We Got Mail

We've received a note from someone claiming to be one of the Amazon (top?) reviewers, who wishes to let us (and the world? :-) know that not everyone on Amazon is a phony PoS like our dear Harriet, or — very distant, of course! — W.Boudville, Maestro Harp, John Matlock "Gunny", Midwest Book Reviews, Mark-O, Dr.Maraio, "Respected Leatherman" Roubel, etc., etc. Well, we can believe that! (Not that we'd be terribly surprised to find out otherwise, btw., but yeah, it is possible that not everyone in the "Top" category is a fake.) Anyway, here's the letter (name withheld because the correspondent did not explicitly ask to post it, and in cases like that we always err on the side of privacy):

Hi!

I occasionally read the stuff that gets posted on your site & only recently did I really feel like I needed to post anything. It was in response to Malleus' post about top amazon reviewers. I couldn't post it on the site but here's generally what I had to say:

I can't speak for anyone but myself but I did want to let you know that myself & more than a few other "top reviewers" do actually read the books & use the items that we review. I just read somewhat quickly & thanks to my night job having some extended periods of downtime I get to indulge my habits of reading & reviewing. It's just something I like to do in my spare time & I've been lucky enough to get up around the top 300-ish. I don't think I'll get any higher than that unless I suddenly win the lottery & get oodles of time to read & review or unless some computer error levitates me to the top.

Just wanted to let you know that not all top reviewers are machines intent on rising to the top in the hopes of getting recognition or free stuff. I've seen more than a few that seem to just crank stuff out but a lot of us are just people who really like to review in our free time. The expensive goodies might be nice but in the end that's not what we really go in for.

I have to admit, getting accused of possibly being a hack or a shill sort of miffs me a little. I'll admit that I'm pretty easy to entertain (the stuff I like that I don't post reviews for is pretty embarrassing) but I don't pimp myself out in the hopes of reward. That's the opposite of what I want to be recognized for.

Thanks!

[name withheld]

Well... yeah, OK, no problem, we believe you.