Despite a way too long subtitle and “salesy” claims, Sell Your Book on Amazon surprises. Its format simplifies finding the sections of interest – couple that with the ratings from five stars indicating “a must do” item to one star meaning “Don’t waste your time.” Authors who publish their books using a print-on-demand (POD) service will benefit most from this book.

However, authors with books published through traditional publishers will find useful tactics. Nowadays, authors must do their own marketing instead of relying on the publisher. Most authors don’t reach the popularity of bestselling authors like the John Grishams, J.K. Rowlings, and Malcome Gladwells. These authors need not worry about marketing.

But that’s not the case for most of us. So we have to research and figure our way around sites like Amazon from a different point of view than a shopper’s. You may already be doing some or most of the recommended activities discussed in the book. Or maybe you could do more to boost sales.

Naturally, Sampson spends most of the book discussing Amazon’s Profile Page (which he often references as Author Profile Page, but that’s not what Amazon calls it) and Book Detail Page. Despite my using Amazon since the early ’90s when it was just an online bookstore, I’ve picked up a few things from the book.

For instance, I didn’t know that authors can set up a “Search Inside” page. I thought that was under the publisher’s control. You may have to deal with your publisher in terms of your contract and Amazon’s contract. These little tidbits may justify the cost of buying the book.

Authors certainly can request reviews. Sampson, however, recommends asking for a five-star review, rationalizing the advice by saying a book will get plenty of reviews that aren’t five stars. It’s just not right for an author to tell me (a reviewer) this.

Yes, a highly rated book will get a boost, but I believe requesting a review is enough. Ironically, in the letters I received for reviewing the book — they make no mention of recommending I provide a five-star review.

In the intro, the author mentions BXGY. What’s that? I look for BXGY in the index and find other pages covering the abbreviation that explain it. Most, if not all, writing style guides say to expand an acronym or abbreviation on first occurrence. Or else you waste the reader’s time in trying to figure out little things like this.

The tactic ratings are imperfect. For example, I disagree with the five-star rating on Amazon’s blog feature. Blogs do have a place — just not in Amazon. I would rather read the author’s blog on the author’s own site. It clutters Amazon with more marketing material. Furthermore, Amazon offers other ways to get your URL listed. Nonetheless, many probably find value in authors’ blogs. The important thing for authors remember is to use their best judgment in prioritizing what features to address. They know their target market and their needs.

Sell Your Book on Amazon works well as a resource. Authors can browse the tactics for what interests them. Then study those tactics and put them to work. The ratings offer a general guideline of a tactic’s importance — but ultimately the author can decide what’s best.

Not all tactics in the book are about things authors can do. A couple — like Amazon sales rank and Latest Activity features — explain what they are and how the processes work.

While the book’s description makes promises of increasing sales by 20 percent at a minimum and thousands of dollars in royalties — don’t expect a quick fix. It takes time to put the tactics to work and build on them. These tactics can increase book sales, if authors follow up and follow through.

Successful authors tend to read a lot. As such, they are also Amazon’s target market for the book section. Writers keeping this in mind will examine at other author’s profiles and book pages. In doing this research, they will discover what they like and don’t like about these pages. Authors who apply what they’ve learned to their own profiles and book pages will improve their Amazon presence.

Amazon lists the number of pages in the book as 184. The book only has 164 pages. Regardless, the book contains less content since the narrow margins stretch out the content. Notes appear on the sides for highlighting points, but there aren’t many to justify putting the contents in a narrower than normal margin.

Content nitpicks aside, the formatting speeds finding tactics you want to work on. Although this review points out issues, Sampson does a nice job of organizing Sell Your Book on Amazon and showing step-by-step how to do each tactic. Overall, the author offers common sense tips and advice for taking advantage of Amazon’s features. Since the book is an easy and light read, it won’t be difficult for overwhelmed authors to “get around” to using the book.

• Title: Sell Your Book on Amazon: The Book Marketing COACH Reveals Top-Secret “How-to” Tips Guaranteed to Increase Sales for Print-on-Demand and Self-Publishing Writers
• Author: Brent Sampson
• Publisher: Outskirts
• ISBN: 1432701967
• Date: March 2007
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 164
• Cover Price: USD: $14.95

I was reviewing feedback left for a Marketplace seller. Here are a couple of snippets:

“Great book for new moms to be!

“Excellent book!”

“Great book…”

“Great quality…”

“Great product…”

This person is a book seller. He doesn’t publish books or sell e-books. So if a person buys a book from him and the book stinks, does that mean the seller is bad, too? If you’re thinking the person could be describing the book’s condition, there are better ways to say that like these:

“As described…”

“Great condition…”

“The order arrived in a timely manner, however the book had water damage…it was listed as almost new.”

“Item arrived well packed and in great condition.”

I always forget where to find the feedback page and the product ordered page complete with its condition. You can’t find these in the same place.

The Recent Transactions page (you get there from Your Account > Amazon.com Payments: View All Your Recent Purchases > Sign in > Search transactions or click “Recent Transactions.”

The Transaction ID/Order ID page has the buyer’s shipping address, items ordered and price, payment date, and transaction activity.

The Listing ID shows the item information, seller, seller’s ratings, condition seller listed, and seller’s comments.

Leave feedback is not reachable at any of these pages. It took me five minutes to find it again. I had to click on “Where’s My Stuff” from the Your Account page.

Why can’t all of this be in one convenient place? Perhaps, Amazon’s huge and complex backend may limit its ability. When I got stuck in the Marketplace account pages, I had to email the company because the Help didn’t help.

If I want to see my friends’ wish lists or check to see if I reviewed something, I click on “Your Wish List” > “Your Amazon Home.” It sounds like “Your Amazon Home” should be in the global navigation and this could take you to your accounts and everything else. Yeah, you can get to the account pages and “Where’s My Stuff” if you scroll to the very bottom of Your Amazon Home. It would be nice to get to this page in one click instead of two.

Wow. I’m ranked in the 1200s as a reviewer. You don’t get any awards for hitting top 1000 or top 500 reviewers, but the info appears by your name. Just have to get a few hundred more votes and I’m in. I haven’t been top anything for years.