Pete and Ollie | From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's booksPete, aka Beetleypete, is one of Amazon’s top reviewers, with an impressive rank of 3,212 out of the 10,000 top reviewers. When he saw my post on Theo Rogers’ book, How to Get Good Reviews on Amazon, he kindly shared his review in a comment. I’m posting it here, as I feel it will be of great interest to authors:

“I have just read Theo’s book this morning and have the following observations. As an Amazon reviewer myself, he has got it EXACTLY right. It is specific to Amazon, to answer other queries, but Theo is a very experienced reviewer and what he says about the ‘Amazon Jungle’ is 100% correct, from my own less detailed findings.

This book is mainly about what not to do when soliciting reviews for books (or products) on Amazon, as well as good advice on how to approach the same thing correctly.

How to Get Good Reviews on Amazon | From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's books

Free today on Amazon – click to download

Anyone who is already marketing or considering selling via Amazon should definitely read this short book first. It gives a priceless insight into the thought-process of the reviewers and explains the voting system, and reviewer rankings far better than anything else I have ever read. He gives inside knowledge about the various shills and tricks used by some people and companies, and detailed information on how to avoid being lumped into these unpopular groups.

Some of his best tips in the book should be known by anyone wishing to sell anything on Amazon, especially books:

  1. Do not solicit reviews from family and friends who do not usually review anything else. It will be obvious to both Amazon, and to the top reviewers too.
  2. Do not encourage anyone to leave a negative response to reviews that are unfavourable. This is known as ‘Negging’, and also becomes obvious.
  3. Avoid getting involved in a group of writers who all post rave reviews of each others’ work. These are known as ‘Circles’ and are also easily detected.
  4. If you want to contact the top reviewers, look at their profile page for contact details. If they do not have an email address, they might have a Facebook page, blog address, or their own website.

The book is full of gems like this, and really is a ‘must read’ for sellers. Use the valuable links he provides, to increase your knowledge of just how the Amazon review system works.

If you enjoyed the review, check out the happy meercat’s review, too! Also, don’t forget to check out Amazon’s own review guidelines (thank you, Olga and Micki)!