Amazon.com's new bookerati

A friend and I were recently discussing the parlous state of book reviewing in America. What with the continual downsizing of newspaper book review sections around the country, the rumored de-emphasis on literary fiction at the New York Times Book Review under its incoming editor, Sam Tanenhaus , the recent outing of authors gaming the system at Amazon.com to increase their own sales rankings and decrease those of their competitors, and the rise of bloggers and other unannointed online content creators, how will we ever keep up with all the books we don’t have time to read?

I mentioned the growing influence of Amazon’s amateur online reviewers and their courtship by publishers bearing free books for review. I said I was considering posting reviews I write for my blog and other purposes on Amazon, as well.

My friend has published a number of well-received books of nonfiction. She reviews books gratis only for academic journals in her field. So her natural questions were, first,”Do the reviewers get paid?” (No.) and, second,“Then why do they do it?”

They do it for the recognition, in some cases building a significant following in the process. Authors addicted to hourly viewings of their Amazon rankings, along with publishers who know where their bread is buttered, ignore such critiques at their peril – although they seldom meet the criteria for a “real review" laid out by “Book Babe” Ellen Heltzel : “1) systematic thinking, 2) an articulate voice, and 3) added value for the reader.” Part of that added value derives from information about the reviewer’s background and biases sufficient for the reader to judge how trustworthy to consider the review.

An inside source at Amazon tells Heltzel that when Amazon was an upstart start-up, the company “invested princely sums in a review program with substantial in-house talent, which created a quality destination for not only buying but also assessing books.” But times have changed. Amazon’s editorial staff has been “cut to the bone” and replaced by “millions of self-styled reviewers.”

As the Los Angeles Times says, “Everyone’s a critic.” Take Rebecca Johnson, “No. 4 on Amazon.com’s list of top customer book reviewers.” Publishers send her 40 to 60 free books a month, in hopes of garnering one of her “relentlessly sunny reviews.” Johnson eschews novels, unpublished manuscripts, and “books that include violence, nudity, or swearing.” But she’ll return a book to the publisher rather than pan it online.

Or Harriet Klausner, writer, speed reader, former librarian, and author of 6643 Amazon reviews and counting. She’s not only Amazon’s most popular reviewer, but also tops the charts at AllReaders.com.

Then there’s former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, one of Amazon’s top 500, as ranked by site visitors. Although Gingrich also writes paid reviews, his spokesman says he identifies with the Amazon reader community and thinks “it’s a great idea that a former speaker could post on Amazon with all the other readers.”

The amateur reviewers’ cachet with publishers is not to be underestimated. Publishers have emulated the Amazon formula on their own sites, used amateur reviews in making revisions to new editions, and occasionally even picked up the rights to self-published titles based on positive “reader buzz.” So it’s no wonder that the recent “glitch” on Amazon’s Canadian site made worldwide headlines. (Amazon accidentally de-anonymized the anonymous reviewers, “provided a rare glimpse at how writers and readers are wielding the online reviews as a tool to promote or pan a book -- when they think no one is watching.”)

Traditional reviewers, academics, and others (like me) lament the downsizing and dumbing-down of book reviews in the mainstream press. It takes more than a little convincing for us to trust the cadre of volunteers who have posted 10 million Amazon reviews to date and add thousands more each week. But, as David Walker points out, Amazon often attracts “user-created content” of “astonishingly high quality” from literate, impressively credentialed reviewers.

Walker calls Amazon “a marketplace where the currency is some combination of recognition, respect and goodwill.” Speaking as a marketer – not an academic or intellectual – Walker cites Amazon’s “write-for-recognition formula” as a model for online enterprises of all kinds. The truth is, he’s right.

What else could explain why “44% of adult American Internet users – more than 53 million people – have contributed material to the online world,” according to a recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project? Even the most influential media outlets are accessed by a very small percentage of the population – the New York Times web site, for example, has only 1.2 million daily visitors, in contrast to an adult population of some 220 million. So it’s inevitable that self-motivated content creators with a shared sense of community will increasingly influence the tastes and preferences of book buyers – and the purchasers of goods and services of all kinds.