- If you've been publishing
on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing long enough,
you probably have noticed a little bit of a problem
with reviews being taken away.
You're kind of wondering what the heck is going on.
I've got these honest, legit, organic reviews
that are being put on my book
and Amazon's stripping them off my product page.
Well if that hasn't happened to you,
then I can anticipate it may happen to you
if you don't stay tuned to today's video.
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This is Self Publishing With Dale,
where you learn to publish books that sell
and build an unstoppable author brand.
Have you had any of your book reviews
removed from your product page?
If so, how many times has it happened
and do you have any kind of speculations
as to why it may have happened?
I definitely would love to hear from you,
so just drop your thoughts in the comments down below.
Also, stick around to the end,
because I'm gonna give a big bonus tip again
and it's gonna show you
how you can make more money per book sale.
In my recent video about Kindle Direct Publishing,
The Dirty Little Secret, a viewer comment by Eric said this.
"Yeah, I always share with the stripped down URL.
"It's not worth having a review taken down."
Big kudos, Eric.
I appreciate you actually bringing that up,
because I did gloss over that when sharing
a little bit of information about sharing Super URLs
and about how it can really lead
to a less than satisfactory result.
As a review, super URLs are associated
to your book's product page.
When you're searching for a given keyword term,
it'll pull up that specific book.
So let's just say you visit the Amazon platform,
you search up a relevant keyword to your book,
you find your book, you click on it,
and then you grab this really long Super URL as its called
and you share it with people
in the hopes that you gain relevancy for a keyword,
otherwise known as search engine optimization
or you're just inadvertently sharing a link
without knowing why it's dirty.
The biggest problem lies here.
The reviews get removed due to
people purchasing your product through the Super URL.
First of all why would Amazon remove the reviews?
Based on their community guidelines,
they want only unbiased reviews.
This means that you can't know me,
I can't know you directly,
so friends and family is typically out of the question.
If they find somebody inside your household
leaving reviews on your product, they're gonna pull that.
So they want to have 100% unbiased and honest reviews,
but that makes you scratch your head going,
but I don't know this person
who bought my book and left a review.
As I mentioned in the previous video,
when it comes to the Super URLs,
there's two unique identifiers
called the QID and the book number
that they purposely stamp within these long Super URLs.
What it is is a unique identifier for you
when you're searching it up.
The issue is, the QID is a timestamp so it's unique in that,
the likelihood of somebody else at that very same exact time
searching up that specific book
with that specific search term are slim and none.
So Amazon starts to figure out,
and they start to piece things together here with the A9
and it starts to go wait, hang on.
These two have to be related in some capacity,
so this is clearly, if they leave a review here,
it's not unbiased.
Now, a few other people start to say
well what if I remove the QID
and I remove the book number from the Super URL?
The issue is, it's still a bit tainted
because there's some other code that's in there
and unfortunately, I don't know exactly
what that code represents
or how to get it to where it's on the up and up.
In fact, even worse yet,
if you send somebody through that Super URL,
or the Super URL without the QID and book number,
and there's a high volume,
it's gonna set off some buzzers
and the red flags are gonna shoot up
and Amazon's gonna go whoa, whoa, whoa.
Something's not right here.
In face, Dave Chesson mentioned this on his website,
kindlepreneur.com about a modern day example,
and just in summary what ended up happening is
an author put out a book.
They had a following that is against that specific author.
That opposing following went over to the website
through a specific link, put a lot of low reviews.
I mean tones, and scores,
and they kept hitting the same link over and over
and it set off bells and whistles,
so then all of those reviews were purged.
So the big question is, what are the best practices
when it comes to getting reviews to stick
and getting some type of search engine optimization?
Method number one, the clean link.
I'm just gonna refer you back to the other video
where we talk a little bit about the dirty little secret
and I show you how to do this and turn it into this.
Method two, search for your title.
This is a bit of an ask, I understand this,
and sometimes customers will probably peace out
and say no, I don't feel like going through this measure,
or even some readers are just like,
ah, I just don't feel like it.
I know, we're all inherently lazy, we like to have links
and so we can be sent right to the specific product page,
but in this methodology, what you're just gonna do is say
my book is Cat Hats For Kids
and they're gonna search up your particular title.
They will look it up over on Amazon,
they will search for it, oh there it is,
they will click on it and boom.
The nice thing is, it helps out
with search engine optimization
and develops relevancy inside the Amazon algorithm.
Therefore, it's going to drop down a lot more
inside the autosuggestions
the more that people start to search for your title.
Sure the pros include gaining relevancy,
but the cons are, well sometimes people don't feel like
going through those extra steps.
But here's the beauty of it.
Chances are pretty likely that if the person's willing
to type out the title of your book,
they're gonna probably be a little more willing
and a bit more receptive to purchasing your title
when it's all said and done.
Method three, search for your title
through a specific keyword.
Okay, this is very similar
to what I just said in method two,
but what you're going to do is tell them what the title is
and say you can find it underneath cat hats.
So let's say my book is Cat Hats For Kids,
they're gonna look up cat hats,
and they're gonna scan through the selections in there.
Now, they might find your book on the first page,
they might find it on the second page.
Just make them aware of your author name
and what the cover possibly looks like
so that they can pinpoint it.
Here's the beauty of using that specific search term,
is you're gonna hopefully get enough volume
of searches of that specific keyword
and gain relevancy on that,
and hopefully in turn more sales,
and it starts to elevate your particular title
and then you're crushing it in cat hats.
Again the pros are you're gaining relevancy
and search engine optimization,
but the cons, again, it's a bit of attrition
because there's gonna be some people that don't feel
like going and looking for your title
and then there's gonna be some people
that will go to the first page
and say, I didn't see your book
and they're gonna probably stop looking,
so you're gonna wanna make sure
that the people you're recommending to do that
are really willing to go through those extra steps
and find your title.
Bonus tip, Amazon Associates link
plus domain name for the win.
Step number one, get an Amazon Associates account.
All you got to do is a quick online search
of Amazon Associates and the set up is fairly intuitive.
One thing that you're gonna wanna note
is you will need some type of a website
and this website needs to actually have
some type of content, about six to 12 posts or pages.
That way, when Amazon goes to make sure
that you are who you say you are,
and that you are worthy of taking on
an Amazon Associates account,
that you actually have content to support it.
Now, don't fret.
You don't need to go out
and get some expensive hosting package.
In fact, you can even use one of the free Wordpress sites,
but you're gonna need to get yourself
a good, cheap domain name
and get something right around your specific niche,
so if mine's Cat Hats For Kids,
I can go for cathatsforkids.com.
By the way, I'm not sure if that's a real website.
Sorry if I'm sending you extra traffic
if it happens to be yours.
The key is, in getting a good domain name,
you're gonna wanna make sure it's brand specific
and it's easy to remember.
Then attach that specific domain name
over onto a Wordpress site of some sort
and then you're off to the races.
Step two, create a short link for your title.
Typically when Amazon Associates
is setting up your specific account,
you should get access relatively quick
and at that event what you do is go to your book's page,
you scroll to the very top left
and you're gonna click the drop down for the link.
You're gonna grab that short link right there.
And then when I refer people over to my specific page,
it's gonna be using the Amazon Associates link
which then I get a percentage of all sales.
Worst case scenario, let's say that they visit your link,
they say I don't want this.
What they can end up doing then is browsing about
over on the Amazon Marketplace
and they decide they want some Bounty Paper Towels
or they want some new window wipers.
Either way, you're gonna get a small percentage of that.
Amazon Associates is a great way
to make more money per book sale
as long as you're utilizing it to your advantage.
Much as I'd mentioned it inside the previous video,
Amazon Associates is okay to share.
There is nothing to worry about as far as dirty links go
and I really don't see any fault
in going for something like this.
In fact, Amazon even recommends it on Amazon Author Central,
that you get an Amazon Associates account as an author.
If you found some of this information very helpful,
do me a favor, drop #whoa down inside the comments.
Definitely would love to hear from you,
and by the way, is Amazon KDP really worth it?
I mean, really?
I think that you need to hear me out
inside this very next video,
so make sure you go down, check it out.
I'll see you there.
KDP select program.
It's very interesting in that you have
a 90 day exclusivity agreement.
Now you don't have to...