A few years ago I enrolled in Amazon's Vine program. In that every month you get a newsletter with different products in it (everything from books to the occasional digital camera or TV to dog food) and you can pick two to be sent to you FREE of charge. All you have to do is keep at least 75% of your products reviewed in order to stay in the program.
I've often thought, wouldn't it be great if I could get my book on that newsletter? Then lots of people might get it and they're somewhat required to actually read it and review it. Not like stupid giveaways on Goodreads and Smashwords where I give the book away and never hear from anyone again. In which case, what was the point? I'm not giving books away out of sheer generosity, morons; you're supposed to spread the word of how awesome the book is!
Anyway, then I got one of my crazy ideas that really we need to set up a Vine-type program for self-published books. Use pretty much the same rules where you can download free books, but you're required to keep reviewing them in order to keep being able to get stuff. (Because again, there's not much point otherwise.) That way authors can get people to read their books and (more importantly) give them reviews that aren't from friends and family.
The big hitch is obviously how to control all that. Amazon can do that automatically with software and stuff. Me, I've got no software. So you'd need someone to program all that to make sure people can't cheat the system as they inevitably would. That's way over my head. I'm just the ideas guy; it's up to other people to make it happen!
Or maybe someone's already made it happen. In which case I should go sign up for that. Because just giving stuff away hasn't done me shit so far.
The second hitch is as always getting people to know the thing exists. Which would also mean getting authors to participate. Maybe Rachel in the OC and her friends with their Indie Book Collective should add something like that. Though from their website I don't think they have the software to manage it either.
It's a good idea. It would cost money to develop a program like that - do the members pay a fee? If I hadn't lost my programming skills, I'd consider doing it.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a great idea. You really just need someone to monitor the reviews, if I understand what you're saying. What if you did it so that people sign up to get a free book, and they post a review of it and email you the link, and upon doing that, they get the next free book? You could do it all on your own. Start a club: "Join my club for $5, and I'll send you a free book. Upon reviewing it and providing me the link, I'll send you the next free book."
ReplyDeleteAuthors could then join by paying you, say, $10, and promising to provide the book when requested.
Wait, maybe I want this idea...
I had another idea, a while back, for book ads: put ads right into books, which should be easy enough to do. You could do that: put the ads in your books up front or in back or in the middle, and in exchange, each author who took out an ad promises to buy your book and review it, which helps them because when people buy your book they'll get an ad for that. (I was going to charge for ads, too, but nobody signed up for it.)
That could work. You set up a web page with links to descriptions of each book (maybe samples) and if someone wants to download it they click an email link (or form if we're getting fancy) or maybe link to where the book is on sale so they can buy it if they want. Then they can't get another until they verify they reviewed the first one.
DeleteThough you could still get some fraud if for instance you're like me and have 17 email accounts with different names on them.
But with ad-supported books, you could give them away free, the way I give my blog away free to readers because ads pay me to write it.
ReplyDeleteYou guys have such fertile minds. I bow down to your imagination and creativity.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good idea. But it requires a lot of work and commitment from the folks to do a book review. The thing is...a book isn't worth much...like maybe a few bucks. Yet they take hours and hours and hours to read. I don't see books as an asset, and it's hard to find a good one. So just getting a tsunami of self-pubbed books that you need to review may not appeal to everyone. And you and I both know that everyone writes. So I dunno. I for one wouldn't be interested in this kind of pace. I much prefer the pick and choose method that I do in my own time and maybe review one book a month.
ReplyDeleteI think if you relied on this solely for your books to read it might be tough for some people to keep up. But if you're using it just to occasionally supplement your reading material then it would be easier.
DeleteAnd no one says it has to be a three-part Rum Punch review on your blog like Pagel does. Just a 20 word review on Amazon can help you towards getting in that magical suggestion thing every self-pubbed author wants.
I love the idea - Briane's take on it sounds like it was devised by a lawyer though - but making it work would be tough. Anyone using Smashwords can generate coupons. But who wants to use Smashwords? Still, it's a good idea.
ReplyDeleteWell, there's just one problem. Now that so many authors are in that Kindle Select program many of them are using those free days. So a lot of books are going free with no requirements.
ReplyDeleteI would totally join this! I, however, can barely figure out my blog and I know of no programmers in my network. Damn!
ReplyDeleteKDP Select doesn't allow giving away free books (UNLESS it's the 5 days of free) to anyone but legitimate (as in, have an established review site) reviewers in exchange for an honest review. So a reader-based program is out now for any KDPSelect author since authors are simply not allowed as part of the contract to give away books to readers other than those five free days.
ReplyDeleteThe IBC or myself encourages you to create anything you'd like to, of course. We've also got lots of great programs already in place, though we appreciate you thinking of us, of course.
We have review sites like YourNeedToREad, ParaYourNormal, SciYourFi, and others where books are constantly reviewed and we're always looking for volunteer reviewers -- an excellent way to become involved in the process and have your opinion heard.
You and Cindy make a good point. The Amazon thing does complicate matters.
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