The Amazon Community

In the Blogosphere there are pretty often discussions on if we bloggers have to write negative reviews. Should we post them? Do we hurt the authors? Almost everyone agrees; negative reviews are needed sometimes, and if they stay respectful to the author, why not? (Discussion: Should Bloggers Post Negative Reviews?)

I have had some run-ins with authors that commented on my review on Goodreads, but it always stayed pretty polite. If it was about a mistake in my review, I would say sorry, I'll correct that. And if it wasn't, I would point out that it was my personal opinion. I have also emailed some authors when the book really, really wasn't for me, and politely declined to write a review.

On community sites like Goodreads and in the book-blogging community, negative reviews are just a part of life. Just like the raving 5-star ones. But on Amazon I have found out that this isn't the case. I found out the hard way.

I got called names. I "had to get over myself", "no one is interested in my opinion" and "can only write overly critical rants and nothing else". I actually felt so bad about that 2-star review that I was thinking about taking it down from Amazon. I asked a few of my bloggish friends, and I'm glad they advised me to keep it up. The review was a rant, yes, but I didn't say anything bad at all. I reported the person that was hateful, and the comment got deleted.

Now I have added another review, this time a 3-star one on Anne Rice's new book. If you're interested, you can read it here. For some reason, I get a massive amount of downvotes, again. I don't say anything bad or condescending. It just not my thing. And it isn't just me; apparently Amazon customers don't find negative reviews helpful. About 80% of the reviews on all the books on Amazon are 5-star reviews. There are barely critical ones, and if there are bad reviews, they get downvoted into the ground.

It makes me a bit sad that speaking your mind isn't appreciated there. I want to support authors by posting my reviews on Amazon (as the saying goes - even bad publicity is good publicity), but I'm starting to doubt my decision.

What do you think? Do you post your reviews on Amazon? Even the negative ones? Have you had negative responses to your reviews?

Guest Post: Shannon Mayer on KDP Select

Amazon has a new initiative called KDP Select. What is this and what will this mean for us as readers? And what will this mean for authors? Author Shannon Meyer is here today to explain this all for us.

The Guest Post

Amazon’s KDP Select and Prime- What this means for Readers and Authors

Mid December 2011, Amazon launched their new program, KDP Select alongside Amazon Prime. These two programs changed the face of the publishing industry AGAIN.

I was leery at first. The whole premise behind KDP select for authors was that you put your book EXCLUSIVELY through Amazon for a period of 3 months. During that time, READERS could choose to “borrow” your book through the lending library for FREE.

Amazon set aside $500,000 to be distributed between all the lends during the month of December (which ended up being $1.70 a lend). For authors who were only selling their book at .99 this is a great return as normally they would only get .34 profit per sale. But for any author selling at 2.99 or better, it was a loss in the profit department.

But how does Amazon keep up with this pot of money for their authors? Amazon Prime, a program you can try for FREE for 1 month, is where this question is answered. After your free month with Prime, unless you uncheck the subscription button (which I found with QUITE a bit of searching, they sure don’t make it easy to get out of the loop) you will be billed $80 for the year. You then can BORROW up to 1 book per month along with some other perks, which I’ll let you check out yourself.
Now, Amazon has announced that they have upped the “pot” for the authors to $700,000 for the month of January. Again, will encourage more authors to take part in the program, ultimately dropping the amount of money per lend, as well as how many of your books would be “borrowed”. IMO.

This also has opened a whole new can of worms because Amazon has set it up that every 3 months you are signed up with KDP Select as an author, you can put your book for FREE for up to 5 days. As you can imagine, this is causing quite a kafuffle in the Free Ranks.

Okay, but WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS ALL MEAN? It means that Amazon is going to push out their competitors unless they make a move in the subscription route REAL fast. It means that authors are going to have to figure out if it’s worth it for them and get on board fast if they’re going to.

My reaction? As an author, I signed up 2 of my 4 books with KDP Select. Sundered, A Zombie-ish Apocalypse and Dark Waters, Celtic Legacy Book 1, are available for lending for free to a reader who is signed up with Prime.

Will I put them up for free? Still weighing that out.

For readers, I think if you don’t have a Kindle or a device that you can read Kindle books on (like an iPad) you might just want to. A lot of authors are taking this route, which means that a number of books won’t be available anywhere else. Hell, I’ve seen BIG names signed up for Prime. Like Suzanne Collins, you know, of Hunger Games Fame?

Overall, this is a big shift, one that can benefit both readers and authors alike if they get the facts and read all the fine print. However this all falls out, will be fascinating, a ride that may make us all get a white knuckled grip going on. ;p

Bio

After a 2 year period waiting on her agent to actually do something, Ms. Mayer dropped the agent, and self published her first trilogy, A Zombie-ish Apocalypse which includes Sundered, Bound and Dauntless. Her latest book, Dark Waters: Celtic Legacy Book 1 centers on the bonds of sisters while delving into the world of nightmares and magic.

For more info on Shannon Mayer and her writing go to http://shannonmayer.blogspot.com or follow her on Twitter @TheShannonMayer.