Happy Opposite Day! Or should that be “Have a horrible day?” I’m not sure of the etiquette for Opposite Day, so I'm taking an opposite approach.
As I went through my email, (from bottom-to-top, rather than top-to-bottom) I chuckled at an Amazon email, asking me to review my recent purchase of The Memory Girl. Obviously, the Amazon autobots didn't realize I authored the book, or they wouldn't have asked me to review it, because if I were to review my own book, Amazon's other autobots would have banished me from Amazonland for eternity. Do you think the autobots coordinate? Did they send the email because they know it is Opposite Day?
Why does Amazon care what I think? I mean, who am I to decide how many stars something is worth? I’m not a professional critic. I haven’t been trained to systematically dissect and make judgment.
But the world of Amazon is humongous and ever-expanding. They can’t employ enough human beings who are professional critics, so they leave it up to us amateurs to review the stuff they sell us, and they sell us EVERYTHING. Amazon’s algorithms use our amateur reviews to deduce if our purchase was really worth the money.
Authors are put in a difficult position when it comes to Amazon reviews, because book reviews are based solely upon personal opinion. Books aren’t reviewed on durability or ease of use or proper fit. Yet, Amazon watches book reviews for fraud, because slimy sorts pay review mills for fake reviews. The irony is that even though Amazon doesn’t trust reviews, those reviews still guide the algorithm in setting ratings. In short? Authors hate reviews, but they need them if they have any hope of selling books in Amazonland. Sounds opposite, don’t you think?
If you’re like me and hit delete when they ask you to rate a purchase, remember a seller somewhere is waiting with bated breath for you to click on the stars you feel fairly rate your purchase.
And since it’s Opposite Day, I’ll be bold. If you’ve ever read one of my books, my algorithm and I would be eternally appreciative if you’d leave your honest review so Amazon’s autobots have stars to work with. After all, these days, everybody’s a critic!
MEMORY PROMPT: Do you ever take an opposite approach?
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