hurting their own marketing efforts. If you sell eBooks, for example, but spend time convincing others that most eBooks are awful, then you’re telling people not to invest in eReaders and to buy just traditionally published books. How will this affect your very own sales?)

You can choose to focus on the number of self-published books that need editing and better covers. You can focus on how awful the worst books are. You can focus on the bad behavior of a few indie authors. But why? It’s a choice.

Especially, if you’re an indie author, you should help to show others that there are some quality indie books out there. Marketing positive features of indie books helps your own marketing efforts.

The worst books are very rarely selling. Any sensible buyer will avoid books that have features that they don’t like. So why worry about the worst books?

Why not focus on the best indie books that are selling frequently.

Okay, maybe there are a few indie books that are selling very well, which maybe shouldn’t be. But who are we to judge? If they are selling well, they must be appealing to some buyers, right? All books that please one set of readers are detested by other readers. I bet we can all list some extremely popular, traditionally published books that we detest and explain what’s wrong with them. Obviously, thousands of other people loved them.

So why should be thankful for self-published books?

They give us something different to read. Something different from the kinds of books that traditional publishers are accustomed to publishing. Traditional publishers usually don’t like to publish material that is too different.
We can read books that were driven by creative writers who were driven by passion, writing with the freedom to write as they choose. Self-published authors didn’t have to follow a business model in order to get published. Traditional publishers are businesses that want to publish books that are most likely to sell.
It can be a far more personal experience. Indie authors sell many books through personal marketing efforts. Therefore, many of the readers have actually met and interacted with the author. You’re much more likely to know a self-published author than a traditionally published author. Chances are that you already know several. This allows us to read books by authors we already know. Since they are more likely to have a small readership, they are more likely to give you personal attention should you wish to meet and interact with them.
The very, very best self-published books are really quite amazing. For example, there are some highly stunning covers. Traditional publishers tend to have good covers; most will sell well just by being good. Many self-published authors seek incredible, eye-popping covers to help get their books noticed. As a result, there are some fantastic self-published covers out there. There are great traditionally published covers, too, but most of my all-time favorites have been self-published.
Self-published authors took a risk for our benefit. Most self-published books only benefit a small number of readers. Authors have better prospects for having their books stocked on the shelves of chain bookstores through traditional publishing. The next time you discover a gem that was self-published, take a moment to appreciate the risk that the author took to make this book available to you.
Who doesn’t enjoy the experience of discovering a diamond in the rough? People like to go to flea markets and yard sales hoping to uncover something incredible. There are also many readers (like myself) who love to browse through self-published books, hoping to discover an as-of-yet unnoticed masterpiece.
If you read a self-published book, consider how much time has been put into it. First of all, the author probably has a full-time career (but not as a writer), and put this book together as a hobby during spare time. Next, the author didn’t just write the book, but proofread the book, designed the cover, marketed the book, and so on. The author may have even invested a large sum of money for help with editing, illustrations, eBook conversion, or other services. Most successful indie books had much time, blood, and sweat put into them. Even when one component may be lacking (e.g. cover design), a great deal of time and effort may have been put into the rest (especially, preparing the storyline and choosing words with care). You can see the best parts of the book or the worst parts of the book; it’s a choice.
Many self-published books fill a need for a niche audience, or for a useful nonfiction topic that traditional publishers wouldn’t invest in. The next time you read a book written for a specialized audience, or the next time you search for a book on an unpopular nonfiction topic, if a self-published book fills your need, take a moment to appreciate that such a book even exists.

There are millions of people who have self-published a book. There are many more indie authors than traditionally published authors. Most of us know many indie authors – family members, friends, acquaintances, but also people who had been strangers until we discovered their books. Most of us have good reasons for supporting the self-publishing industry.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t support traditional publishing. They provide a great service, too. Especially, if you’re looking for popular books, traditional publishers help to deliver well-written, well-edited books, help us find such books easily among millions of books on the market, and support valuable businesses like brick and mortar bookstores and libraries.

What I am saying is that we should support self-published authors in addition to traditional publishing. In this case, we don’t have to make a choice. Both are quite valuable.

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

May 22 2013

Are Amazon Customer Reviews Helpful?

Introduction

Have you ever stood in a bookstore aisle, trying to choose a book in your favorite genre? You weren’t influenced by customer reviews posted next to each book. The only customer input you saw was incredible praise for how awesome the book was on the back cover or first pages. There wasn’t anything negative posted about any of the books.

In the pre-internet days, if you wanted to see a written review, you had to browse newspapers and magazines. The only way to receive input from other customers who read the book was to meet them in person and ask them.

How times have changed! Now Amazon allows all customers to share their feedback, and this information is publicly posted on the book’s detail page.

Is this helpful? Let’s consider some of the major criticism. Note that Amazon has recently released an article clarifying, to some extent, what is or isn’t allowed in customer reviews. You can find this in Reference 1 at the bottom of this blog post.

(1) Authors and customers have abused the system with sock puppets and shill reviews.

A sock puppet is a false account that someone creates in order to deceive others with a false identity. Some authors have created sock puppets to give several good reviews to their own books, and some customers have created sock puppets to give multiple bad reviews to a book.

A shill review is written by someone else to help the agenda of another. Some authors have compelled family, close friends, and people with a financial interest in the book’s success to help promote their books by leaving shill reviews, and some customers have used shill reviews to bring a book down.

Fortunately, Amazon has taken steps to block and remove reviews suspected of being sock puppets or shills. A very large number of reviews have actually been removed. See Reference 2.

It’s not just authors trying to get good reviews of their own books that poses a problem. See Reference 3 for an example of large-scale swarming of negative reviews against a book about Michael Jackson. This shows that abuse with negative reviews can also be a major problem.

While sock puppets and shill reviews are a problem, Amazon’s actions to limit this have greatly improved the customer review system. Amazon has access to a great deal of information in its database, and apparently runs cross-references to help catch much of the possible abuse. When customers report possible abuse, Amazon also looks into this manually.

(2) Amazon is more likely to remove positive reviews than negative reviews.

Many authors have complained about the loss of four- and five-star reviews, and many authors have complained of one- and two-star reviews that seem to violate Amazon’s review guidelines which Amazon has refused to remove.

Some of the removed four- and five-star reviews that disappeared were removed because the reviewer was suspected of having a financial interest in the book. Yet, some legitimate reviews appear to have been removed as casualties in the process.

There are many one- and two-star reviews that are quite spiteful, and many others that spoil the ending. According to Amazon’s customer review guidelines (see Reference 4), spiteful remarks are not allowed, yet there are several reviews that make very spiteful remarks about the book or author that haven’t been removed (despite requests by authors and readers).

Highly spiteful remarks ruin the ambiance at Amazon. Wouldn’t it help Amazon’s image to remove these? Amazon could choose to remove the spiteful remarks, rather than removing the entire review. That would be a step in the right direction. Perhaps it would take too much manpower to remove all of the spiteful comments. When it’s well-known that most spiteful reviews won’t be removed, authors are less inclined to report them.

Is it helpful to leave reviews that spoil the ending? If a customer reads a review that gives the ending away, that customer is far less likely to buy the book. Wouldn’t it benefit Amazon to prevent this?

Is it helpful when suspicious four- and five-star reviews are much more likely to be removed than one- and two-star reviews that seem to clearly violate Amazon’s policies?

Customer reviews are most helpful when there are ample reviews that provide a good balance of opinions. When good reviews are more likely to be removed than bad reviews, doesn’t this offset the balance?

There may be two reasons behind this practice. First, four- and five-star review abuse is probably much more common than one- and two-star review abuse. Amazon has removed four- and five-star reviews because the abuse was out of hand; many customers were complaining and there were high-profile articles written on this subject. Perhaps negative review abuse hasn’t reached nearly the same level to demand such attention.

Also, it’s much easier for Amazon to block and remove abusive four- and five-star reviews. It’s easier for Amazon to cross-reference their database and see if a four- or five-star reviewer may have a connection with the author. It’s much more difficult to determine if a one- or two-star review has an agenda.

The vast majority of one- and two-star reviews come from customers who simply didn’t like the book. Most of the one- and two-star reviews were not written with ulterior motives in mind.

Fortunately, many of the one- and two-star reviews that arguably should be removed don’t have much credibility. Many customers can see through spitefulness, for example. Some of these reviews don’t explain what is wrong with the book. These types of negative reviews may actually help the book’s credibility, by adding balance to the reviews (if there are already good reviews present), while not being effective at persuading customers not to buy the book.

(3) No qualifications or experience necessary.

Anyone can review a book. You don’t need expertise to review a technical book. It isn’t necessary to be an avid romance reader to review a romance novel.

But that’s okay. You don’t have to be an expert to form an opinion. Many customers themselves aren’t experts, and would like to hear from other customers like themselves.

A reviewer who has expertise can mention this in the review, although there evidently isn’t any fact-checking. A customer reviewing a workbook might say that she has been a teacher for twenty years, but there is generally no way for potential buyers to know if this is true.

If customers want to find expert reviews, they can search online for professional book reviewers.

Not requiring expertise helps Amazon generate millions of reviews. More input is probably better than less input, in general. If only experts review books, then experts will basically be telling people what to and what not to read (kind of like editors who, prior to the self-publishing explosion, decided what was or wasn’t fit for the public to read).

(4) You don’t have to read a book in order to review it.

Just to be clear, you don’t have to read a single word of the book in order to be eligible to review it. We’re not talking about people who read the first two chapters and stopped reading in disgust. You don’t even have to open the cover. You don’t even have to buy the book. You don’t even have to see the book.

In Reference 2 at the bottom of this article, you can find this quote from an Amazon spokesman: “‘We do not require people to have experienced the product in order to review.’”

If you’re shopping for a book, it may be useful to know what other customers who have read the book (or at least tried to read the book) have to say about it.

But is it helpful, at all, to read the opinion of a customer who never even opened the cover? How does this help anyone?

This is a highly controversial point. Part of the reason for this may come down to proof: How do you know if a customer has read the book or not?

Occasionally, a customer review starts out, “Although I haven’t read the book yet…” In this case, it’s very easy to tell that the customer hasn’t read the book. Wouldn’t it be nice if Amazon would remove the reviews where there is no doubt that the customer hasn’t even opened the book? How can this opinion be useful to other customers?

This problem is abused two ways. Some popular authors (or their publishers) send out advanced review copies, encouraging customers to post reviews on the release date. Some customers actually leave a review before they read the book, knowing that they will love the book because they love the author’s other works. Does it really help other customers to do this? Why not actually read the book first and then post the review?

It is also abused with negative reviews from competing authors or publishers, jealous rivals or enemies, and anyone who doesn’t like the author personally. To be fair, if these reviewers actually read the book first, it probably won’t change their reviews.

Many people wonder why Amazon doesn’t require customers to make an Amazon Verified Purchase in order to leave a review. At least this way, people reading the review would know that they have bought the book.

The problem here is the large number of people who buy the book in a bookstore or read it in a library. Amazon doesn’t want to prevent this large group from posting reviews.

What about eBooks? Well, customers don’t have to buy them on Kindle. Amazon still wants their reviews. Plus, if the eBook and hardcopy are linked, a review on either edition shows up on both editions.

Customers who have bought the book from Amazon can lend their reviews more credibility by choosing to let Amazon mark them as Amazon Verified Purchases. Potential buyers can choose to just look at Amazon Verified Purchase reviews if they want to know who has actually purchased the book.

Here is what Amazon may be thinking (of course, only Amazon knows for sure). Customers who want to leave a good or bad review without actually reading the book will probably leave pretty much the same review whether or not they are required to read part of the book first. It might infuriate numerous authors and even some readers, but all in all, policing this would generally be very difficult and quite a hassle, and probably isn’t worth the effort.

If you force customers to buy a book in order to review it, guess what will happen. People will buy the book and return it for this privilege. It’s not in Amazon’s best interest to encourage returns. If you want to remove a customer’s review if he or she returns the book, now you run into the problem where the customer is returning the book because the book was bad: Amazon will want these customers to be able to express their opinions, too.

Simply encouraging anyone to review a book provides more input to the consumer. More input is generally better than less input.

(5) The review doesn’t have to be truthful.

It’s kind of like politics. A candidate for office can say anything, true or not. Somebody might check and report the facts, but the lie itself generally doesn’t get the candidate disqualified from the competition.

A customer can say that there are fifty typos on the first page, and the review will stand even if this is clearly false. In many cases, potential readers can cross-check a reviewer’s comments by reading the blurb and Look Inside. If the review complains of typos, but the Look Inside is very well written, the reviewer will lose credibility. On the other hand, many customers may not bother to check a reviewer’s statements. Some sales may be gained or lost by blatantly false reviews.

This has been abused with both good and bad reviews. A review can make a lousy book look great or a great book look lousy simply by bending the truth. There are tens of thousands of books with contradictory reviews. Almost all of the bestsellers seem to have inconsistent reviews.

From Amazon’s perspective, it would be a nightmare to try to check the facts of all of the reviews. Some things are easier to check than others. If a review is clearly false, other customers may vote it down with No votes (although the voting itself has been abused). It would take a great amount of resources just to check the facts where someone complains that a review may be false. It probably isn’t practical to enforce review truthfulness.

Most statements aren’t facts, but opinions. Readers will definitely differ in opinions. Any book that is read enough will have a large group of readers who love it and another large group who hate it. This is true among virtually all popular, bestselling authors. No book can please everyone. If you want to require all reviews to be honest, you will quickly find yourself in the gray area between facts and opinions.

Amazon wants to solicit all opinions. You can’t argue that an opinion is wrong. Most review statements aren’t clear-cut facts that are clearly right or wrong; most are opinions.

Again, more input is generally helpful, even if some of it is contradictory. Potential buyers can check the blurb and Look Inside to help determine which statements are correct. They can also try to judge the character of the reviewer from the writing sample. Any comments and the number of Yes versus No votes may also be helpful, although the voting system can also be abused.

Conclusions

Amazon’s review system isn’t perfect. There is room for improvement. However, the system does result in a great deal of feedback. The more reviews, the better for shoppers, authors, and publishers. Amazon’s customer review system, as it is, provides much more information than not having any reviews at all – like the pre-internet days of standing in a bookstore aisle. We just have to take the good with the bad.

References

Comments

Please feel free to share your opinions, even if you disagree, by posting a comment or replying to a comment. Your input is encouraged. What is your experience as a customer or author? What would you suggest to improve the system?

Author

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

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Tag Archives: amazon

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Amazon Customer Book Reviews: Author Controversies

Benefits of Publishing a Paperback

Self-Publishing Freedom (My Story)

Amazon > Books > Browse > Categories > Argh!

Authors: Are You Clockwatchers?

How Would You Improve Amazon?

How to Save Memory on Repeated Pictures in a Kindle eBook

Why We Should Love Self-Published Authors

Are Amazon Customer Reviews Helpful?

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