Why I Give Books Away

For a year or so I’ve wanted to write a post about the impact of book reviews, specifically on Amazon book reviews, but Anne R. Allen has saved me the trouble.

In short: Amazon owns my writing career.

They make their decisions based on reviews by people like you.

And when I say “people like you,” I mean you, personally.

The biggest thing you can do to help any author is review their book in twenty words or more, and rate it four or five stars, and post it on Amazon. (Amazon considers a 3-star review not average, but negative.)

Today, for good or ill, Amazon owns the book business. Especially tech authors. We live and die by Amazon reviews. Reviews on other sites are nice too, but if the review isn’t on Amazon, it’s mostly shouting into the echo chamber.

2 Replies to “Why I Give Books Away”

  1. first book i purchase was your book Absolute BSD when i still a student .
    btw, Keep going, you do very well 😀

  2. Yes. I look forward to buying and giving high scores to the new OpenBSD and OpenSSH books, which will surely deserve both stars and dollars.

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