Amazon Vine

Just a thought, LC, though you and Shelagh may have a difference of opinion, other forum readers and lurkers have been following your discussion with interest, forming our own thoughts.  Thanks.

The reviews are not useless. Amazon would not give away goods to the value of hundreds of thousands of pounds if the reviews did not produce a profit (covering the cost of all the giveaways, including expensive electronic items and household goods). That was my point; it works for Amazon.

I sent a copy of Forever Friends to Apex Reviews. They charge for reviews, but I didn't pay more than just a book. The review was on Amazon and is still on Barnes & Noble. After Apex Reviews had added hundreds of reviews (many of them paid for), Amazon decided to remove every single one, in one fell swoop. They clearly don't disapprove of reviewers being paid for writing reviews; they have a program that is set up for that purpose. However, they showed a different attitude towards businesses that were set up as book reviewing sites. You may say that it's Amazon's business and they can do what they like, and I agree. The Vine program works for Amazon and if publishers want to participate, they should do so. The program isn't flawless and the ethics are not the best, but it clearly works for Amazon -- but I think I've already said that.

This thread wasn't to recruit Vine participants, it was to let people know the Vine program exists and that it's a sure-fire way to get reviews. Assuming you think reviews can help sell books. Shelagh obviously doesn't -her prerogative.

Indie authors in particular might benefit by giving some copies to the program. Vine reviews, like non-solicited reviews, have their problems, but beat the heck out of the stupid circle-jerks so many indies have, where the reviewers are clearly their friends or other authors (as evidenced by the inclusion of their own books at the end of the review).

Amazon's Vine program works for authors, too, if customers are influenced by Vine reviews enough to buy the book. Apex was a scam in many ways. I don't have a problem with Amazon removing their reviews. There have been other review sites that were shut down for being scams, too.

LC wrote:

This thread wasn't to recruit Vine participants, it was to let people know the Vine program exists and that it's a sure-fire way to get reviews. Assuming you think reviews can help sell books. Shelagh obviously doesn't -her prerogative.

Indie authors in particular might benefit by giving some copies to the program. Vine reviews, like non-solicited reviews, have their problems, but beat the heck out of the stupid circle-jerks so many indies have, where the reviewers are clearly their friends or other authors (as evidenced by the inclusion of their own books at the end of the review).

Indie authors produce ebooks; it's the easiest and cheapest way to make a profit. They don't give away a few books on Amazon; they give away thousands of ebooks on Amazon, with the express purpose of receiving reviews. I've given away 30,000+ copies of my books. The latest two short stories received a couple of reviews written by the same reviewer. I gained great feedback as he updated one of his reviews every time he read a new addition to the five-part story. This is his first review:

http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Caller-Verse-One-Marreys-ebook/product-reviews/B00IOO44QU

How many reviews did you get for 30,000 free copies? I briefly looked at some of your book pages -they have about 8 reviews. In business terms, that's a really poor rate of return. And not everyone wants to give away 30,000 copies, anyhow.

An indie author could always print a few books up to give to the Vine program, couldn't they? I don't know if Vine accepts ebooks.

I just clicked on your link. 30,000 free copies and you got one review?

Why bother?

LC wrote:

I just clicked on your link. 30,000 free copies and you got one review?

Why bother?

I just checked the number of reviews on all my books and it's 55 on Amazon US and 19 on Amazon UK. There are also a few reviews on some of the European sites and Amazon have deleted quite a few for different reasons (including the Apex review).

LC wrote:

How many reviews did you get for 30,000 free copies? I briefly looked at some of your book pages -they have about 8 reviews. In business terms, that's a really poor rate of return. And not everyone wants to give away 30,000 copies, anyhow.

An indie author could always print a few books up to give to the Vine program, couldn't they? I don't know if Vine accepts ebooks.

Vine do accept ebooks. That aside, I put your name into Amazon's search engine and it pulled up all your books. The latest book with the Vine reviews does not show that it has any reviews and no average star rating is shown next to the title. Amazon are experimenting; finding out if more customers click on a link with no average star rating next to it than a link with a star rating showing (as it does on your MW book).

Have you considered that you might just have written a darn good book that customers want to buy? It does happen, ya know.

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The latest book with the Vine reviews does not show that it has any reviews and no average star rating is shown next to the title.

And this is relevant ...how?  I never said reviews caused books to display their stars in a search. What I said is that good reviews help convince people to buy a product. Once a person finds the book, good reviews may cause the customer to choose it over an equally good competitor that has no reviews.

Yes, a book needs to be good to get good reviews, but that's irrelevant, too. There are lots of good books out there. The successful ones have an edge. Good reviews are an edge.


I don't get why this is such a source of contention with you. And what I really don't get is why you'd pay a scam service like Apex for reviews over giving some books to Vine. Maybe Vine wasn't around when you did that.

You can't see the woods for the trees at the moment. Before anyone reads your reviews, they have to find your book. The fact that the average star rating and number of reviews is not showing up on your latest book may not seem a big deal to you, as long as customers click on the link to find out that it has seven or eight five-star reviews. If the list of books pulled up includes books that do have star ratings next to them, then they may overlook yours.

Here's a list based on a search for "Digital Photography" in books:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_pg_1?rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Adigital+photography%2Cp_n_feature_browse-bin%3A2656022011&sort=review-rank&keywords=digital+photography&ie=UTF8&qid=1396915416

The list is according to average customer reviews. Some of the books show the number of reviews and the average ratings, others show nothing, even though the books without a star rating do have reviews if you check out the pages. This may not be a problem to you, and it will be interesting to see if Amazon continues with this new way of listing books or returns to the previous way of showing the customer the number of reviews on every book such that no star rating would equate to no reviews.

I did a search on my name. My books came up and all the stars are there. I have no idea what you're looking at.

Missing the woods for the trees? I think that would apply to your comebacks.

Reviews aren't in the algorithm, ratings are (except ratings are made by reviewers).
Reviews don't matter because you can't see the stars on your Author Central page.
Reviews don't matter because some Vine reviewers on Slashdot are unhappy.
Reviews don't matter because only Amazon benefits (when they sell one of my books, I benefit, too).
Reviews don't matter unless you pay Apex for them. 

Maybe you should have a glass of wine and go to bed. Or lay off the wine?

Oh yeah, and this:

Reviews don't matter because before anyone reads your reviews, they have to find your book. (Yes, they do. And once they find it, they read the reviews.)

If someone were to write a review about this thread, what might they say?

LOL, Abe!

LC, This is how I see the list of photography books on amazon.com:



The first book on the list has 473 reviews with an average of 4.8 stars.

The second book has 558 with an average of 4.7 stars.

The third on the list has 158 reviews with an average of 4.8 stars.

The fourth on the list has 90 reviews with an average of 4.9 stars.

The fifth on the list has 170 reviews with an average of 4.7 stars.

None of the above information is visible for the first five books in the list of books.

The sixth on the list has the star rating (4.7) showing next to the number of reviews (218).

Out of the top ten books, only three show the number of stars and number of reviews on the list pulled up from a search on "digital photography".

I'm not a great fan of the star rating system, mainly because it is one of the main factors used in Amazon's algorithms. However, I do think it would be helpful if customers could see the number of reviews on ALL books in lists drawn from the Amazon search engines.

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However, I do think it would be helpful if customers could see the number of reviews on ALL books in lists drawn from the Amazon search engines.

How would it be helpful? Those are clearly the most popular and probably the best, or they wouldn't have so many reviews (ratings). I personally don't want to wade through hundreds or thousands of hits. Just show me the best ones.  I could find others if I wanted; I'm sure that wasn't the only page. You could have scrolled through 20 more.

I really don't get why you're so upset that the star ratings don't show up on that list. Why should they? People are going to click on them, anyhow. You sure did. Then they'll see the ratings. Does it matter if one has 400 and another has 390? I'll look at them both. I doubt I'd look at one in that category with very few ratings after evaluating 10 with 90+ of them.

This is where Vine comes in handy. Give a copy, get a rating. You said Vine accepts electronic copies, so what was the purpose of "arguing" that giving away 30,000 electronic ones is cheaper? It's not like you have any more control over what those reviewers say than you would with a Vine reviewer.

It just occurred to me that when you said it would be helpful, you meant helpful to authors. An author whose book isn't promoted well will not get as many ratings, even though it may be just as good. Chalk that up to "life isn't fair." Amazon is interested in being helpful to customers, not to authors. As a customer, I'm fine with having 10 choices with hundreds of ratings. I don't need more.

I don't like the star ratings. I've set up another thread to discuss their impact. The listings without star ratings and number of reviews are less helpful to customers, but I'm okay with that too. I haven't said that I'm in favour or against anything; all I've said is that the Vine program works for Amazon, otherwise they wouldn't use it. When you take into consideration the fact that it is the publishers/manufacturers paying for the goods to be reviewed, it doesn't cost Amazon much anyway.