Intrigue at Amazon.com

A funny thing happened on the way to a famous online bookseller. The uber-site for all of those hot bestsellers seems to have been caught fudging its online reviews of a certain newly released book. The pitiful tome in question is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's narcissistic "Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters" released a few days ago to the sound of one hand clapping.

In the interest of full disclosure I'll admit that I have no interest in this book other than to track its sales. I wanted to know if the history-making first female Speaker of the House would capitalize on her position and fame by tearing up the bestseller lists. Would the dominant liberal capture the imagination of scores of left-wingers?

Apparently not, according to Amazon rankings. After languishing somewhere around the 1,200 position, it briefly rose to 725 before plummeting again to 1,260 this evening. That's lower than whale crap and I wanted to know the reason for this literary implosion. I began to read the customer reviews beginning with the negatives since there were an overwhelming number of those and only a meager 10 positive comments. As I plowed through the poisonous postings of dissatisfied bookworms I noticed a pattern emerging and it wasn't at all what I had expected.

The usual complaints about tedium, poor writing, the failure to engage the reader were all there but there were also myriad complaints about Amazon deleting reviewers' previous postings. According to some, negative reviews had at one time reached a total of over 240. At the time I decided to read the reviews, that number had been reduced to around 50. The frustration and suspicion exhibited by those who volunteered their opinions was palpable. Some admitted to having posted their reviews a third time after having two previous ones deleted. Something was definitely rotten in the state of Amazon.

In the interest of fairness, I moved to the 5-star reviews and found something even more interesting. In order to keep their reviews online, some readers had given Pelosi's book a 5-star rating and then proceeded to write highly negative reviews dripping with biting sarcasm. Maybe Amazon wouldn't notice?

Where's the beef behind all of this? It's obvious that Amazon has a singular motivation and that is to sell books. It doesn't help the business if a new book with a huge push from its publisher has a disastrous ranking combined with hundreds of pajama-clad eggheads excoriating both the content and the author. Ergo, Amazon probably feels that a little artificial "propping up" can't hurt and in fact can help its bottom line. Never mind that the customers might feel cheated.

Did I say singular motivation earlier? As a great anonymous author once said, "I may not always be right but I'm never wrong." Or maybe it was "I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken." I have to suggest, in the interest of conspiracy theorists, that maybe Amazon is populated by left-wing lunatics who want to elevate Nancy (9% approval rating) Pelosi into double digit perfection. I'll leave that little morsel out there without further comment.

Regardless, Amazon has an honesty and therefore a decency problem. The honest approach would be to let the sales and reviews speak for themselves. In fact, maybe Amazon should make sure all remaining copies of Pelosi's book are recycled into something useful like toilet paper.

A friend of mine went into a bookstore and couldn't find Pelosi's book. When she asked a clerk where it was, the response was that due to dismal sales, the book had been removed from the front of the store and placed in its appropriate category in the stacks. (Probably pending the imminent return to the publisher of all remaining copies.)

Caveat Emptor