One of the things I love about being part of Romance Writers of America is having access to opportunites I would never have otherwise., like have my opinion heard by the biggest book seller in the world, Amazon. Last week I had the pleasure of joining other local authors Gina Robinson, Ashlyn Mathews, Deborah Schneider and Heather Greye to meet with representatives from Amazon and Montlake Publishing who wanted to know how they can make the shopping experience better at the Amazon store.
Since writers are readers too, we had lots of ideas to streamline and enrich the book shopping experience. Many of us spoke about how we love to browse the shelves at the bookstore and the power of a good cover. Gina spoke of how an interesting cover or off-hand recommendation may lead her to a new author or series she might not have noticed otherwise. Heather asked for a way to better filter through the millions of titles to be specific to a reader’s taste while allowing for discover-ability of a new author, or a new to the reader-author.
Amazon asked if readers would enjoy an “Editor’s Recommendation” list. I think we all agreed recommendations and reviews are very hit or miss, and are only as reliable as the person who gives them. But hand-selling is just as important of a marketing tool online as it is in the brick and mortar stores. Personalbilty and genuineness is the way to connect to a reader. If Amazon was to post employee recommendations, I would be more interested in reading what the person in accounting was reading and not someone in acquisitions, especially if they’re suggesting books from other publishers.
When Amazon pitched an idea of a subscription option for readers, which sounded a lot like the KDP Select program, my red flag alarm waved at hurricane urgency. Let’s say for $15 you can download as many books as you want in a month. If you download 50 books, how much of that $15 goes to the author? That’s right. Pretty much nothing. That same question was posed to Amazon and none of them had any clue. In fact, it appeared they hadn’t even thought about how the author would be affected. Frightening.
By the end of the night, the general consensus was we as readers want the bookstore experience with the speed and ease of the internet. It will be exciting to see if any of our suggestions are put into action. Time will tell.