Review: Great resource, especially for indie authors
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 14, 2013
This book was provided to me in exchange for an honest review. I found it very informative and a must-read for those who have already received reviews from Amazon reviewers for their products and those who are contemplating it - particularly relevant for authors, such as myself, who are seeking reviewers for their novels. So I'll be reviewing this book from an author's point of view.The books  is written in a logical, step by step fashion, beginning with an interesting insight into the community of Amazon reviewers and why they do it, and how the ranking system works, which is handy background knowledge to have. The author then goes on to describe how to select reviewers, how to contact them and what to write in your request, including actual examples of letters, warnings about what not to do and finally what to do after receiving your review.The author obviously knows his stuff when it comes to writing `how to' books. It's written in a clear, easy to read style and he recaps at the end of each chapter what has been discussed, so that each chapter flows on logically from the previous one.The fact that this book is written by an Amazon reviewer is its most valuable feature and the author gives lots of handy tips, eg. Don't ask family members or people who haven't reviewed before on Amazon to review your book, don't comment on reviews, whether positive or negative, even if it's to thank the reviewer.One important point the author mentions is that Amazon is in the process of changing the profile pages for reviewers. The new profiles do not allow for reviewers to provide any means of external contact, such as email addresses, web pages etc, which will in future make it very difficult for authors to contact them to request reviews, and is already having an impact.  I have found the search for reviewers of my genre of novel time-consuming and tedious and when I happen to come across someone who seems suitable, their contact details are not available. I have now decided to approach book bloggers instead, directly through their websites.Having said that, this book is still a valuable resource for authors seeking reviews from anyone - whether it be on Amazon, Goodreads, book bloggers or media book reviewers, as the principles and methods of requesting reviews are the same.