Q&A: Is Amazon's BookSurge or CreateSpace a good deal for authors

QUESTION: Last year, Amazon purchased a print-on-demand (POD) company, BookSurge. And this year, Amazon launched a user-friendly service called CreateSpace, where authors can self-publish a book.

Are either of these services a good deal for authors? If authors use them, can they expect more favorable treatment (and perhaps better sales) from Amazon?

ANSWER: No. Both offer terrible terms for authors, and they offer no special marketing advantages compared to traditional publishing or self-publishing.

Booksurge and CreateSpace are convenient for people who want to get a book printed and listed on Amazon fairly easily. You can buy a different packages that include various services. These are the details self-publishers need to arrange themselves, such as hiring a cover designer and buying ISBNs from ISBN.org.

The big problem with BookSurge, CreateSpace, Lulu and most other similar "author services" company is they skim an obscenely large portion of revenue. For example, I make about $10 on the sale of each of my books, but if I'd published it through BookSurge, I'd earn closer to $2 per book. Where did the other $8 go?

So for authors who are not planning to sell many books and are willing to pay for the convenience, I suppose BookSurge and CreateSpace are good deals. But if you've spent a year or two working on a book, shouldn't you invest a few more hours doing some simple math, and figure out how to publish as profitably as possible?
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Steve Weber is author of Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors

Amazon will supply free advance copies of books, movies to customer reviewers

Amazon.com will provide free advance copies of books, movies and music to customers who agree to post reviews of the new releases on the company's Web site.

The program, Amazon Vine, will permit negative reviews as long as they meet Amazon's regular review guidelines, said manager Russell Dicker.

"As with all Amazon reviews, we want your honest opinion of the product," Dicker said. "Amazon will not edit or modify any reviews beyond small tweaks to fit within existing guidelines -- this is exactly how it works today."

Starting August 15, Amazon will ask customers to join the program in invitations e-mailed over the next few months. To be eligible, customers must allow receipt of commercial e-mail from Amazon. Customers can check and change their settings here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/gss/ccp/

Asked if publishers would pay Vine placement fees, Dicker didn't elaborate. Many professionals in the book trade believe it's unethical to pay for reviews, although in this case Amazon would receive the payment, not the reviewer. It's also unclear whether small publishers or self-publishers will be allowed to participate.

In 2006 Amazon experimented with recruiting its Top Reviewers to critique advance copies of the fantasy novel The Stolen Child, and Amazon bought the book's film rights. The publisher, Doubleday, acknowledged the overwhelmingly positive online reviews propelled the book onto bestseller lists. However, some readers argued Amazon should have disclosed it was a paid placement by Doubleday.

Dicker emphasized publishers won't expect good reviews. "We have given the vendors absolutely no assurances about good publicity," he said. "They understand that the nature of their reviews will depend on the quality of their product."

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Steve Weber is author of Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors

Q&A: How can I get prepublication reviews on Amazon?

QUESTION: My book has a publication date of October 2007 and it's available now for pre-order on Amazon. I'm interested in getting early book reviews on Amazon.

I've contacted a few Amazon Top Reviewers by following your instructions, and they've agreed to read advance copies. However, there isn't a "Write a Review" link on my book's Amazon page yet. Do you know if it's possible to to submit a prepublication review on Amazon?

ANSWER: Registered Amazon users can submit prepublication reviews, even though there isn't a "Write a Review" link on your book's detail page yet. Here's the link to give your early reviewers:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/
customer-reviews/write-a-review.html?asin=1594489505

Customize the link above for your book by replacing the series of digits on the end with your book's ISBN. Also, put the entire string of characters in one line -- I had to break the line here so it would fit in this column.

Using this link, your reviewers will be able to submit their reviews just as if the book were already selling. But the reviews won't show up on your book's product page until Amazon is actually selling copies of the book.

So you won't know what those early reviews say until the publication date. But there is a way to find out if you're getting positive or negative prepublication reviews on Amazon: Search for your title, and if there's at least one review already, you'll see something like this in the search results:


This book, with a publication date of March 2008, already has at least one review, which you can see from the star rating. But of course the text of the review(s) aren't displayed on the book's Amazon detail page yet.

Editor's Note: Since this article was written, Amazon has introduced a formal program for prepublication reviews from approved reviewers. Read more about Amazon Vine.

One word of caution: Some Amazon shoppers are skeptical when they see several glowing reviews were posted before a book's release. For example, check out the top two reviews for this book, which allege that early reviews of the book were phony. Here are some ugly highlights:

I am highly dubious of the reviews written in January and February in 2004 in particular - the book wasn't published until March 9 of that year.

... It is because of this abuse of Amazon feedback that I gloss over the positive feedback and read the one- and two-star reviews to get to the ugly truth.

Now, as far as I know, those prepublication reviews were completely legitimate. (I've read the book and recommend it highly.) My only point is that something didn't smell right to a vocal minority of reviewers, who blasted the book with two-star reviews chock full of nasty accusations. Then those two negative reviews were voted "most helpful" by Amazon shoppers, propelling them to the top of the list. Now those negative reviews are the first bit of independent information Amazon shoppers see about the book, and I'm convinced it has discouraged sales of the book.

In the case pictured above, Phantom of the Night appears to have at least one one-star prepublication review. In that case, I guess the author should be suspicious.