I am a top-500 reviewer on Amazon and top-100 on Walmart.com. I've written thousands of reviews over the years. The article seems dated and the comments above seem mostly comprised of uninformed guesses of motivation and operations of Amazon. They couldn't be more mistaken.
Products with fake reviews are removed and the seller's account -- and reviewers' comments and accounts -- are deleted. The vast majority of these scammy sellers are Chinese college students, urged by their country to sell light-weight (low shipping costs) products on Amazon. If you want to find a reputable seller, look for someone who has been selling for some time, is not from China, and offers a variety of products (including heavier goods).
That said, Amazon has set up many other barriers to reviews, none of which work because the average Chinese college student views this as a short-term project. How to solve the problem? Easy: Ditch the stars.
Or, flag the country of the seller.
Or, offer time-on-Amazon and products-sold as reputation rankings on sellers. Or, do the same for reviewers, more clearly.
Or, more clearly indicate whether the review is from a purchaser or not.
Or, offer a checkbox so reviewers could indicate any number of factors that would indicate the review is legitimate.
Or, split off Chinese sellers entirely in a sub-category.
Or, require more words per review -- legitimate or not, "Works good, arrived on time" is not a helpful review.
But they don't/won't do any of that, because Amazon's actual motivation is to prop up Amazon's Vine Voice program which charges $1,000 per review run, and which most sellers apparently cannot afford, and was a non-starter to begin with, and has only gotten (much) worse since -- untenable for most seasoned reviewers, IMO. For conspiracy theorists, Vine Voice will not accept reviewers who give out 5-stars, as far as I can tell, almost ever.
Further, Amazon has become openly hostile toward all reviewers, including those who care (unlike your average fake reviewer) and offer legitimate reviews, which has eliminated almost all actual reviews. Legitimate reviews on Amazon.com have plummeted, so their "solutions" have exacerbated the problem because fake reviewers are willing to sign up for hundreds of fake review accounts and offer thousands of fake reviews -- all of which will be deleted in a month or two. Some may remain online because the humans managing the program seem put-upon and their output quality appears to have fallen, though I can't say I blame them.
Yet, despite hundreds of years of book reviews without bias ever being alleged because the book was sent to the reviewer at no direct cost, Amazon flatly rejects reviews where the publisher sends the book for free. Reviews are work. So the cost is implicit. Nothing is ever "free" when it comes to reviewing products. Or are we to assume that every movie and book review in history is illegitimate since it was "free?"
Articles like this only make the problem worse because Amazon simply pretends they are the victims -- "we're under assault!" -- to render their fee-based Vine Voice program as the only channel to actual reviews. See, Amazon doesn't care if sellers pay for reviews, as long as they are the ones who keep the payment! Imagine how hypocritical that looks to the Chinese college student sellers... All the more reason to treat them dishonestly in return (apparently).
So, believe whatever you want, but that's the view from the inside.
FWIW, my suggestion is to just link to a dedicated website where you can offer the additional interactivity and higher resolution images.
Ebooks are basic HTML (like that used in an email), contained in a zip file, which is renamed a mobi or epub wrapper. There are some additional requirements for the formats, but that's about it.
Amazon strongly recommends (nearly requires) that their own online-submission software convert your book into mobi format, and you can convert that file into epub similarly (free online), and that's what most people are doing, in one direction or the other. Additional specialized conversion software isn't really necessary. For example, AFAIK, most authors use Word, then convert that document free online into ePub (with maybe a little editing of the file, renamed as a zip file, unzipped, altered, resaved as zip, and retitled as epub). Then they upload the epub or word to amazon kdp to convert to mobi.
FYI, choosing an image in a kindle ebook automatically zooms in to fill the screen with the image, but that's it -- no further zooming. Comic book formats/readers do that but not mobi. The reason that most books forego images is because Amazon charges for them (download fees based on file size), sharply reducing the books profitability.
So, K.I.S.S., and your best bet is to link to an otherwise unpublicized website. Major publishers will publish, for instance, craft books with templates, patterns, and other printables, which simply includes a wide-open URL to a website which literally contains the entire contents of the book. No passwords, no security, no nothing, other than the site asking Google not to index the site.
Alternately, you could offer purchasers a PDF copy, with full images etc, for registering on your site with a proof of purchase or something, but the response would likely be limited, and you don't want to undermine your main publication ("get the REAL book here in a clumsier format").
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I am a top-500 reviewer on Amazon and top-100 on Walmart.com. I've written thousands of reviews over the years. The article seems dated and the comments above seem mostly comprised of uninformed guesses of motivation and operations of Amazon. They couldn't be more mistaken. Products with fake reviews are removed and the seller's account -- and reviewers' comments and accounts -- are deleted. The vast majority of these scammy sellers are Chinese college students, urged by their country to sell light-weight (low shipping costs) products on Amazon. If you want to find a reputable seller, look for someone who has been selling for some time, is not from China, and offers a variety of products (including heavier goods). That said, Amazon has set up many other barriers to reviews, none of which work because the average Chinese college student views this as a short-term project. How to solve the problem? Easy: Ditch the stars. Or, flag the country of the seller. Or, offer time-on-Amazon and products-sold as reputation rankings on sellers. Or, do the same for reviewers, more clearly. Or, more clearly indicate whether the review is from a purchaser or not. Or, offer a checkbox so reviewers could indicate any number of factors that would indicate the review is legitimate. Or, split off Chinese sellers entirely in a sub-category. Or, require more words per review -- legitimate or not, "Works good, arrived on time" is not a helpful review. But they don't/won't do any of that, because Amazon's actual motivation is to prop up Amazon's Vine Voice program which charges $1,000 per review run, and which most sellers apparently cannot afford, and was a non-starter to begin with, and has only gotten (much) worse since -- untenable for most seasoned reviewers, IMO. For conspiracy theorists, Vine Voice will not accept reviewers who give out 5-stars, as far as I can tell, almost ever. Further, Amazon has become openly hostile toward all reviewers, including those who care (unlike your average fake reviewer) and offer legitimate reviews, which has eliminated almost all actual reviews. Legitimate reviews on Amazon.com have plummeted, so their "solutions" have exacerbated the problem because fake reviewers are willing to sign up for hundreds of fake review accounts and offer thousands of fake reviews -- all of which will be deleted in a month or two. Some may remain online because the humans managing the program seem put-upon and their output quality appears to have fallen, though I can't say I blame them. Yet, despite hundreds of years of book reviews without bias ever being alleged because the book was sent to the reviewer at no direct cost, Amazon flatly rejects reviews where the publisher sends the book for free. Reviews are work. So the cost is implicit. Nothing is ever "free" when it comes to reviewing products. Or are we to assume that every movie and book review in history is illegitimate since it was "free?" Articles like this only make the problem worse because Amazon simply pretends they are the victims -- "we're under assault!" -- to render their fee-based Vine Voice program as the only channel to actual reviews. See, Amazon doesn't care if sellers pay for reviews, as long as they are the ones who keep the payment! Imagine how hypocritical that looks to the Chinese college student sellers... All the more reason to treat them dishonestly in return (apparently). So, believe whatever you want, but that's the view from the inside.
The Kindle shows images within the text, yet when you click on them, they appear full screen as an overlay. No further zooming, at least in my model.
FWIW, my suggestion is to just link to a dedicated website where you can offer the additional interactivity and higher resolution images. Ebooks are basic HTML (like that used in an email), contained in a zip file, which is renamed a mobi or epub wrapper. There are some additional requirements for the formats, but that's about it. Amazon strongly recommends (nearly requires) that their own online-submission software convert your book into mobi format, and you can convert that file into epub similarly (free online), and that's what most people are doing, in one direction or the other. Additional specialized conversion software isn't really necessary. For example, AFAIK, most authors use Word, then convert that document free online into ePub (with maybe a little editing of the file, renamed as a zip file, unzipped, altered, resaved as zip, and retitled as epub). Then they upload the epub or word to amazon kdp to convert to mobi. FYI, choosing an image in a kindle ebook automatically zooms in to fill the screen with the image, but that's it -- no further zooming. Comic book formats/readers do that but not mobi. The reason that most books forego images is because Amazon charges for them (download fees based on file size), sharply reducing the books profitability. So, K.I.S.S., and your best bet is to link to an otherwise unpublicized website. Major publishers will publish, for instance, craft books with templates, patterns, and other printables, which simply includes a wide-open URL to a website which literally contains the entire contents of the book. No passwords, no security, no nothing, other than the site asking Google not to index the site. Alternately, you could offer purchasers a PDF copy, with full images etc, for registering on your site with a proof of purchase or something, but the response would likely be limited, and you don't want to undermine your main publication ("get the REAL book here in a clumsier format").
Generally speaking, 52% of humans are women. So...
Wasn't planning on trying to go there, but I am now.
I was going to design a system very similar to this concept with Disney, when Eisner fired Jake Winebaum, and that was that. That was 20 years ago.