Getting Book Review Blurbs Online

As a publisher at a small press, I decided to go around the old boys media club (newspapers and magazines), and go directly to online reviewers. When I asked Amazon to add these blurbs to the book’s page, I was told that only the distributor (not the publisher!) could authorize review blurbs. And you guessed it, the distributor will only take print quotes.

The result is that an online retailer won’t take the word of an online reviewer. Or to put it more colorfully, The Podunk Gazette (population 10) has more pull than a book blogger with 1500 hits a day.

Any thoughts about getting book review blurbs into online listings?