Yes, why throw money at Author Solutions packages? Even when “I have a major publisher and a buzzed-about debut,” I can maybe do with a little extra push, eh? Even if I is Stephan Eirik Clark, whose novel “Sweetness #9” will be published by Little, Brown in August. All I have to do is go to those nice people at Salon and pen a little piece protesting that “Amazon buried my novel: Those search algorithms are for sale,” and they’ll even pay me for it. I mean, some writers these days get asked to write for free or to pay their publisher, while others get paid for doing their own hype. Nice work if you can get it.

Let’s just shut out the din of all those busy little Little, Brown bees generating the Stephan Eirik Clark buzz for a moment and focus here. Why shouldn’t my novel be top of the word search results even though it’s six months ahead of publication. All that buzzing ought to count for something, right? Plus now I’ m dropping its name and spelling out its title and identifying its subject clearly enough that I ought to see it creep up the visibility rankings a tad? A smidgeon? Well, with Salon on my side, it can all happen.

Never mind that that David Gaughran person has written a whole book explaining how that visibility level is determined by reader interest. It’s not showing me so it can’t be right, right? He must be in league with those bad hats at Amazon. Unlike those paragons at Salon who are brave enough to call Amazon out on this. Such pillars of editorial integrity. I mean, look at the articles they publish.

 

 

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