Author Aubrey Rose recently wrote a blog post explaining why she decided to turn down an offer from Amazon Publishing’s Montlake Romance imprint.
Why would a self-published author turn down an overture from a publisher? An offer that included royalties, even?
From her post:
“…Naturally, I was thrilled. A real publisher wanted my work! I chatted with her briefly on the phone and asked her a ton of questions: What kind of cover would they create for me? What promotions would they do? What control would I have over everything? Although I was excited to work with Amazon, I wanted to know that they would treat my book right. She told me my novel was a great read and very clean writing, and that she would love to “partner” with me in relaunching my book through Amazon’s imprint.
However, she couldn’t guarantee anything – from cover image to pricing to marketing…”
Ah, ha! Well, that’s par for the publisher course. But wait, there’s more:
“…The advance they offered was less than I had made in my first month of sales. As I looked through the Montlake catalogue, I saw a mix of breakout hits and complete flops, with some recent books that just had the worst covers imaginable for romance. And I would have to pull my book from every publisher except Amazon…”
From PRWEB: Outskirts Press, the leading 
Forget the bustier rippers and the thick afternoon romance novels with Fabio on the cover. According to eBook Explosion, the number one genre out there is ‘sensual romance.’ Mommy porn. The stuff that makes even Anastasia Steele breathe heavier when she’s not hanging out with Christian Grey (yeah, I just made a Shades of Grey reference).
Amazon is a pioneer in the customer review arena. Practically since the beginning, the site has had customers who purchased products and reviewed them. Over the years, they’ve cultivated their reviewers and refined a continually maintained list of “Top Customer Reviewers.” The list of top reviewers is updated once a day, and – according to Amazon – “showcase our best contributors at the moment.”
The Savvy Book Marketer has put up a blog post by Kathleen Gage about book promotion strategies. This is an area where many writers fail, as … well, they’re writers, not marketers.