Most people who visit Amazon.com and browse through the infinite layers of books and eBooks probably believe (if indeed they actually think about it) that the best favor they can do for an author is to buy their book. But that would be wrong. The best thing they could do for the author is review and rate her book.

My crash course in on-line eBook marketing has exposed me to the vagaries of the virtual book market. Many authors (and I include myself) begin writing with the belief that all that is necessary to sell a book is to write a good book, the naive trust that quality must rise to the surface.

But I have since learned that there are many good books; no, there are very many good books that the average reader browsing the Amazon shelves will never see. That is because these books are buried…