Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: delighted ... with organization & stunning depth
Comment: If you're serious about learning the Amazon commercial API's, I can't imagine a better organized source. From API evolution and internationalization to web services alternatives to in-depth chapters on itemSearch, pagination, sorting, product details & variations. How do you find information on customer vs. sellers? How do you implement remote carts?
Succinctly written and chock full; I really can't fathom what more the other reviewers were expecting. I'm just tickled silly that all this information is gathered and presented so easily ... and for such a reasonable price.
Thank you - for the tremendous effort it must certainly have taken - to put this together. I am very grateful.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: not much support for code!
Comment: I am not a web developer, I have bought several other aws related scripts and I always have been able to implement them on my websites. I bought this book in hope of getting more control over display of products on my website.
(...)
Some interesting exercises at the end of chapter, but no hints or working examples.
There is no after sales support for assistance with customization of the examples. Usually autors create their forums where users can help each other, but we don't even have a forum for this book.
Lots of information , it might be a good book for an expert Web Developer.
I will be returning this book.
(...)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Easy to read - easy to comprehend.
Comment: Amazon has done an amazing job of creating a very simple API, which Jason Levitt does an excellent job of explaining. Easy to read, easy to comprehend, now let's see what kind of user interface you can build with this tool. And maybe, just maybe, someone will benefit from what you've built, buy something from Amazon, and you can share in the sale.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The best existing source for this information
Comment: This book is the only resource I've been able to find that pulls together the current information on Amazon's E-Commerce Service platform *and* applies it to PHP development. I wouldn't say I have the deepest PHP skills in the world, but I found that I could easily apply the exercises in this book to my own projects.
It helps that the book is well-written and engaging (something I've come to NOT expect from the tech-book mills that usually churn out books like this).
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Book Author Responds...
Comment: Response to "not much support..."
I'm not sure if this person wanted a different kind of book (perhaps a beginner's tutorial) or simply free support. In any case, his claim that he is "not a web developer" makes the purchase of "The Web Developer's Guide..." a questionable decision. I do provide numerous *working* scripts that are free to download -- you can run many of them from the home page of the book web site by simply clicking on a link. My scripts are meant to teach the fundamental concepts of Amazon E-Commerce Service 4.0. If he needs a forum to learn more about E-Commerce Service, the link to Amazon's forums is also on my book web site. As far as support, my scripts work. If he wants to modify them, reading and understanding my book will provide much of what he needs to know.
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Response to "Good Start..."
I appreciate Mr. Nikolic's compliments, but, as far as his criticisms, it sounds like he had a very certain set of expectations, and the book didn't meet them.
He correctly points out that I do not include a "list of all elements returned for any response group." I deliberately left out that list (it's just a reference list, nothing more) because it changes fairly often, and would have required that I add many extra pages to the appendix -- I simply didn't feel that was worth the added book costs and size. I *do* provide the reader with an easy way to access the list (see page 92) using their web browser, or they can simply download the WSDL file and use that. Those lists are guaranteed to be current.
(...) For most of the code samples, you can simply put them on a web server and run them. For others, you need to learn some things about Amazon (or buy the book). Ultimately, the Sourceforge project is just an archive and feedback forum for the samples, not a full-fledged API or source library.
He calls the scripts "too inflexible," but provides no specifics at all about what is too infexible about them. My scripts aren't designed to be general-purpose. They illustrate specific concepts (how to traverse browse nodes, how to retrieve product variations, how to use a remote cart, how to access wishlists, etc.), but are easily extended or modified to use for other purposes.
I give myself five stars because I put a lot of work into this book, and I had to make some hard choices about how to cover the material -- what to leave out and how to teach it.
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