Amazon Spam

This is a difficult subject for me to discuss, and I need to be tactful, which I'm not always good at. Please know that I mean no offense, so if I offend anyone, my apologies. At the same time, it is an important topic.

A fan of "God is a Woman: Dating Disasters" emailed me today to let me know that there has been a lot of spam about the book on Amazon. I have not been on Amazon in some time; I've been far too busy with various articles and other items to help people and get the word out about the book, which in turn helps people more, while entertaining them (always my goal). Speaking of which, here is a blurb I managed to get on match.com that was published tody:

http://msn.match.com/msn/article.aspx?articleid=7717&menuid=8&lid=428

I figured it wasn't really spam but rather some zealous fans chatting up the book a little much. So I went to Amazon to check it out for myself.

Holy crap! There is tons of chatter about the book which does indeed look very much like spam. I can't stand spam myself. The problem isn't mentioning the book in a review of another book. That's totally cool and Amazon even has a product link for that now, I noticed. If you read a book that relates to another book, you should mention it. It is how word of mouth spreads about books and word of mouth is tremendously important to the success of books, especially ones like mine. But I found mention of my book in reviews of books that it has nothing to do with. I also found it mentioned on discussion boards for other books. Those boards are intended for the discussion of those other books. There are general discussion boards on Amazon where you can post about books or books of certain genres but not on boards for other books, please. If a discussion occurs on one about the best comedy books or dating books, etc, sure, okay, that's totally cool.

So what do I mean exactly? Take today for instance. I do tons of articles, columns, and work tirelessly to get reviews of this book out there. This morning I posted about a review I received from a popular PUA site. I put up the link. Now that link is all over the place on Amazon, on discussion boards for other books. It's the placing of such a link or comments in numerous places that becomes spam. I didn't post the link here for it to be placed everywhere. Sure, it's fine to put it up on Amazon on my book or in a relevant discussion for it. But what does it have to do with The Professional Bachelor or The Game? Nothing. There in lies the problem.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the praise and word of mouth about the book. Please make sure you are respectful about it to other books, though. I realize some of you are defending the book and me from skeptics, and while I appreciate it, it's not always necessary. Unlike many authors, I work my ass off to get exposure for this book. If people think that word of mouth and any recommendations thereof are just bs, so be it. Don't let it get to you. If they don't get that me doing two radio shows last week, getting a review up yesterday, a blurb in an article today, an upcoming blurb in "Glamour," creates fans and word of mouth, so be it. There will always be negative people, trying to pick arguments about everything; that's the way the world works.

There are other ways to mention the book on Amazon, which are non-intrusive and that's the key. When people read about a certain book, they don't want to read arguments about another book, you know? That's intrusive. But if they want to search for types of books, they can peruse listmanias and search for keywords. So, feel free to add keywords for searches for the book and mention it in listmanias, but please be more careful about keeping your zeal from appearing like spam.

Thanks everyone and thanks again for all your support. The book has been very successful and I owe most of that to reviews from readers. While its Amazon sales have dropped off some lately (it was in the top 1000 for a couple weeks a few weeks back), bookstore sales have picked up. So, it all comes out even.

Thanks again and if anyone wants to discuss this further, you may email me at iancoburn@hotmail.com. Also feel free to contact me if you feel offended by this post in some way. Thanks.