If you click the image, it will take you to the search results page this image came from.

This search result (March 16, 2010) tells me two things:

1. There is a new Dexter book coming out in September. (I’ll give Jeff Lindsay a chance to redeem himself but the ice he is skating on is thin.)
2. Someone is selling book reviews on Amazon for $10 each. (And no, it’s not me)

Now, the incomprehensible item is the second one. This person has 59 book reviews for sale via digital download on Amazon. As much as I would love to get paid for reviewing books, I’m not seeing a viable business model in this particular approach. Consumers don’t buy book reviews, publishers do (by publishers I mean magazines, newspapers, web sites, blogs, etc. rather than book publishers).

Since Amazon doesn’t provide a mechanism for selling the rights to republish content like Constant Content does, the goal here must be to sell to consumers. The problem is that consumers don’t pay for book reviews. Particularly consumers who are browsing an online bookseller that displays free reviews right on the same page as the book. Especially for books that are on the bestseller list and get plenty of reviews on their own.

Am I missing the brilliant business plan here or is selling book reviews to book buyers on Amazon as pointless as it appears? The one customer review on these book reviews (and no, it’s not me) sums up my thoughts when I stumbled across these reviews for sale:

What the hell are you people smoking, and can I have some?

At $10 per review, I should be charging you $10-$40 dollars/month to view this blog. When you’ve finished laughing at that notion, feel free to leave a comment.

#1: What exactly does Google know about you? With 23 services and counting, Google is the online destination for a lot of people for e-mail, online document storage, web site analytics, forums, and–oh yeah–online searches. In addition to their 23 services, they now offer Google Dashboard in case you want to check on everything Google knows about you with its services. Haven’t poked around this one, but an interesting addition.

#2: Ah, workplace pettiness–how I miss thee: Disgruntled Toronto Star editor takes revenge on publisher by copy editing his letter. I’m not sure I’d call this “constructive revenge” as The Torontoist does but then definitions differ.

#3: I’m on a discussion list that has a couple members obsessed with what logo Google is showing on their search page on any given day (Google “dresses” up the logo for various holiday). Finally someone posted an index where all of the Google special logos are indexed for quick perusal. Interesting to see how some countries got a Hallowe’en logo with one piece of candy, some with a bit more, and some with the logo inundated with candy–cultural sensibilities? The index appears to go back to the very beginning.

#4: The top 20 most annoying book reviewer cliches and how to use them all in one meaningless review. I think I’ve only used #17–I must not read the right type of books.

#5: What a New York Times bestseller actually makes for an author in terms of cold hard cash. Think they’re rich? Think again.

#6: Jim Carrey has a new website. You’ll need Flash to view it but it’s worth it. I’m normally not a fan of Flash pages since Flash is often used for the web site owner’s benefit and not the visitor’s benefit, but in this case it’s been used right. The site is meant for entertainment, I think, more than for straight information gathering but if you like Easter Eggs (clicking on random things to find surprises) and the oddness that is Carrey you’ll like what he’s done with his site. I’m doubly impressed that he has included plain Jane navigation at the bottom of his page for those people who really do want information and not entertainment–it’s a small touch but it’s huge in terms of serving his audience and not being so arrogant as to force people to play games they don’t want to if they just want information. If you want some clues as to what to look for on his site, there is a Wall Street Journal blog post with their review of the site.

#7: One person’s account of the actual cost of making an e-book versus making a print version. Biggest cost? Editing (but only because they did not hire a professional graphic designer and did the text formatting themselves). Worth every penny, if you ask me (but then, I edit on a freelance basis so of course I would say that).

Many people conflate bad reviews and negative reviews, but bad and negative are distinct qualities. One is an assessment of the review, while the other is an assessment of the book. You can have any combination of bad/good with positive/negative–a little like mixing genetic traits, but without the illicit stuff (book content notwithstanding).

A Punnett what?

A Punnett square, if you need an introduction, is a table used by geneticists to show the possible combination of traits where each trait can have two (or more) states. Think of a trait as something like ‘Hair colour’ and a state as ‘Blond’ or ‘Brunette’ or ‘Redhead’.

In this case, the Punnett square for the traits ‘Quality of Review’ and ‘Opinion of Book’ would look like this table:

I’m not claiming this is a particularly profound observation, just that it’s an easy way to make sure everyone is on the same page in a discussion of “bad” reviews. Of the four types of reviews, the only ones I find useful as a reader are the good positive review and the good negative review.

Good means that readers get information that tells them whether they are likely to enjoy the book. Even a negative review can do that by giving concrete reasons for the reviewers opinion and disclosing personal reading preferences that affect the reviewer’s views.

Bad reviews don’t give readers any information to make a decision with. Really bad reviews indulge in meanness like ad hominem attacks, sarcasm, and condescension—things that make only the reviewer look bad.

Bad positive reviews are the same as no review at all or worse. Some are so effusive but lacking in substance that they leave me thinking the reviewer is:

1. A sock puppet
2. A relative or friend of the author
3. A person who didn’t really read the book, and/or
4. On the take.

Whether any of those perceptions are accurate or not doesn’t matter—the seed of doubt is planted. If the author appears to encourage these sorts of reviews, it’s a black mark against both the book, author and reviewer.

Most of the bad reviews that I’ve seen are at online retailer sites like Amazon. Through selection bias, I don’t see many bad reviews on the book blogs I follow.

What makes a review good for you?

#1: Currently there is a lot of discussion about Amazon’s move to become a publisher by picking up self-published books sold on Amazon that it thinks it could sell more of by issuing hard cover editions and doing marketing.

#2: A Russian book reviewer was sued over their review by a writer: Neither one is happy with the outcome.

#3: Not publishing specific, but related to story telling and pop culture: An analysis of the new Star Trek movie with a perspective you’ll read nowhere else (hilarious I thought, but then I’m a little twisted I’ve been told ).

That’s all for this week’s links.