So a funny thing just happened. I just got an email from Amazon which recommended my own book to me! I have never had one of those emails. So why now? Simple. This is a direct result of the request I made a few weeks ago, for readers to leave reviews of the Guerilla Film Makers Handbook. That activity and flurry of great reviews was almost certainly flagged up as a trend inside the mysterious Amazon brain, and resulted in this recommendation, one that will almost certainly have been emailed to many other film makers too.

It will be interesting to watch the Amazon ranking to see where it goes now. When I asked for help, the book was ranked at around 200,000. Today it’s ranked at 41,547 (09.39 GMT – I believe the rankings are updated regularly so I will keep checking throughout the day). 

This is a great example of how an automated system can be manipulated for your own needs. While it’s awesome to have this result right now (thanks everyone who lefta great review), imagine how useful it could be for your own project to create intense activity on a specified and targeted date? By using your own social networks, you can motivate a huge amount of people to create a spike in any system, and therefore have that spike flagged by an internal robot, or even noticed by humans directly.

For instance, you could impact hugely on your IMDB rating for the very first week you visit LA by asking everyone to simply view your profile on a given day. This will create the sense that EVERYONE wants a piece of you (I know from my own experience that everyone checks you out on IMDB before a meeting) and therefore you are hot. Result? ‘Get that guy in for a meeting now!’

So thank you again to EVERYONE who left a great review. It made a difference to the rankings. It made a difference to how visitors perceive the book (by reading your words). And fingers crossed, it will make a difference to sales.

If you haven’t left feedback too, or you want to read the feedback, check here…

If you are in the UK, here is the current UK Guerilla Film Makers Handbook link…

And here is the Movie Blueprint link…

And here is the Documentary Handbook link…

And here is the US link for film makers in the USA…

And you can BUY ALL THE BOOKS, signed from us – and buying direct helps us directly and does not help make Amazon shareholders richer! 😉

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com