The last two weeks were unusually slow and silent in the Guild. I am not sure, but it feels like there was less activity in most of the communities I am involved in. Is it just my perception, or have you experienced the same? Anyway, the Guided Publishing System is now built and fully operational. I am in the process of creating the new book with the system, and it works exactly as it was supposed to - "blank page syndrome" gone. Every time I come back to the book, I know exactly what the next step is. The same thing applies to the Review Catalyst tracker - it removed a lot of hustle and ambiguity from the process. I used the Paperback 3D Mockup for the A+ content for a few of my books, and it totally changed the experience of creating marketing materials. I am not sure if it's interesting to anybody except @Yannick Di Mondo, @Sven Georgiev and me. Anyway, it's OK for me to continue developing the tools, even if only three of us will use them. Slowly, without a rush, providing functionality that publishers are interested in. So, what is on your mind? What are you doing now? What are you aiming for? P. S. @Ana-Rita Piirainen It's so nice to see you back!

This is an extremely experimental topic in many ways. First, let me introduce @Evgeny Milrud. He owns and manages a significant regional IT company. A mathematician by training, he is also an exceptional process optimiser. He is now at the stage of starting to write a book for fellow business owners, in which he will share his experience. Usually we privately discuss tools, processes and ideas to implement in our businesses with him almost daily. Yesterday, I decided that it would be valuable to share our conversations to help others optimise their operations. From today onwards, we will discuss all things AI and business in this topic. No plan, no limits, no structure. Everyone is invited, so please feel free to share anything on your mind. This is a chat room, not a formal setting. OK, let's see what happens.

Last month, I saw increasing evidence that the November and December review sweep could be more than just a campaign. In very simple words, probably every book has gathered reviews in a non-organic manner in the crosshairs of Amazon's bots. Obviously, Amazon is prioritizing marketplace integrity and authentic reader feedback. This has led to increased scrutiny of practices like certain ARC teams, bulk review solicitation, and "book pulsing," as these may deviate from "organic" review rates. If you were a member of Amazon's marketplace integrity team and you saw a book, published two weeks ago, with 50 reviews. It's not J. K. Rowling's book, nor even Alex Hormozi's. Can you believe they're genuine, unsolicited reviews? How PROBABLE is it that it's just a regular, but lucky book? So, it seems every book with an atypical number or velocity of reviews could now be a target. We know that on Amazon, 1-2% of sales result in reviews. This means that for every 100 books sold, you could get 1-2 reviews. If a book has 20 sales and 17 reviews, is it really probable? I remember times when we could stuff keywords in white text on a white background, and it worked. After some time, Google penalized it. Okay, let's add the right proportion of keywords to the text, but don't worry about text flow for human readers. After some time, Google penalized it. Amazon: add major keywords to the title, subtitle, and seven keyword fields whenever possible. It worked until it didn't. "If your book has fewer than 50 reviews, do not even try to promote it." Maybe it still works, but maybe tomorrow you will read the "Account Suspended for Review Manipulation" email. What are your thoughts on this?

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