Is every review I write top notch work? I’d be the first to say “No” because I sometimes get to them after I’ve met deadlines for my other writing work and this means that some Amazon reviews are written at 3 am. Not prime time for a writer . But my reviews are honest and I don’t sell out like other reviewers there do (it doesn’t take long to find those). I consider my efforts to be a balance among the dregs of the shills and the others who just want to pump up sales for even the most abysmal movies and books.

So, yes….I do consider Amazon to be worth my time. I’ve not only gotten those “wonderful rewards” that you seem to scorn but have built contacts and gotten lucrative assignments, all from starting out as a lowly, unpaid book reviewer, doing the work only out of a passion and love of books and other items.

Perhaps you are right about Amazon “laughing all the way to the bank” but I still feel that readers deserve to know what actual readers think about books and what I think of other products I can review there.

Lord knows there are enough critics at Amazon and other sites who are willing to shill books and not give honest reviews. For those of us who ARE willing to give our true opinion of a book or review, good or bad, I think we deserve a little credit.

It is possible to make money as a writer online and off but to do so sometimes you may need to tap into the lesser paying jobs, even the freebies, to build a network. Remember, you never know who may be reading your work. Speaking from experience, I got my blurb on the cover of a major book after an author saw my review on Amazon. In another case, the scriptwriter for a major film contacted me and thanked me for my review (one in which I panned the film) because it was honest and fair, in his opinion. This led to a series of emails which were very helpful and some film contacts. So scorn those reviews if you like but I stand by my position that they are useful to a writer.

Writing customer comments on Amazon does not make anyone a ‘top reviewer’. I should know. From 1999-2004 I was one of Amazon.co.uk’s top reviewers. Which is to say a professional writer who was paid for every word I wrote (£40/$80 per 200 word review - £150/$300 per 1000 word article/interview). I delivered well over a 1000 professional reviews for Amazon, together with dozens of lengthy articles and interviews with such people as Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Colin (Doctor Who) Baker and Stephen Warbeck (Director of Music of the Royal Shakespeare Company and Oscar-winning composer for Shakespeare in Love). Then Amazon realised there were plenty of people willing to write a semblance of a review for free. Some of these amateur reviews are actually very good. Amazon decided to money by more or less disposing of professional reviews.

It is very sad that Jane Corn considers Amazon tossing her the odd toy now and then via its Amazon Vine programme a ‘wonderful reward’. Or perhaps its just ’sour grapes’, but little wonder it is increasingly difficult to convince companies to pay for professional content when writers are happy with this sort of treatment. And don’t be fooled: no one has a ‘following’ on Amazon. It is bizarre that anyone would be happy to help a huge corporate entity such as Amazon make ever more money for essentially no reward. Having found an endless supply of free content Amazon are laughing all the way to the bank.