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I saw this on Twitter - it's about the impact of reviews on books on Amazon - is this info true?
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I saw this too and actually reposted it on my own blog. I had a comment from another author saying that it wasn't true. Her book only had 7 reviews and was showing up in the 'customers also bought section' already.http://lisaemme.com/2015/10/14/5-star...
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Eh, reviews are just that. They don't affect the also bought stream. What people buy or view affects this. Most of the books in the also bought for my latest release have no reviews. Why? Because they were all likely downloaded at the same time from the new release list for their genre. The problem is that people want to believe that Amazon has some super secret formula for book visibility that doesn't really exist. Top books by traditional publishers are going to get more visibility thanks to the millions in advertising they can afford to budget. The rest of us have a level playing field.
Those are not true. My books were listed in the "also bought" category when they only had one or two reviews. I have one book with 90 Amazon reviews and it's never been spotlighted in Amazon's newsletter.
Well Amazon is also taking legal action against supposed fake reviews:http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34...
"Also bought" is affected by book sales, not reviews. I believe it takes 10 sales to go from "also viewed" to "also bought."However, I do believe that the number of reviews makes a difference in how Amazon promotes your book. I have 7 published, and only one has 50+ reviews. (It has 100 even) A lot of Twitter friends have sent me screenshots of where their Kindles suggested my book. People have told me/said in a reviews that Amazon suggested the book/promoted the book, was sent to them via e-mail as a 'you might like', etc. So I do think reviews have an impact on how Amazon promotes you.
As has been noted, the comment about being included in Amazon's "Also Bought" and "you might like this" lists is inaccurate. Our books have always appeared in these lists long before they got any reviews. The comment about 50+ reviews is widely reported, but I have never seen it supported by actual evidence. Apparently, our books get suggested to people, but that appears to be based on their buying habits since from the (very samll) data set I have it seems independent of reviews.
Our first book now has 48 reviews, so if I see anything when we hit 50+, I'll report back.
You can see the image here:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/6424673...
The info graphic talks about how the numbers of Amazon reviews a book has affects how it appears in reader searches. Does anyone know if this is true?