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shill (noun): a person who publicizes or praises something or someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship or loyalty.
Ever read a book review on Amazon.com that was so rah-rah and uncritical that you wondered if the reviewer might have connections to the author or publisher? That’s what happened to us recently. A few mouse clicks later, we found ourselves asking serious questions about scores of five-star book reviews posted by one Amazon user and her connections to a prominent national PR company in Clearwater, Florida.
This unexpected excursion began when we read an April 26 Enquirer feature about Jane Heimlich’s new memoir about the burden of living in the shadows of famous relatives - her parents, celebrity dance teachers Arthur and Kathryn Murray, and her husband, Dr. Henry Heimlich, famous for the anti-choking maneuver. To learn more about her book, entitled “Out of Step,” we headed to - where else? - Amazon.com and quickly found the product listing.
When paddling up the Amazon, the first thing we do is check out the customer reviews. They’re fun to read, plus sometimes you come across smart, incisive commentary from knowledgeable contributors. When we checked, Heimlich’s book had these two glowing five-star reviews: one by a local, Teresa A. Malloy of Madeira, and someone named Rachel Friedman.
Next, we clicked the “Look Inside” link, Amazon’s neat tool that displays sample pages. That’s when we spotted this author acknowledgment:
Mrs. Heimlich’s assistant may be smart and capable, but here’s something Ms. Malloy apparently doesn’t know. By failing to disclose that she works for the author, she may have violated Amazon guidelines:
What’s not allowed
Amazon is pleased to provide this forum for you to share your opinions on products. While we appreciate your time and comments, we reserve the right to remove reviews that include any of the following:Promotional content:
* Sentiments by or on behalf of a person or company with a financial interest in the product or a directly competing product (including reviews by authors, artists, publishers, manufacturers, or third-party merchants selling the product)
What about the other review of Heimlich’s book, an appreciative, well-crafted synopsis by Rachel Friedman that reads like it came from Mrs. Heimlich’s press agent?
In fact, it did. Here’s an April 26, 2010 press release that’s all over the ‘net. (Note Ms. Friedman’s newsandexperts.com e-mail address.)
A couple more clicks took us to Ms. Friedman’s Amazon user profile which at this writing includes 72 reviews dating from January 2008 to the present. The only products she has reviewed are books, all of which garnered five-stars. Nowhere does Friedman disclose that she’s a public relations professional. Here’s a compilation of all 72:
Some quick Googling led to an interesting discovery. Neary every book reviewed by Friedman was associated with publicity materials uploaded on ArticleTrader, a free article database. Click here to see a list of a few hundred bylined articles and press releases uploaded there by user News & Experts. Cross-referencing, we found that 69 the 72 books from Friedman’s Amazon account were also the subjects of News & Experts articles and media releases. For example, here’s an article by N&E staff writer Tony Panaccio promoting a book about a medical condition that may have escaped your attention:
Friedman’s review is a word-for-word copy except that she didn’t include Mr. Panaccio’s name. (The review doesn’t include the AuthorHouse link from Panaccio’s article, but that’s really just, um, splitting hairs.)
Here’s a file we made of the News & Experts list on ArticleTrader. Publicity materials about the 69 books on Friedman’s Amazon reviews are highlighted. The color-codes identify which ones are unsigned press releases and which ones were bylined articles by News & Experts staff writers (including Friedman).
Don’t get the idea that we’re suggesting that any funny business is going on at News & Experts. On the contrary, they’re completely upfront. Click this link on their ArticleTrader page http://newsandexperts.com and you’re auto-forwarded to the website of EMSI Inc., a self-described “Pay for Performance” public relations firm in Clearwater, FL. EMSI founder/CEO Marsha Friedman’s page explains, ”(Our) News & Experts team is well known by the media as a resource for newsworthy content.”
Based on their list of top-drawer clients, that’s no exaggeration: “EMSI works with clients spanning a wide array of industries from alternative health, food products, music, publishing, software and finance, to politics.” Click around their website and you’ll find clients like publishers Harper Collins, Prentice Hall, Simon and Schuster; businesses like Home Depot and Hewlett Packard; major record labels, prominent sports figures, and “Authors and Personalities” that include Jimmy Hoffa’s son and US Senate candidate Rand Paul’s father, Congressman Ron Paul.
You’ll also find an EMSI staff page that includes Tony Panaccio and….
There’s more to learn from Amazon’s listing for a 2009 book authored by EMSI honcho Marsha Friedman: “Celebritize Yourself: The Three Step Method to Increase Your Visibility and Explode Your Business.” Amazon’s sneak-a-peek “Look Inside” tool turned up this author acknowledgment page:
Check the Amazon reviews for Marsha Friedman’s book and you’ll find one signed by Rachel. Does she disclose that the author is both her employer and her mother-in-law?
Now compare Rachel’s review to the carbon copy version at CelebritizeYourself.com, a website hyping Marsha’s book:
All this screenshooting is making us a little dizzy, but here’s one last example. From Rachel’s Amazon review for the book “Forsaking All” by Phyllis Sanders:
Meanwhile a website about the book attributes the identical wording to….
To her credit, unlike her daughter-in-law, at least Marsha Friedman spelled the author’s last name right.
Note: After agreeing last week to answer questions, EMSI CEO Marsha Friedman failed to respond to subsequent inquiries. Here are the questions we sent her:
1) Is your daughter-in-law the same Rachel Friedman who maintains this Amazon.com account?
2) Are reviews on Amazon.com a service which your company offers to clients?
3) Are you and/or your daughter-in-law members of the Public Relations Society of America?
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26 May 2010 at 11:43 am | #
Jane Heimlich says her assistant is “the smartest most capable person” she knows. A not-so-subtle dig at Dr. Maneuver?
Also, did Mrs. H’s assistant participate in any way to help her boss write the memoir? If so, by posting her big ups Amazon review for the book, Ms. Malloy not only played the shill, she was also patting herself on the back!
26 May 2010 at 01:03 pm | #
Your question to Marsha Friedman: Are you and/or your daughter-in-law members of the Public Relations Society of America?
“10 tips for talk show guests” by Marsha Friedman, published on the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) website, May 1, 2006: http://bit.ly/b9Vp5Q
PRSA Code of Ethics: http://bit.ly/aYNFU7
26 May 2010 at 08:15 pm | #
The best Amazon review ever: http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A220PX1UL8A74V/ref=cm_cr_dp_auth_rev?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview
Sorry… had to do it… Now back to the regular topic…
27 May 2010 at 01:00 pm | #
Re: Tony Panaccio, author of the hard-hitting report about ingrown hair, from: http://emsincorporated.com/about-emsi/emsi-team/
Tony Panaccio, Senior Campaign Strategist
Tony’s career dates back to his days as a crime beat journalist for both The Clearwater Sun and The Tampa Tribune from 1985-1989. After his work during that period won him the Florida Press Club Award in 1989, Tony moved on to Miami where he wrote the crime and investigative beat for the Hollywood Sun-Tattler and the Miami Herald’s Tropic Magazine.
27 May 2010 at 03:45 pm | #
“You Need Publicity For Your Book…Where Do You Start and What Do You Look For?” Posted by Marsha Friedman, EMSI Inc. blog: http://bit.ly/aKsfhk
But with different firms out there competing for your business, how do you choose the right one? What factors should you look for and which are the most important?...Do they pursue coverage online as well as in traditional newspapers and magazines? Today, every article printed in a newspaper or magazine is also published online, so a good print campaign delivers lots of Web coverage. Why is that important? More than 40 percent of ALL BOOKS sold in North America are sold on Amazon. This is not a percentage of online book sales, but rather, of all book sales, including retail locations. Barnes & Noble, even with their stores and online presence combined, only amounts to 29 percent of the market share. Translation — if you want to have a chance at getting people interested in buying your book, your firm needs to know how to drive the eyeballs online.
27 May 2010 at 06:42 pm | #
Report this to Amazon. It is a violation of their policy.
27 May 2010 at 09:09 pm | #
Report this to Amazon.
...and copy The Beacon on all correspondence!
02 Jun 2010 at 09:48 pm | #
Nice pickup of your article: “How to abuse Amazon reviews: let your PR agency be your shill” by Paul Biba, TeleRead: http://3.ly/g5mz
03 Jun 2010 at 06:22 am | #
What about the other review of Heimlich’s book, an appreciative, well-crafted synopsis by Rachel Friedman that reads like it came from Mrs. Heimlich’s press agent? In fact, it did.
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“How to Get the Media Interested in You: You May Be Newsworthy Without Even Knowing It” by Marsha Friedman, 03/6/10: http://tinyurl.com/326gnfn
Be Opportunistic - The news happens fast, so be prepared to think just as fast. Recently we took on a client named Jane Heimlich, who has a dual claim to fame. She is the daughter of dance hall king Arthur Murray, who established the largest chain of dance instruction centers in the country. She is also the wife of chest surgeon Dr. Hank Heimlich, the creator of the life-saving, anti-choking first aid technique called the Heimlich Maneuver. She had just written her memoir, and was looking to promote it via media interviews. When we brought her on board, the new season for the network TV show Dancing with the Stars was about to begin. In reading her book, we discovered that her father’s TV show, The Arthur Murray Party, was the first network TV dance contest - and it involved the big stars of the day. So, we put together a radio pitch with the headline “Remembering the Original Dancing with the Stars.” We booked 15 radio interviews and a full print campaign with that angle, and we just refreshed the angle with the CBS announcement that they are giving Paula Abdul her own TV dance competition.
08 Jun 2010 at 09:44 pm | #
Your report got picked up by Actualitte.com, a Paris-based internet magazine about books: http://bit.ly/bG3C5Q
Here’s an entertaining garbled English version via Google translate: http://bit.ly/a3hHlF