Meet Amazon Top 10 Reviewer Don Mitchell
By reading just two hours per day, Donald Mitchell has earned himself a spot as a Top 10 reviewer at amazon.com, totaling 2,676 published reviews and 44,390 helpful votes from the site’s users. That ranks him as number 3 on the overall book reviewer list, although Mitchell is indifferent to his standing.Maintaining his status as an amazon.com top 10 reviewer is not a priority, says Mitchell, although he has been ranked at number 2 or 3 for more than five years. “I will read the same number of books whether or not I am ranked,” he says. Mitchell simply indulges his love of reading and lets his prolific reviewing do the rest. “I review to help others and to practice my writing,” he says. In fact, Mitchell says if his writing can be put to better use, he’ll stop reviewing at amazon.com.
What makes Mitchell proud of his reviews are the number of “helpful” votes, awarded by amazon.com users who have found his book reviews useful to them. “I found that I had more helpful votes than anyone else, so I don’t need to review everything that moves as some do,” he says.
The only difference that being in the top three makes is that Mitchell now hears about books he otherwise wouldn’t know about, and he reads and reviews some of those books.
He is not personally acquainted with other top reviewers at amazon.com, although some have emailed him with questions, information or requests. Amazon held an event for their top reviewers last year, but Mitchell says he was not able to attend.
But for Mitchell, a Boston area business consultant, reading is just a pastime that occurs only after his job running a management and financial consulting firm. Mitchell and Company has focused on learning new ways to help companies improve their performance for over 19 years. He also has a daily blog, http://livebetterthanabillionaireon5dollars.blogspot.com, teaches graduate business classes and co-authors business books, including The Ultimate Competitive Advantage: Secrets of Developing a More Profitable Business Model, which received an average of 4.5 stars out of 5 from 135 amazon.com reviewers.
His high amazon.com rating benefits from the fact that Mitchell doesn’t watch much television or read many magazines, although he still finds time to pursue numerous hobbies including golf.
How does he manage to get so much reading done? Speed. “On an average book, my speed is around 2,000 words per minute. I learned how to read quickly and with good comprehension in my English class during sophomore year of high school,” he says.
Speed reading is an acquired skill. To read faster, Mitchell says people should read more words at one glance until they can do one line at a time. “Learn to stop 'hearing' the words in your mind. Then do two lines, etc. Next, do one paragraph at a time. Then two, etc. Use tests to check your understanding as you go faster.”
Helping others improve their reading is important to Mitchell. For instance, he recommends that parents read aloud to their children as it helps them bond with their parents, develop emotional stability, and improves their reading skills and intellect, he says.
Always an avid reader, Mitchell says the only difference is now he writes reviews of what he reads rather than just reading the books. Meanwhile, online book reviews have become increasingly important in the publishing world. “Book reviews have been disappearing from magazines and newspapers,” he notes, while expanding on online sites. While early online reviews were “uniformly bad,” Mitchell says there are more and more good online reviews. “I teach graduate students and they usually find better online criticisms of the books they read than they do in publications,” he says.
Mitchell says he reviews books that interest him and he doesn’t exclude any category. “My tastes are always changing. I am particularly attracted to books that will help people live better lives,” he says. As a result, Mitchell reads a lot of non-fiction, but he’s attracted to good writing in general. “I like novels that develop characters well, and I’m a detective story addict.” In addition, he reviews art, photography and style books. “I collect art and find myself attracted to outstanding visual work,” he says.
While Mitchell says he will consider print-on-demand books, he is a little more skeptical. “I don’t know if the quality will be decent. I’ve certainly read some great print-on-demand and self-published books … but I’ve read more clunkers,” he says. Reputation helps; for instance, Wharton Publishing always seems to have great books so Mitchell is more likely to take more chances in requesting review copies from them.
Being a reviewer can have unexpected rewards, however. For Mitchell one of those times occurred when leadership expert Dr. John C. Maxwell invited Mitchell to play golf with him after reading one of Mitchell’s reviews. “We never could work out our schedules, so we still haven’t played golf. But he later did write a jacket blurb for The Ultimate Competitive Advantage,” Mitchell says.
Reviews by Mitchell typically appear on the US and UK amazon.com sites. He tried posting at barnesandnoble.com for a while, but they often didn’t publish his reviews and they didn’t offer paragraph formatting either, so Mitchell didn’t feel like the reviews looked as good as amazon’s.
His love of books and reading makes Mitchell open to pitches.
If someone would like Mitchell to consider reviewing his or her book, he says they should email him at ultimatecompetitiveadvantage@yahoo.com and explain why they think he would like their book.
This interview was done (and written) by our super-savvy team mate: Paula Krapf. To reach Paula directly send an email to: paula@amarketingexpert.com
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