As originally posted on E-Reads. Reprinted by permission.

If you were browsing a book in a store and the jacket blurb said,

"This is one of the best books of the year!"
– amazon.com

...would you be inclined to buy it?

Before you say no, here's something to think about.

Any author who wants to get published successfully must run a gauntlet of "gatekeepers" who judge whether the work has artistic and commercial merit. Among the Cerberuses guarding the franchise on taste are literary agents, editors, bookshop and chain store buyers, critics and reviewers. Today's Big Publishing establishment is dominated by such gatekeepers. They also guard tradition and guard it fiercely, and who can blame them? If the gates are breached a way of life comes crashing down.

Like a walled city, the gates enclose a world of tangible books produced in physical offices and distributed to brick and mortar stores. Until recently there was no other world, and as stupid and clunky as it is, somehow we've all managed to find a way to make a living in it. But now the Digital Revolution is eroding that world, just as it has done to so many business models that depended on middle agencies for distribution of tangible products. Today's publishing model is a virtual one, and can be reduced to a simple formula: A Writer, A Reader, A Server. Absent from this formula, you will readily note, is A Reviewer. The question arises, in a world where books are sold virtually, do we still need reviewers?

After all, one of the keystones (to use a tangible image for an intangible concept) of Internet marketing is the way that public opinion can be instantly and virally created and marshaled into an economic force. Do we need gatekeepers to help us judge whether we should buy or read a book?

I happen to think that not only do we need them, we really can't exist without them. And the interesting news is, we are creating a new class of pundits. Though their taste, judgment and experience may be no better than yours, we listen to what they have to say and, like it or not, we're influenced by them. In particular I'm referring to the people who review for Amazon.com.

The idea that your next-door neighbor's opinion may affect your decision to buy or pass up a book seems unlikely. True, word of mouth has always been a factor in the fate of successful books, but usually the mouth that the words come from belongs to someone you know, not an anonymous name on a website. But wait -- when you search your Zagat guide for a restaurant recommendation, do you know who has written the review? No, but in all likelihood it's a restaurant patron with no more professional reviewing credentials than yourself. That doesn't stop you from saying, "Let's go here!" Some of your neighbors thought the food was good, the place clean, the atmosphere pleasant, the service excellent, and the prices right, and that's good enough for you.

In short, we live in an age when peer review is meaningful if not significant, and Amazon.com has used this fact to create a cadre of reviewers who must be taken seriously. Go to Amazon, click on any recently published book and page down beyond the official reviews (Publishers Weekly, New York Times, etc.). You'll find Customer Reviews, and note that many of the reviewers identify themselves as the authors of a number of reviews. If they regularly review or blog about specific genres you may in time come to the conclusion that this person's judgment is reliable and enlightening. Thereafter, when you see his or her name next to a review of a new book, you may very well be motivated to buy it.

It's worth your time to click on the link that says "See all my reviews", or on the badge beneath the reviewers name. Amazon has created a badge system to help you identify the reviewers credentials and review-worthiness.

I haven't seen too many traditional books with Amazon.com quotes blazed on the cover, but I won't be surprised if that changes before long. The first time you see one, let me know, and remember you heard it here first.

© 2007 Richard Curtis

Richard Curtis, president of Richard Curtis Associates, Inc., is a leading New York literary agent and a well known author advocate. He is also the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction including several books about the publishing industry.

He graduated from Syracuse University in 1958 with a BA in American Studies and from the University of Wyoming with a Masters degree, also in American Studies. He joined the ScottMeredith Literary Agency after graduation, and was foreign rights manager there for seven years. In 1967, he launched a freelance writing career, and has had some fifty books published by many major houses. In the early 1970's, he began his own literary agency, and in 1979 incorporated it. Richard Curtis Associates, Inc. currently represents close to 150 authors in all fields. The agency reports millions of dollars in annual sales for leading authors in every area of nonfiction and in such categories of fiction as romance, westerns, thrillers, science fiction, and fantasy.

His interest in emerging media and technology has enabled him to help authors anticipate trends in publishing and multimedia. He has lectured extensively and conducted panels and seminars devoted to raising consciousness in the author and agent community about the future of communications.

Early in the 1980's, he started writing an advice column for Locus, a science fiction newsletter, and out of his articles several books have been published including HOW TO BE YOUR OWN LITERARY AGENT, BEYOND THE BESTSELLER, MASTERING THE BUSINESS OF WRITING, and THIS BUSINESS OF PUBLISHING. He has testified as an expert witness in several publishing trials.

He was the first president of the Independent Literary Agents Association and was President of the Association of Authors' Representatives in 1996 and 1997. His company served for over a decade as agency for the Science Fiction Writers of America. In 1994, he received the prestigious Romance Writers of America Industry Award for Distinguished Service to Authors. In 1998 he was invited to serve on the editorial advisory board of Writer’s Digest. In 2000 he was invited to serve on the Publishing Master of Science advisory Board of Pace University.

Late in 1998, Richard Curtis announced the formation of e-reads, a publisher dedicated to reissuing, in e-book and print formats, previously published books in such popular categories as romance, fantasy and science fiction, and thrillers. The company commenced operation in 1999 with over 1200 titles, many by famous names in their fields, and concluded strategic alliances with all a dozen major distributors including Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Ingram Book Company. As a byproduct of his e-book activities, he collaborated with a programmer to create the Royalty Tracker, a program designed to quickly convert vast amounts of royalty information generated by e-book vendors into simple royalty statements. In 2002 Writers Digest Books published his HOW TO GET YOUR E-BOOK PUBLISHED co-authored by William Quick.

Richard Curtis is married to author Leslie Tonner and has two children. He currently resides in Manhattan. His hobbies are sports, music and painting.