Note from Nathan Schock:
"I came across your blog and enjoyed what I read. I thought you might be interested in a recent post on my blog: http://www.freshglue.com/fresh_glue/2005/09/citizen_journal.html. It discusses a book author contacting me to post an Amazon review, simply because I had previously done reviews on Amazon."
In his post, he writes about receiving an email from Jerry Weissman, author of In the Line of Fire: How to Handle Tough Questions...When It Counts, where Jerry offered to send him a review copy of his book because Nathan was a volunteer Amazon.com book reviewer. Nathan wrote:
"My first thought is that this is an extremely effective promotional technique. Although nothing in either the email or the package sought to influence my review, the fact that he's mailing these for free to Amazon reviewers can't hurt the reviewer's perception of the author. If you send it to enough, odds are such that more of your reviews will be positive than negative. In fact, most of Weissman's reviews at Amazon are five out of five stars, so it appears to be working."
Here is an author who is reaching a significant audience simply by asking people to accept a free copy of his book for possible review.
As Nathan points out in his post: "Although a review in the New York Times, may be read by millions, it won't be staring in the face of someone contemplating an online purchase. Be honest. Have you ever purchased a book on Amazon without reading at least one review?"
Have you sent an email to some of the active book reviewers on Amazon.com who have reviewed books similar to yours? If not, you should. It's one of the most effective ways you can use Amazon.com to sell more books.
