Curious as to the actual salary and additional perks that a prolific book reviewer acquires? Well, I’ve researched the web for that, digging up and positively hoping for at least a ballpark figure. What I got was a success story. Read on:
The Secret Life Of An Online Book Reviewer
Over the last seven years, Donald Mitchell, a 60-year-old strategy consultant in Boston, has made $20,000 writing book reviews on Amazon.com. He’s so good, and so prolific–with 2,923 reviews to date–that Amazon customers have consistently voted him among the top five reviewers on the site. (The top reviewer, a former librarian from Pennsylvania named Harriet Klausner, has reviewed 12,753 books. Skeptics doubt that she actually exists.)
Mitchell is part of an online subculture that has helped democratize the reviewing process and cemented Amazon’s (nasdaq: AMZN – news – people ) significance in the publishing world. Oprah Winfrey and the New York Times can elevate an obscure debut novelist to a best seller, but Amazon provides the shortest path between a good review and an actual sale: The two are just a click away.
The publishing world–as well as the top brass at Amazon–understands this connection. In 2004 Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos invited top reviewers to a company retreat. Best-selling authors like John Rechy, who wrote City of Night, have been caught pseudonymously giving themselves favorable Amazon reviews. Meanwhile, everyman types like Mitchell have become minor celebrities among book buyers and writers alike.
Mitchell started writing reviews in 1999, when he was about to publish his first book, a business manual called The 2,000 Percent Solution. He reads a book a day and writes a review “whenever it feels like it needs to come out”–usually about five a week. He gravitates toward business books. “But I also like memoirs,” he says. “I read a lot of mystery stories. Also, photography. And art–I’m an art collector. And thrillers, and pop culture. I also review self-help books. I do a lot of books about psychiatry. And children’s books.”
Mitchell tries to write reviews as if he’s talking to someone, and he knows how to please his audience. “In novels, they want to know how much is action versus how much is the thought process,” he says. “I have a mental template that I use.” Something about Mitchell’s prose inspires people to contact him. He receives a handful of e-mails a day, most often from people who want to learn to read faster or start their own businesses. “A lot of people will contact me about advising their children: how they can get into Harvard, what they should do for their careers.” He also hears from women who want to divorce their husbands. “I try to send them information and resources,” he says. “They never explain why they pick me out.” He tries to respond to everyone.
Reviewing has its perks. “People are always inviting me to go on trips with them,” he says. “If I have reviewed a travel book, they’ll invite me to go to that place with them.” He gets frequent dinner offers (which he accepts “occasionally”), and after mentioning in a review that he had never played on the Yale golf course, a reader invited him to play there. He accepted.
Writers regularly court Mitchell. He receives up to 40 books a day and hears directly from the author “80% of the time.” He says that Jamie Lee Curtis sends him notes when he reviews her children’s books, and Jack Canfield–of Chicken Soup for the Soul fame–contacts him before releasing a new book. After he reviewed Spencer Johnson’s book Who Moved My Cheese?, Mitchell says, Johnson called him to discuss his criticism and incorporated his suggestions in later editions.
Mitchell has parlayed his reviews into a profitable enterprise. For authors who write books that Mitchell wouldn’t typically review, he’ll ask them to make a $600 donation to Habitat for Humanity. The donation doesn’t guarantee a favorable review, although Mitchell concedes that he’ll try to make it longer. He originally charged $25 and has since bumped up the price. “I’m probably not charging enough,” he says. “A friend told me I should ask for $2,000.” Mitchell has donated his $20,000 in review earnings to Habitat.
Mitchell’s experience as a reviewer jump-started his career as a writer. When he started looking for a literary agent two years ago, he says he found 14 who were willing to represent him. He has 50 blurbs for his upcoming book, which he publicizes on a separate blog run by Amazon. “I found that people were quite helpful,” Mitchell says. “Many people have offered to review it.”
- Forbes.com
See how inspiring Mitchell’s career has become? True enough, with the right amount of interests, skills, and hard work, you can just follow his steps to superior (and much sought-after) book reviewer status.
