Get Your Name On The Back Cover Of PNI!

Since I launched my new book PNI, I have been getting emails, Facebook messages, Twitter updates and live feedback at events about what people liked and didn’t like about the book. These comments are a wealth of insight, but no one aside from me is getting the benefit of seeing them. Amazon reviews are the most visible way right now of sharing this type of feedback, but most people will not bother to go to the effort to write a review on Amazon – unless they have the right incentive. That’s what this post is about.

If you have read Personality Not Included and have some thoughts about it, I’m asking you to post your review on Amazon.com (or on an international version of Amazon if you happen to be outside the US). To offer an incentive, I also agreed with my publisher that we will be taking one quote from an Amazon review and featuring it on the outside back cover of the next edition printing of Personality Not Included (McGraw-Hill makes the final call). That means anyone who picks up the book in a bookstore or searches it online will see your name and organization name or URL. So before I start, I want to clarify a few things.

First of all, I am NOT in any way asking you to lie or share opinions about PNI that you don’t personally feel. If you read the book and hated it, go ahead and post your review to that effect on Amazon or anywhere else. I probably won’t use it for the back cover (obviously), but I’m not trying to stop you from doing that. Instead, my goal is to reach the many people who have read the book, but have not posted a review on Amazon because there is no tangible reason or benefit. Hopefully, this idea gives you a reason … visibility. You don’t need to be a blogger or a CMO to participate. My goal is to take a piece of REAL feedback from one of you and feature it on the back cover of the second edition, and encourage some useful book reviews on Amazon.

If you have already posted a review, don’t worry – you’ll be included in this competition. If you haven’t, but had some thoughts after reading the book, please share them on Amazon. And if you think this idea is just a cheap stunt to get more Amazon reviews, post a comment here and let’s talk about it. As an author, asking for reviews is a minefield because you don’t want to manipulate people, but you do want them to review the book so more people hear about it. Successful or not, I’m considering this an experiment in doing that.

Admission: For the more astute, you probably noted an assumption in this post – which is that PNI will actually get a second edition printed. All expectations from the publisher are that we will do one … but it does depend on sales of the first edition, so I don’t want to mislead anyone to thinking its a done deal. The chances are pretty good, though.