The last part sounds silly at first, however when it comes to independent publishing in Amazon, or other venues such as Nook, Kobo, and Smashhwords, reviews are what drives how a book can be found when searching on the outlet’s site. It even matters, at least at Amazon, how the reviewer obtained the book.
Reviews on Amazon are broken down, as follows; The number of stars given, the title of the review the reviewer gives the review, who wrote the review and date it was submitted, and what version of the book the review applies to, print or Kindle. The last is Certified Purchase, which Amazon defines as: “When a product review is marked "Amazon Verified Purchase," it means that the customer who wrote the review purchased the item at Amazon.com. Customers can add this label to their review only if we can verify the item being reviewed was purchased at Amazon.com. Customers reading an Amazon Verified Purchase review can use this information to help them decide which reviews are most helpful in their purchasing decisions.”
There is one more possible bit of information about the Reviewer that is added. If you are a top reviewer, that information is also shown.
Along with the book’s sales rating, this adds up in some logarithmic system Amazon has formulated to place books on its search engine for when a customer looks for books and how it recommends book to customers..
That amounts to a lot of information Amazon uses to place books one works so hard to sell. Marketing as a self-publisher relies a lot on the readers, their reviews and word of mouth to friends and relatives.
Yes, this is where I ask you to write a review of White Hot Skies and Time’s Crossroads, if you have read either of them. And if you haven’t read them, then please go to Amazon and do so, and ask you friends to do so. Each builds one upon the other.
And, this is where I ask you to write a review for all the other books you’ve read from Amazon, or Nook, or Kobo, or even the locale book shop. Sales and reviews are the report card for the writer. It tells the write what he/she did right, and what was done wrong.