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
A Closer Look at The Pulpwood Queens Book Club
The tiara-wearing, book-bearing and author-sharing women who comprise the members of the Pulpwood Queens Book Club have a lot of fun together but their mission is most serious: promoting reading, literacy and helping several worthwhile authors get some much-deserved attention. It’s an accomplishment that makes club founder Kathy Patrick proud.
“We are the largest meeting and discussing book club in America, and I believe we may be the only franchised book club that meets and discusses the same book in person,” she says.
Although Patrick always wanted to be in a book club she found most clubs were too elitist and pretentious. She wanted a club that would be fun and also promoted reading, and in March 2000, Patrick opened the first hair salon/bookstore in the country, Beauty and the Book, drawing on her varied experiences ranging from book publisher’s representative to cosmetologist.
The first step was to get members. “For about a month I talked this book club up as the next best thing since sliced bread,” she recalls, contacting friends and clients. Six women showed up for that meeting, most of them women Patrick did not know very well. But she plied them with wine, fruit and cheese and told them they were going to be called The Pulpwood Queens of East Texas Book Club.
“I wanted our club to not only appeal to those of us in historic Jefferson, Texas, but be a book club that reached out to those who lived at the surrounding lakes, even outside the county,” says Patrick. “Our motto was going to be ‘where tiaras are mandatory and reading good books is the RULE!’ They all looked at me like deer caught in someone’s headlights so I plied them with more wine and just blabbered away.”
After the women left, Patrick was convinced she’d never see them again, but 35 women showed up the next month all wearing tiaras and carrying casserole dishes. Since then, Patrick has never looked back. Currently the Pulpwood Queens’ charter chapter fluctuates from 50 to 100 members year to year. While the majority of Pulpwood Queens Book Club chapters are in Texas there are also chapters in Virginia, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida, for a total membership of approximately 1,000 nationwide. A new club starts every week, but some chapters fold as each group is only as good as its Head Queen, Patrick observes.
When it comes to selecting books, Patrick says she likes to choose books from authors who are undiscovered, authors who haven’t made the television book club lists or the New York Times bestseller list, and first books written by writers who were previously known for another career.
“I have found that critics and book reviewers tend to discriminate against television writers turned book authors, like one of our Pulpwood Queens Book Club Selections Liberating Paris, by Linda Bloodworth Thomason of “Designing Women” fame. A great read is a great read regardless of where the writer has been,” she says.
Authors Michael Lee West, Sarah Bird, Carol Dawson and Sharon Boorstin are Pulpwood Queens’ favorites because even though they have written more than one book they still haven’t broken into “the big leagues.”
“My criteria are the books must be well-written and have merit, there must be something discussable, the book must give a new voice to literature, and I really want to help get an author discovered,” explains Patrick. “A few buyers in New York are unfortunately shaping what America reads,” she adds.
Since Patrick believes “a good book is a good book,” she will review print-on-demand books if they fit the Pulpwood Queens’ criteria.
Typically Patrick receives five to 10 books a week, but she’s overwhelmed with submissions when the Pulpwood Queens are featured in the media. “I answered my phone one call right after another for two days straight after we kicked off “Good Morning America’s” READ THIS Book Club, and then the phone rang off the hook for two weeks after a feature in the Los Angeles Times. It was fun, but as always, fleeting,” Patrick says of the notoriety, which hasn’t changed the focus of the group.
“It’s just the frosting on the cake,” Patrick says of the media attention. “I’m asked all the time if I have let the media go to my head. I reply by telling them I still put my skirt on one leg at a time and still clean my own toilets. Our focus has and will always be to promote literacy.”
While Pulpwood Queens are not required to attend meetings, it is mandatory to read the book selections. This policy has helped author’s bookstore sales, says Patrick. In addition, many publishers place the Pulpwood Queens’ Official Stamp of Approval on their books, which helps generate additional sales, even if the purchaser doesn’t belong to the book club. “They feel the book is a good choice if the club selected it,” she says.
And the Pulpwood Queens have seen some exciting results for books they’ve reviewed. “Many books after we have selected them as a book of the month club selection sell their paperback rights, movie rights or their book gets picked up by Oprah to be featured or one of the other television book clubs. Our last author, after we selected him, was chosen as the Southeast Bookseller Association’s ‘Southern Book of the Year’ and is in negotiations with Hallmark Hall of Fame,” notes Patrick, referring to poet-turned-author Ron Rash’s Saints of the River.
Since Beauty and the Book is a combination hair salon/bookstore, Patrick still finds time to do hair, Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. unless she’s running the book club or attending a speaking engagement. “We are not our mothers’ book club and we are not our mothers’ hair salon. Beauty and the Book is a state-of-the-art Redken Salon and all my salon professionals are just that – professionals,” she said. Patrick and her staff keep themselves educated and attend all area hair cutting, coloring and product classes. “Anything you have done in the big city you can have done at Beauty and the Book. We want everyone who graces our doors to know that they are very important to us and we appreciate their business,” she says, adding that they are often open on holidays and weekend evenings, too.
Any Pulpwood Queens Selection Author who graces the doors of Beauty and the Book receives services free of charge. “I figure if they come to ‘Mayberry on the Bayou,’ I better treat them like royalty,” says Patrick. Oxford American Magazine dubbed Patrick “Hairdresser of the Authors,” and she’s run with the title. “Jose Eber has nothing on the Pulpwood Queens,” says Patrick, referring to the infamous hairdresser to the stars. “Besides, I’d rather do an author’s hair any day as opposed to a star’s!”
Patrick would like to see the Pulpwood Queens continue to grow and pass from one generation to the next. “I would love it if my daughters (Helaina, 13 and Madeleine, 9, both avid readers) ran Pulpwood Queens book clubs, and then their daughters long after I am gone. Reading is the one fundamental key toward education and making this world a better place. There aren’t any negatives with reading, all positive actions,” she says.
Kathy Patrick can be contacted at
kathy@beautyandthebook.com or at Beauty and the Book, 210 West Austin, Jefferson, TX 75657 (903) 665-7520.
Secrets of Striking Media Gold with Blogs
If you’re in the midst of your media campaign don’t overlook pitching bloggers, especially those who are opinion makers in your industry. Why? Because in the last twelve months bloggers have gone from on-line journals and opinion pieces to newsworthy opinion drivers and in many cases, the single most reliable place to get an accurate assessment of a news item, product, or service.
One of the main reasons blogs have taken this turn is because the public is increasingly distrustful of mainstream media and media outlets. Why? Because these are often viewed as being somewhat biased and beholden to sponsors, organizations and in some cases, even the government. Blogs and bloggers are beholden to no one because they are a free, unfunded source for media. Consequently the public is turning their attention more and more to these bloggers, and media relations professionals are using bloggers to help them further their efforts by spreading the word about a topic related to a book/author. We’ve seen this in our company as it relates to our Virtual Author Tours, one of the main reasons these tours are successful (read: sell books) is because whenever possible we push bloggers who are opinion makers in their industry.
So if you’re convinced that bloggers need to be a part of your media campaign, what’s next? Well, first you need to find the right bloggers for your story and you need to remember that above all else be honest and disclose everything. If the blogger finds out on their own that there are parts of this story you didn’t mention, they’ll address them and this might cast a bad light on you. Bacon’s Media Group recently published a report on pitching bloggers; here are a few things they address (as well as a few ideas of our own) when going after a blog:
- Know the blog. Don’t just pitch randomly, know the blog and blogger you’re going after. This means reading past blogs – all of them
- Don’t worry about exclusives. Bloggers love community and aren’t hungry for the exclusive like the traditional media.
- Follow the links. Most of the more popular blogs have links to other similar blogs; follow those links and check out those blogs because they might be worth a pitch as well.
- Create your own blog. It’s that community thing; bloggers want to see you’ve got an active blog as well and are a joiner.
- Personalize. As with any pitch you want to personalize, don’t send out a standard, generic pitch. Even truer than in traditional media, bloggers hate generic.
- Understand the ‘blog food chain.’ Not unlike traditional media, the bigger the blogger the tougher it is to break in so be patient and when you’re targeting bloggers make sure you have a blend of first and second tier bloggers so you don’t get discouraged.
- Become a source. Once you’ve tapped into a blog, become a source for that blogger, even if it means turning a story over to someone more qualified. Try to stay on a blogger’s radar screen with relevant tips, insights and news to keep the blogger updated on their (your) industry and help them make their own blog cutting edge.
- Monitor the ‘blog-osphere.’ Keep an eye on other blogs by tapping into blog monitoring services like Technorati (www.technorati) and Blogdex (www.blogdex.com). This will allow you to not only follow bloggers (who may not have RSS feeds - for the full scoop on RSS sent away for our free article on Really (really) Simple Syndication mailto:rssarticle@getresponse.com) but also help you determine how many times your name and book has been featured in one of the blogs you’ve pitched (bloggers may not always tell you).
- The mainstream media reads blogs. If you still aspire to attract traditional media air time, know this: the media reads blogs and will often consider people “experts” who are featured on a number of blogs. Also some bloggers might be attached to media outlets, which allows them to expand on stories featured in the mainstream media and offer daily updates on particular topics.
- Finding news-driven blogs. While you’re searching for topic-related blogs don’t overlook news-driven blogs. These are blogs that vary in topic but are driven by daily news items. If you have a story that ties into a hot news topic these blogs might be the best place for you to go. (We’ve listed a few of them at the end of this article).
- Saturate the market. Get your topic/story/book out there, since bloggers don’t need exclusivity you can go crazy with your pitches. But remember, the more saturated your category (for example, money, relationships, diet, and health), the tougher it might be to get to those crucial bloggers’ attention. We addressed doing a mix of first and second tier bloggers, but you might also want to consider doing second (or third) tier bloggers exclusively so you can build your reputation within the on-line market and use that as a springboard to up-tier to more prominent blogs and catch the rising stars.
- Separate the good from the bad. When it comes to blogs nearly everyone has one now so how you can find those first, second and third tier blogs while staying away from the “mom and pop” type blogs that can’t really further your message? Well, first you’ll want to start with a Boolean search on Google (search string: “your topic” AND blog) and begin reviewing the various blogs that pop up. You’ll want to look for frequency in blogging (daily, weekly, etc.), tone, relevancy of material and topics/content addressed. A good way to determine this is in the posting. If the postings are all “banter” about recipes, family vacations and other personal anecdotes sprinkled in with relevant on-point material you might want to stay away from these. Why? Because good bloggers stay on-point, which also helps drive traffic to these sites. Bloggers who are just hobbyists and not opinion drivers, will differ in their postings and because of this, probably won’t attract the level of traffic other blogs get.
To give your new blog campaign a kick start, I’ll a few of the major news blogs here. If any of these blogs seem relevant to your campaign, add them to your list of blog media and start following their entries:
Bloggerman: www.msnbc.com/id/6210240
Buzzmachine: www.buzzmachine.com
Instapundit: www.instapundit.com
Shameless plug: Ready to launch your virtual media blog campaign? Ask us about our Virtual Author Tours. Send an email to: virtualauthortours@getresponse.com
