Graham Parke's Blog - Posts Tagged "you-might-also-like"
If you like this book, you might also like… a couple of women??
I’m all for suggestions. My life would be far less interesting if not for the constant suggestions I receive about getting up in the morning.
Amazon enriches my life by making hundreds of irrelevant reading suggestions for me to sift through in search of that one little gem (think of it as the Amazon Easter Hunt). But none of these suggestions can top the auto generated one – I presume – that I discovered under my latest interview. The way the page is set up, it seems to suggest that, after the reader picks up a copy of my novel, they might also enjoy a couple of women. It even shows selected pictures.
Of course, if I was less of an insensitive bastard, I might assume that these are actually author pictures and that the site is merely suggesting checking out their novels. But, as I’m not, and we clearly see women and not book covers, I will assume no such thing. Assumptions can be dangerous.
So, instead, I worry about how these suggestions are generated. Are these women selected according to carefully weighed criteria? I mean, not every woman goes equally well with each book, right? I don’t want readers to be put off my book simply because the woman they got with it was too winy. Or wore too much makeup. Or forgot to put the toilet seat back up. Similarly, I don’t think I’d want these women to be too spectacular. There has to be some balance. I mean, who’s going to read a book when there’s a spectacular women waiting for them to put it down?
This new trend has me very worried.
Find the interview here.
Amazon enriches my life by making hundreds of irrelevant reading suggestions for me to sift through in search of that one little gem (think of it as the Amazon Easter Hunt). But none of these suggestions can top the auto generated one – I presume – that I discovered under my latest interview. The way the page is set up, it seems to suggest that, after the reader picks up a copy of my novel, they might also enjoy a couple of women. It even shows selected pictures.
Of course, if I was less of an insensitive bastard, I might assume that these are actually author pictures and that the site is merely suggesting checking out their novels. But, as I’m not, and we clearly see women and not book covers, I will assume no such thing. Assumptions can be dangerous.
So, instead, I worry about how these suggestions are generated. Are these women selected according to carefully weighed criteria? I mean, not every woman goes equally well with each book, right? I don’t want readers to be put off my book simply because the woman they got with it was too winy. Or wore too much makeup. Or forgot to put the toilet seat back up. Similarly, I don’t think I’d want these women to be too spectacular. There has to be some balance. I mean, who’s going to read a book when there’s a spectacular women waiting for them to put it down?
This new trend has me very worried.
Find the interview here.
