Amazon Book Reviewing --- My story!

Back in the dark ages of the internet, I noticed that it was possible to write reviews of books on Amazon.  So I started doing so---compulsively.  I wrote many, many reviews, just for the pure fun of it, and because it was kind of cool to see if people liked them or not.

Then I got a surprise---a letter from Amazon telling me they were going to start ranking reviewers, and that I was in their top 100 reviewer list---something like 55.  They sent me a hat saying as much, and put a note by my name.  I was pretty excited, just for the pure coolness of it all.

Then something strange started to happen.  All of a sudden, all my reviews had tons and tons of "unhelpful" votes.  Reviews that had never gotten any votes before were overnight getting 10 unhelpful votes.  It was obvious someone in that top 100 list wanted to move up.  It just seemed so stupid to me, but it also bothered me.  After thinking about it a while, I decided it just wasn't worth it, and I wrote to Amazon telling them I didn't want to be ranked any more.  They agreed, and I was no longer ranked.

After about 2 years, during which I still wrote a lot of reviews, I thought it might be fun to see what my ranking was, so I wrote and asked them to re-rank me.  When they did, I was something like 800, which still was fun.  Life intervened, and I stopped having time to write as much, and recently I feel out of the top 1000, but I still love doing reviews here and there.  About 5 years ago, Amazon started their Vine program, and invited me to join.  Now every month, I get to pick about 4 books (and once in a while other products) to review, and the books are sent to me for free---usually in advance reader editions.  That's a blast---seeing books before anyone else does, and just getting free stuff!

If anyone would like to read any of my 558 reviews (that's over about 12 years, remember!), here's a link...

My Reviews

One of the coolest things about reviewing is when occasionally an author writes to me to thank me for a review.  That means a great deal to me!  It also, though, makes reviewing a little harder.  It reminds me that authors are people, and their books are their labors of love, and it probably hurts very much to read a poor review.  However, I can't let that stop me from reviewing books honestly.  I try very hard to be fair and polite in my reviews.  I'm sure no-one sets out to write something that is less than good.  But I feel a responsibility to those who might spend their money on a book to be honest.

Book reviewing has become one of my passions, one I wish I had a lot more time for.  I love to read, I read very fast and I have a lot of opinions!  Some day, when things are less hectic in my life, I'm going to go through my entire collection of children's books and write a review of every last one.  That's the excuse, anyway, for collecting many more picture books than anyone needs!