Johnny Carson had this great trick where, after a joke bombed, he’d do such a good double-take that he’d end up getting a huge laugh. This gimmick could never have worked as his sole shtick—at some point, Johnny had to tell some good jokes—but it was a reliable way to limit the downside. For the purpose of our discussion here, the point is that, even when the joke failed, Carson had a way out.
I thought of this today after following a link from a commenter that led to this blog on publicity-minded author Tim Ferriss. I’ve never read anything by Ferriss but I’ve read about him on occasion: his gimmick is he promotes his book using ingenious marketing strategies. Sort of like how Madonna is famous for being famous, and Paris Hilton is famous for being famous for being famous, Ferriss is famous for self-promotion.
Matt Metzgar writes:
I [Metzgar] saw a bunch of ads on the internet today for Tim Ferriss’ new book. Even though the book was released today, it already has all these five-star reviews that were coincidentally all posted today.
From a perceptive (real) reviewer on Amazon:
I find it interesting that all the reviews for this book are 5 star. I was impressed UNTIL I noticed that all the reviews were submitted on the same day at almost the same time. So, I looked at what else the reviewers were reviewing. Most of them ONLY reviewed this book.
Then notice how this person gets attacked by commenters – “but Tim Ferriss produces all this great content”, “these are all honest reviews”, etc.
Hilarious! And Ferriss is laughing all the way to the bank.
Indeed, what’s impressive about this strategy is its fail-safe nature. Step 1 is to hire a bunch of people in India or wherever to create Amazon accounts and write five-star reviews for your book. (It might seem cleverer to slip in a few 3-star or 4-star reviews, but don’t do it; what browsers notice is the average number of stars, so don’t get cute.) Step 2 is, if you’re caught at it, hire more puppets to defend and deny. Step 3 is to ignore. After all, Amazon doesn’t care; the more books you sell through them, the better. Finally, once it’s all out, don’t just admit it, embrace it: make it part of your legend that you sold thousands of books this way. (While you’re at it, you can exaggerate; call it millions of books.) There’s an almost mathematical beauty to it: once you establish a reputation as a rule-breaking bad boy, every time you get caught is just one more chapter in your life story. (I’m not saying Ferriss followed the above strategy; I have no idea whether he hired anyone in India to review his book. The above is just the kind of thing I can imagine, a clever way of promoting yourself by getting around the rules, knowing that, if you do get called on it, you always have the fallback plan of using it as an example of how enterprising you are.)
I find it a bit repulsive myself but perhaps this is just a sign that I’m getting older; in earlier decades I enjoyed reading stories about charming scam artists.
You may find this interesting: 5 Time management tricks I learned from years of hating Tim Ferriss
Amazon does have something to lose — trust. It’s the same issue as with Google and all the link farms. Google makes money off of them, but sending users there annoys the users and lowers the perceived quality of your search.
Amazon apparently just deleted a bunch of reviews:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/technology/amazon-book-reviews-deleted-in-a-purge-aimed-at-manipulation.html
I don’t trust any of the online reviews in places like menupages any more. The positive ones seem fake and the remaining negative ones turn me off, so if I tried to read it, I’d never go anywhere to eat!
Speaking of fake reviews, then this is a really interesting case:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/023115254X
Lots of climate deniers posting bad reviews without reading the book and coordinating the “attack” through blogs, and the author trying to counter that by rousing his social network through e.g. Twitter.
It would be interesting to know if this is common place behavior in other areas such as e.g. evolution.
Maybe the suspect reviews have been purged from the site, but, right now, most reviews from the launch date look like they were written by real people. Many are “Amazon Verified Purchases” and perhaps half of them reviewed other items in the past. I did notice that, in their reviews, books on enterpreneurship/startups seem to be overrepresented.
See for yourself
http://www.amazon.com/The-4-Hour-Chef-Learning-Anything/product-reviews/0547884591/ref=cm_cr_pr_top_link_94?ie=UTF8&pageNumber=94&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
I think that we’re really dealing with fanboys rather than hired Indians.
“Fanboys and Indians” . . . I like that!
erm… mr. nameless, the suspect reviews haven’t been purged. In the date-reverse-sorted page you posted, try going to the earliest reviews, and you will notice the fake reviews.
The phenomenon pointed out is one of fakes generating fanbois by fooling dumb people into buying these books, and since the first stage of selection into readership is qualifying as “naive”, it’s no wonder you might get effusive reviews from said readership who are amazed at the utopia that apparently lies in ferriss-fantasy-land.
In stand-up, it’s called a “saver” (not to be confused with Amazon’s Super-saver). As Carson would say, “May your next sexual encounter be with Mary Rosh.”
I think some of the reviews of this book may be fake.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Good-bye-Depression-Constrict-Everyday/dp/0595094724/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
FYI, I mentioned Matt Metzgar’s comments in an Amazon review, and it was rejected by Amazon.
In fairness, I have not actually read the book. And there are probably good reasons to be suspicious of reviews that contain links to external material.
The real strategy Tim Ferriss is using is:
Send book copies to your friends before the book get published. Tell those friends that you would appreciate it if the would leave a review of the book on amazon after reading it.
Tim simply has enough friends that he doesn’t need to hire anybody in India and can still get a bunch of positive reviews using that strategy.
It is fairly standard practice to send out pre-release copies to friends for the good reviews. So apparently, once you gain a reputation as a genius blackhat marketing expert, you no longer even need to be one. Just apply the standard tricks of the trade, and you will get free advertising as a marketing genius.