Where will Amazon review trolls lurk now the Amazon fora are gone?
by Anne R. Allen
Amazon periodically cracks down on users who have been abusing their customer review and ranking systems. Most of us are happy when the giant retailer takes steps to combat the abuse. Cheaters take money out of our pockets and give honest authors and reviewers a bad name.
Unfortunately, the company usually does this with a clunky algorithm that throws out many babies with the bathwater. The worst part is there’s no opportunity to appeal to a human. A lot of honest reviewers had all their reviews taken down in a draconian purge in 2016.
And now there’s an equally heavy-handed crackdown going on. This one is aimed at authors who appear to be gaming the system to manipulate rank, especially using boxed sets. I warned about the boxed set scams in July. Sadly, many authors didn’t realize they were agreeing to violate Amazon’s TOS when they signed up.
And a whole lot more who have NOT been doing anything wrong are getting hammered. They’re all getting the following notice:
“We are reaching out to you because we detected purchases or borrows of your book(s) originating from accounts attempting to manipulate sales rank. As a result, the sales rank on the following book(s) will not be visible until we determine this activity has ceased.
Please be aware that you are responsible for ensuring the strategies used to promote your book(s) comply with our Terms and Conditions. We encourage you to thoroughly review any marketing services employed for promotional purposes.
Any additional activity attempting to manipulate the Kindle services may result in account level action.”
As David Gaughran posted on Friday, a whole lot of innocent (and perplexed) authors are being stripped of their sales rank. It happens after the author has run a big Bookbub promotion. When a book’s sales rank suddenly soars, no matter the reason, it apparently triggers punishment, and so far, Amazon is stonewalling anyone who tries to appeal. See further discussion at the Kindleboards. And there’s another conversation here.
But What About the Amazon Review Trolls?
So far the big Amazon crackdowns have been aimed at authors trying to buy positive reviews and manipulate a book’s rank upward.
But until recently the company has done little about bogus negative reviews and downvotes.
Troll reviews are one of the nastier side effects of the Kindle revolution. Amazon’s trolls love to write hateful reviews of books they haven’t read for the purpose of bullying, harassment and general malevolence. Unfortunately this activity isn’t against Amazon’s rules. The trolls have attacked authors and fellow reviewers with happy abandon for years.
Their motives range from simple sadism to punishing authors for imagined transgressions to murky vendettas with other reviewers.
A typical “review” reads like this:
“This book is so bad I vomited before I could open it. This author should kill herself before she dumps another stinking pile on unsuspecting readers.”
Most authors who’ve been around a while are painfully familiar with them. They’re like cockroaches. If you see one, you know there will be more. They arrive in swarms.
Each review on a page will have almost—but not quite—identical wording because they’re often written by the same person, who has multiple Amazon accounts. (Amazon doesn’t limit identities.)
This stuff can slow sales and even end an author’s career. (Although they don’t always. Troll reviews actually improved my sales.) Since I’ve written about Amazon review trolls a number of times over the years, I’ve heard from dozens of authors who were bullied by these people. Some actually unpublished their books and quit the business. Unfortunately, this kind of evil has power, especially when it’s condoned by a huge tech company like Amazon.
I heard from an author recently who said she’d been mercilessly attacked by an Amazon troll. The troll not only hit her with dozens of one-stars and death threats, but also hacked and hijacked her social media accounts. She also claims they bombed her house and nearly killed her.
That seems wildly over the top, but these guys are scary. Their death threats scared the heck out of me.
Amazon Review Trolls are Equal Opportunity Abusers.
Troll attacks are not limited to indie authors or newbie unknowns.
Here’s Victoria Strauss, the longtime sci-fi author behind Writer Beware, writing in 2014.
“We’ve all read about the abuse of reviews on Amazon and Goodreads… people who post bad reviews for revenge, punishment, or intimidation. And there’s a lot of that kind of thing out there…
I recently had the chance to experience review abuse for myself.
On June 29, one- and two-star reviews started appearing on the Amazon page of my 2012 novel Passion Blue—nine in all, over a period of less than two weeks.
Beyond the unlikelihood of nine genuine one- and two-star reviews appearing in succession over such a short period of time (the most recent review before that was five months ago), my brand new reviews shared a number of characteristics that suggested fakery.
None were from verified purchasers. Most were from accounts that never posted a review before or since. None included any details to suggest they’d read the book, but all were unanimous: it sucked horribly. I mean, it REALLY sucked. Two of the reviewers were so traumatized that they had to take to drink. One wished for death.”
Charlaine Harris, superstar author of the Sookie Stackhouse books that became the TV series True Blood, also got death threats in reviews of her final Sookie book, Dead Ever After. Some of the Amazon trolls didn’t like her ending, so they threatened to end her.
The late bestselling sci-fi author Jeff Carlson visited this blog in 2011 to talk about some of his troll reviews. He said they were “peppered with a steady dose of diehard political outrage, accusations, and messages from weird alternate realities.”
Unfortunately, until now, authors have been powerless to fight the abuse. Most of our pleas to Amazon fell on deaf robot ears.
But Two Things Happened Recently that Give me Hope.
1) A bunch of troll reviews disappeared from a bestselling book.
Over 1000 one-star attack “reviews” appeared within hours of a major book launch. That is often the case. But this time, they disappeared within hours. It seems the author had the power to finally bring the problem to Amazon’s attention.
The Guardian interviewed an Amazon spokesperson about the review removal last September. They said customers’ reviews “must be related to the product.”
Finally.
Even if you’re not a powerful international figure, you now have Amazon’s assertion that “reviews” need to be related to the product.
The spokesperson went on to say:
“…we remove customer reviews that violate our community guidelines…when we find unusually high numbers of reviews for a product posted in a short period of time, we may restrict the number of non-Amazon Verified Purchase reviews on that product”.
Yay!
This doesn’t mean troll reviews of lesser-known writers are going away. And of course many thoughtful reviews are not “verified” because the reviewer got an ARC or even, (gasp) got the book at the library or an indie bookstore. But at least Amazon has acknowledged that some negative reviews are fake. So there’s a shred of hope.
A shred is more than we’ve had up to now.
Reviews do have power. As Rafia Zakaria said in The Guardian earlier this month, “In the vexatious realm of online opinion, history has begun to be written not so much by the victors as the customer reviewers.”
2) On October 13th, the Amazon fora were unceremoniously shut down.
The gathering place for Amazon review trolls has traditionally been the Amazon forums, (more correctly called “fora” by the sticklers who remember their prep school Latin.) That’s where many of the “calls to swarm” originated, urging denizens to attack a designated victim with bogus reviews.
I’ve warned authors for years they should never set a cyber-foot in an Amazon forum. They were originally intended for simple Q. & A. about Amazon products, but they devolved into the nastiest troll habitat in the online book world.
I realize some legitimate users will miss their favorite forum, but it was time to close the doors. Anti-author sentiment there was so toxic, superstar author Anne Rice went on a media crusade against them. She started a petition asking Amazon to enforce their own guidelines.
Ms. Rice had tried to use an Amazon forum as it was intended. She wanted to communicate with readers and answer their questions. But the resident trolls drove her out with vicious insults and harassment.
In an interview with The Guardian, Ms. Rice talked about why she started the petition. When discussing the Amazon review trolls, she said:
“They’ve worked their way into the Amazon system as parasites, posting largely under pseudonyms, lecturing, bullying, seeking to discipline authors whom they see as their special prey…. They clearly organise, use multiple identities and brag about their ability to down vote an author’s works if the author doesn’t ‘behave’ as they dictate.”
In the petition, she wrote: “My experience with the gangster bullies in the forum has been very bleak and ugly…They blatantly violate your guidelines with personal insults and harassing posts….I feel a lot of these people are obsessive abusers who have found some sort of dark home on Amazon for tormenting writers. I urge you to take action.”
That was in 2014, but finally her efforts seem to have borne fruit.
Do note, the shutdown doesn’t include the Kboards or the Kindle Support Forum.
So Who are the Amazon Review Trolls?
Here’s the kicker. A lot of these creeps are authors. Not very successful authors, obviously. If they were actually writing books, they wouldn’t have all that time on their hands.
Most of the bullies who threatened me had self-published one or two books, which had a handful of bad reviews and minimal sales.
So a lot of this is simple sour grapes. Writing books is hard. Writing one-sentence attacks on books you haven’t read…not so much.
Some of it is “retaliation” for the bad reviews that author/trolls get on their own books. Authors who write honest reviews get targeted a lot.
Plus there’s been toxic reviewer vs. reviewer competition. The denizens of the fora were locked in fierce battles for “top reviewer” rank. Many of them played the review system like a videogame.
One conscientious reviewer told me he had to stop reviewing because the trolls would down vote any review he wrote. They’d also attack any book he reviewed positively with swarms of negative reviews.
The main thing that has always united the Amazon review trolls is their hatred of authors. They hate any writer who’s successful or striving to succeed. And they appear to believe all authors are greedy billionaires who have no right to payment for their work.
I think these people have given up their own dreams and want everybody else to give up too. Their “reviews” often mention suicide—either threatening their own, or encouraging authors to kill themselves. This suggests some serious mental health issues are at play.
I imagine Internet trolls feel pretty helpless, and trolling is their only way of wielding power. I picture them living in mom’s basement, where they’ve been since they lost that job at Krustyburger five years ago. Maybe they’re trapped in student debt, paying for that MFA that taught them to be a snobs, but not how to write marketable books.
An Amazon forum probably felt safe to them. It was place to bond with other failed authors and join in orgies of hate against the more successful and optimistic.
Abuse of Reviewers and Authors.
I’ve often written about the abuse of the online review system and the problems with “weaponized” reviews, so I’ve listed some of my posts here.
Back in 2013 I wrote about the people gaming the Amazon system for free products, plus reviewer-on-reviewer bullying and and other nasty goings-on in the Amazon review troll world. I also discussed the “Gangs of New Media.”
And in “The Laws of the Amazon Jungle,” I suggested some steps authors can to take to stay safe from the Amazon review trolls and Goodreads bullies.
In 2015, I wrote about Amazon’s third crackdown on paid review mills, the problem of public shaming, and Censorship by Troll plus the disappearing Amazon reviews that had everybody scratching their heads.
I also gave an interview to the American Bar Association Journal on the subject. The interview ran in the ABA Journal in July 2016.
Last year I wrote about the new Amazon review rules that cracked down on some of the gaming of Amazon’s system. And in July of this year I talked about the problem of “weaponized” reviews used to bully whistleblowers and other authors who didn’t “toe the line” of scammy marketers and bogus agents. It’s those scammy marketers that seem to be the object of the current purge.
I’ve also written two satiric mysteries based on the abuse of both reviewers and authors.
- In So Much for Buckingham, a clueless response to an Amazon review leads to murder.
- In The Queen of Staves, my latest mystery, a review blogger writes a less than stellar review and the retaliation is so severe he has to fake his own death and live as a homeless dumpster-diver. (And the ebook is on sale this week! )
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Amazon Needs to Restore Ranks to Innocent Authors in the Current Crackdown.
Unfortunately, Amazon’s actions are mostly done by robots and robots have heavy hands. They’re also impervious to any appeal to reason.
This current mess is serious. Many authors are losing their livelihoods because of this mis-managed crackdown.
This also puts bargain newsletters like Bookbub in jeopardy, because almost all the authors targeted had just run a successful newsletter ad for a price promotion.
I wanted to write a positive post this week, because I do see closing the Amazon fora as a positive step. I believe Amazon is trying to do the right thing. But their crackdowns are insanely unfair, and they need to have more human beings available for appeals when their robots screw up.
And if you want to combat review abuse… WRITE HONEST REVIEWS! Every honest review you write helps readers find good books and helps keep the system working for honest book people.
Update from Anne Rice
Anne picked up this post on her Facebook page and added the following tips, which I should have included. ALWAYS REPORT ABUSE WHEN YOU SEE IT. Amazon responds to numbers, so when reports reach critical mass, something happens .
“Remember, when you buy on Amazon, you are asked if reviews you’re reading are helpful. Taking the time to vote honestly on reviews is a good thing. You never know to what extent the gangster-thugs are campaigning against an author. — When you see a book that has a very high rating on Amazon with dozens of positive reviews — yet some negative screed holds the place of “top review” or “most helpful review” you’re likely witnessing campaign voting and gaming. Again, take time to vote “helpful” on those reviews that do truly help you. And don’t hesitate to report “hate” reviews when you see them. Look for the “Report Abuse” option & do it. ” Anne Rice, responding to this post on her Facebook page
Update October 23
You’ll all be happy to know that with marvelous predictablity, a troll has “punished” me for this post..
One of the Goodreads Bullies has given The Queen of Staves (as well as all my books) a one star rating this morning (no review.) This “reviewer” which calls itself “Annette” joined Goodreads yesterday and today gave 120 one-star reviews to 120 books (most of them vegan cookbooks. At least I’m in healthy company.)
If anybody who has enjoyed my books want to counter this bullying and “punishment”, an honest GR review would be very welcome. Thanks!
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) October 22, 2017
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What about you, scriveners? Have you been a victim of the Amazon review trolls? Have you received one of those scary Amazon “stop manipulating your rank” notices? Do you think removing the Amazon fora will help with the troll problem?
And if you want to read more about the Queen of Staves and Camilla and Ronzo, check out the new post on my book blog. Can Tarot Cards Solve a Mystery?
And I’m talking to Melodie Campbell, Canada’s Queen of Comedy over at her blog Bad Girl Comedy, if you want to know more about the Queen of Staves.
BOOK OF THE WEEK
99C (in US) 99P (in UK)
COUNTDOWN!!
(Alas, countdowns don’t apply to Canada or Australia, which I think is remarkable stupid on the Zon’s part, but they didn’t ask me.) Here’s the International link
First time on sale! The new Camilla mystery is only 99c (UK, 99P) at Amazon from October 21-October 26
It’s #6 in the series, but can be read as a stand-alone.
Music blogger Ronzo never dreamed that giving an unfavorable online review to the Leftenant Froggenhall band would destroy his life. But he can only escape the band’s gruesome persecution and threats to his loved ones by faking his own death and living as a homeless dumpster-diver.
He’s forced to hide his blossoming relationship with bookstore owner Camilla Randall to keep her safe from the band’s vengeful clutches. Not easy when they’re together every day, as Ronzo’s unexpected tarot-reading skills keep Camilla’s failing Morro Bay bookstore afloat.
When a mysterious Irish poet shows up dead on a tarot client’s beach, it’s up to secret lovers Camilla and Ronzo—and the tarot cards—to find the killer. Hopefully before the homicidal Froggenhalls arrive in Morro Bay
Luckily Buckingham the cat is on the case, ready to fight the bad guys, tooth and claw.
(Hint, it could really use some reviews!! If you appreciate this blog and you like the book, you can ensure we can keep doing this if you pick up an ebook and write a short review on Amazon.)
It’s also available in paper (on nice paper with large print — great for gifts!) for $14.99.
***
And Ruth has a Bookbub special free run for Love and Money on October 25th!
“A SPECTACULAR, RICHLY PLOTTED NOVEL. Racing to a shocking climax, this glittering novel is first-class entertainment, a story of love and money, and how both are made, lost, and found again.” ...New York Times
OPPORTUNITY ALERTS
The Insecure Writers Support Group Annual Anthology Contest. This anthology is for mystery/crime/thriller writers! For IWSG members only, but it’s easy to join just join their FB or Blog group. NO FEE! Word count: 3500-6000 Theme: Tick Tock. The story revolves around a clock, is time sensitive, or has something about a specific time. No erotica, R-rated language, or graphic violence. Deadline: November 1st
The John Steinbeck Award. A prize of $1,000 and publication in Reed Magazine, California’s oldest literary magazine is given annually for a short story. Up to 5,000 words. $15 entry fee, which includes a copy of the prize issue, Deadline November 1, 2017
STRINGYBARK MALICIOUS MYSTERIES SHORT STORY AWARD This Australian contest is looking for “any tale, (up to 1500 words) with a mysterious element and perhaps a sting-in-the-tail.” Prizes of more than $1,000 (AUS) in cash and books. International entries are most welcome. $12 Entry fee. Deadline November 5, 2017.
Writer’s Digest Short-Short Story Award; Up to 1500 words. $3000 first prize, plus entry to the annual WD Conference. Other money prizes. $25 entry fee. Deadline November 15, 2017.
10 Major book publishers that read unagented manuscripts. and 20 Literary Journals that publish new writers. Both lists compiled by the good folks at Authors Publish magazine.
Wow, Anne–and just when I was considering a BookBub promo (even though it’s horrendously expensive). Thanks for the info. I’ll save my money.
Review trolls? I have one Amazon.ca five-star review on The Writer’s Lexicon that I downvoted. I have no idea where it came from, and it doesn’t apply to my book.
“I hesitated whether to buy before, but when I got it, I have to say I made a nice decision to buy this.”
“Happy with this product and the service given. the top quality This product lives up to its description. I’m very satisfied with this purchase They were perfect and each one worked great product is fine.”
Don’t get me wrong. I love five-star reviews, but only if they’re genuine.
I’ll be thinking about this blog post for weeks to come.
Aargh. I closed a quote that should have been left open. 🙁 That’s what happens when I don’t proofread.
Reading your book now Kathy. I’ll be sure to leave an honest review!!
Thanks, EF!
Kathy–I don’t think all Bookbub ads trigger the warning. Only when a book has been not selling for a while, then suddenly spikes. So you should be fine. Ruth Has a Bookbub going this week, and she’s pretty confident it won’t happen.
Your weird review is something else entirely. Not a troll but a paid review mill worker who posted on the wrong page. You can tell by the wording that this is a generic review probably written by somebody who is not a native English speaker. I have some like this. “Fast delivery. Nice product” –on a Kindle book? But as long as it doesn’t give you one star, it doesn’t hurt. Still, I wish Amazon had a simple way to remove them.
Not really. Actually sort of queasy. 🙁
I’m glad you’re honest, Ruth. I’d be queasy too.
Ruth–Uh-oh. Well, maybe acting “as if” will help keep the Amazon demons away. I sure hope it gives you good results with no repercussions.
Agreed. My downvote hasn’t made a difference. I never thought about paid mill workers.
Book junkie is the biggest amazon troll out there. Not only do they trash the authors work the give out spoilers! Amazon should remove all their reviews!
As much as technology can be our friend, we so often depend on technology for jobs that actually require a soul & a thinking human. Get rid of trolls? Good. Slap authors who are buying positive reviews? Good. Create an algorithm that can be successful at doing those things 70% of the time, but is way off the mark 30% of the time? Hmmm.
Thanks for another fine post.
CS–You’re exactly right. When everything is done by robots, a whole lot of it is done wrong. And how can we appeal? Tech seems to be our salvation but it may also be our downfall.
A friend recently got a one star with the only comment “Haven’t read it yet”. 🙂
So admittedly fake lol
Garry–I have some of those too. Several said “I’m still waiting for delivery.” So your Kindle is on the fritz and you’re giving ME a one-star? Sometimes Amazon will remove these since they obviously need to go to customer service.
Given the expense of Bookbub authors should be able to benefit from their investment.
Perhaps Bookbub should try to convince Amazon of the error of their ways.
EF–There will be a showdown if this doesn’t stop. Some people think Amazon may be targeting Bookbub on purpose because BB gives priority to authors who “go wide” and don’t have their books exclusively at Amazon. If that were true, there would be a potential lawsuit there, But it’s hard to prove.
Deaf robot ears bookend non-functioning robot brains. Algos are NOT the answer. Much of the time, they don’t even understand the question. 😉
Ruth–That is so true! Recently Amazon has been peppering me with ads for pet supplies and pet food. I’m sure that’s because my book description has the word “cat.” But I don’t actually own a cat. I have awful allergies. But the robots can’t tell the difference between a fictional cat and a real one. Sigh.
Robots have no effing imagination. And no sense of humor. Gah!
This was so brave, Anne, and you have certainly been a leader on this issue for years as your bibliography attests. I’d have to swallow hard before I put any public answer out to a troll for one of my own works: most likely I’d blow my stack and engage, with disastrous results. Yet another blessing of relative anonymity!
I think it’s interesting that sometimes- as with you- the rain of dopery can result in better sales/ranks. I think I recall when that happened with you. Was it partly due to your fans voting down the negative reviews? What do you think were the factors?
Will–I didn’t set out to be brave, but when you get attacked and you see teens being attacked, you have to speak up. That one obscene attack on a teenaged girl on Goodreads was a low point in the history of publishing. But yeah–you can’t respond. to a negative review–ever. Because the troll will have many friends and/or multiple identities to swarm all over your page.
I think my sales went up because sensible people thought the “reviews” were so ridiculous they wanted to see for themselves and bought the book. And eventually the worst ones did disappear, so fans reporting abuse did help.
This hatred of successful writers isn’t limited to reviews. I’ve seen it on writing message boards and even Facebook. These writers would much prefer to listen to another beginning writer who knows absolutely nothing then to a writer with many books. I had to get off writing message boards because I saw too many of these writers actively discouraging writers with an eye on success.
I think the problem starts with the computer making it easy to produce the words. That, plus articles and books with simplistic advice like “Eliminate adverbs and you’ll get published.” It leads writers to think that all they need to do is check off the list and they’ll get published or have their indie book turn into a best seller. Add to that some writers who have their whole self-worth wrapped up in the success of a single book, and it’s a very bad combination.
Linda–Alll very good points. Somebody on Twitter just brought up the Absolute Write message boards–major troll habitat.
I also agree that some FB writing groups can be ridiculous: the blind leading the blind. If an actual professional like you or me wanders in and tries to give a reality check, they freak out. A lot of my posts come from trying to correct misinformation I see on those FB group pages. But alas, it probably doesn’t get through to the idiots disseminating the misinformation.
@Linda Maye — Excellent commment!!!
I am an Amazon top reviewer who’s reviewed 400+ books and also surveyed the Hall-of-Fame reviewers. I used to give ‘free’ advice about how to get reviews (and also wrote an award-winning book about this topic). Sadly, no more.
On FB, beginners or unsuccessful authors will spread incorrect stuff. If I come back and explain that their info is wrong they utter phrases like “I was told…”
By who? Just anybody?
It is too time consuming to argue with them. I can only say the same thing over and again, “I am one of these top reviewers. My book won is a Kindle Book Review Award Finalist (Overall category: nonfiction). I am an expert. I was interviewed by Bloomberg.
Unfortunately, I don’t have time to explain why people who don’t even review may not know the facts. Obviously, if they don’t actually review, they may not know everything there is to know.
Arguing with people who have no first hand knowledge on FB does NOT pay the bills. Hence, I had to stop.
Gisela–I read your heart-wrenching blogpost about how Amazon values trolls while it drives away thoughtful reviewers. That’s certainly what I’ve seen as well. My theory is that a lot of those trolls work for Amazon. They’re underpaid and angry and nobody’s there to stop them.
I’m with you 100% on the blind-leading-the-blind message boards. They make me furious.But they do give me lots of subject matter for this blog.
I have no idea why that never occurred to me! In all these years of being an author, I never clued in to the fact that a troll review is still a review and will contribute to ‘top 1000’ reviewer status, or whatever. The numbers matter. Well dang.
Goes to show, that every single time I log on here, meaning every week, I still learn something, after all these years, Anne!
Melodie–When you’re dealing with robots, it’s ALL about the numbers, which is why so many people are trying to game the Amazon system. Robots are stupid and easy to fool.
The competition for top reviewer status used to be far worse, because the top rankers would get free products to review–like tablets and computers and videogames. So there was real money to be made. I guess there still is, but last year the Zon cracked down on a lot of that abuse.
I’m pretty sure that closing the forums had a lot to do with gaming the review system. They want things to be fair but they’re not going to go as far as paying actual humans to police things.
Thanks again for interviewing me on your blog!!
I’ve been lucky so far and this hasn’t happened to me. But since I write under my real name, if I got a death threat I’m pretty sure I’d freak out. But it helps to know these are coming from trolls and not the guy down the street who would actually have access to me.
I wish these people had something better to do with their time.
Jeanne–The death threats I got included a photo of my house, so they wanted me to think they were close. The law enforcement guy I talked to said it was just taken from Google Maps, so it didn’t mean anything, but it was terrifying.
Amen to wishing these creeps had something to do with their time. Moms, make them go get jobs and stop living in your basement!
Oh geez… yes, that would be terrifying. I got a call recently from someone trying to sell me something. Before I could hang up he asked me what the street in front of my was made out of and stated, at the corner of x and y – exactly where my house is. ECK! I told him that was a really creepy thing to ask me and I hung up. With my name and google maps, I wouldn’t be hard to find – I’m the only one with my name.
Thanks, Anne. Informative and fair.
One of my pet peeves, though, is that not enough reviewers/readers write and post reviews which are honest and fewer than 4 stars, giving reasons and being critical in fair ways, having read the entire book. The reasons? These reviewers don’t post because they say they “don’t want to hurt an author’s feelings” or “worry about lowering their overall rating,” and feel unjustified because “it’s just my opinion.”
If more authors received a variety of well-thought-out low-star reviews, the trolls’ opinions wouldn’t be the only negative reviews posted. Also, even better, readers wouldn’t be bamboozled and the entire system would be more fair and balanced. Plenty of books DESERVE some low-stars reviews!
Best to you all,
Sally Ember, Ed.D.
Sally–The problem is that Amazon considers a 3-star review to be “critical” i.e. negative, so it does downgrade a book. The place to put lower star rankings is Goodreads. Most of the review averages there are at least one point lower than on Amazon.
You can still write a review that points out the problems in a book on Amazon, but unless you really want to hurt the author’s sales and take money out of their pockets, you don’t give 3 stars or lower. It’s not about feelings. It’s about economics.
Thanks for that info, Anne, but I disagree with part of your explanation. Deciding how many stars to give a book is NOT just about money. It’s about honesty, for me as a reviewer/reader, and my code to tell the truth as I see it to other readers.
I never dun a book for no reason. If I really hate a book, I DNF and do not review it at all.
For the rare times (these days) that I care enough to read an entire book and want to let other readers know my opinions, the least I can do is be honest with them. Otherwise, I’m only serving the writers and that is not my role.
If a writer doesn’t create a book that is good enough to merit more than 3 stars, that is unfortunate, but lying about the quality of a book is a huge problem these days. Withholding negative, non-vindictive and honest reviews or only posting them where many purchasers would never see them (Goodreads) is dishonest and serves to diminish readers’ trust in reviewers and reviews.
The system if flawed; Amazon makes it worse. But, lying does not improve it.
Best to you,
Sally
Sally–I certainly didn’t tell anybody to lie. I said you can write a totally honest review pointing out all the flaws in a book. Just be aware that the star system is flawed. And do remember a good review is not about YOU or your need to punish people you disagree with. It’s about the BOOK. .
I haven’t been a victim but I’ve read about this happening. My publisher put together a boxed set for me last month and my rankings were really good then they disappeared. I guess she got one of those letters. It’s really bull. Amazon is a monster.
Susan–Your boxed set does put you among the victims! So sorry to hear it. There has been a major scam outfit charging authors big bucks to get into boxed sets and gaming the system to get high ranks. Those are the people Amazon is after. But their algorithm is getting a lot more innocent authors than scammers from what I can see.
Thank you for all your informative posts like this one. I appreciate the work you do writing them for us.
Darlene–Ruth and I work hard to keep new authors safe. We figure with all the predators out there, authors need somebody on their side!
Thanks for all you do, Anne. I hadn’t heard about the fora going away, but can’t say I will miss it! Big discussion this weekend about rank stripping and even account takedowns by Amazon for reasons they refuse to discuss. It’s so difficult to deal with Amazon KDP. All you get are canned responses. Maybe they should be some of their zillions into quality customer service, and remember that bookselling got them where they are now.
Lise–They dumped the fora with no warning but a notice to people who went there. No other announcement. Kind of weird. But I guess they figured if they gave the trolls warning, they might organize to move somewhere together.
I’ve heard about the legal negotiations Amazon has been planning to take down the boxed set scammers, but I had no idea they’d make such a complete mess of it. Who knows if they even got any scammers. But they sure got tons of Bookbub customers. Obviously Amazon can squash Bookbub if they want, but why? BB is selling books for them.
They started as bookstore, but now they’re in the movie and TV business. I guess when you make it big in Hollywood, you dump all your old friends. 🙁 Sigh
HI Anne — Great post, as always — and I’m glad your ‘hammer’ remains firmly in your hand in the battle to beat the field level.
I may not have direct experience with review trolls, but many of the authors I’ve edited certainly have…trying to console or explain such behavior is nigh impossible, but I make an attempt. Back in my psych college days we studied mob behavior, usually using the silly example of villagers with torches marching to the Frankenstein castle. Once the mob picks the subject in the wrong, they reinforce their madness by cyclic validation. The torches being lit is usually the big deal and most forget the point of the madness, wanting to just have the thrill of the ‘hunt’.
I imagine that situation now, only with invisible villagers, who use the scent of defeating an author to rile up the pack. Torches get lit. Mob mentality takes over.
I may be naive, but to me it seems that Amazon and it’s review machinations created the fertile space for these poor, unfortunate a$$hats and their power problems. What if only verified readers could post reviews? What if library readers and other retailer purchasers reviews could only be entered in a certain area on the page? What if all other unverified reviews went under yet another heading? I know these headings could still be hacked, but the bots could scan all reviews and if certain key words weren’t included, they would be stuck under unverified, where the reviewer could request that designation be changed by applying to the Zon….
hmmmm It appears I need to have a bit of supper, as I’m rumbling down a serious tangent.
Thanks again for the post, Anne. When my authors have the troll blues, I send them to your blog for more exactly support.
Maria D’Marco
gads….that’s ‘more exacting support’….off for a BLT…
Maria–I wrote about this kind of mob mentality in my post Gangs of New Media several years ago. I called these cyber attacks “Twitchforks” , because the worst of it seems to happen on Twitter. It is indeed the seme mentality as going after Frankenstein’s monster. Fear + rage + the anonymity of the mob give people a high and they’re not able to access the rational part of their brains. It’s not new. In fact it’s really what Euripides dramatized in The Bacchae.
One thing Amazon could do is limit the number of fake accounts a person can have. It’s fine to have a review account in a fake name to keep a reviewer safe from retaliation. But 20? Why would somebody need 20 Amazon accounts?
I’m curious about Jeff Bezos opinion in all of this. I wonder if he is truly aware of what his company is actually doing to the writers that uses his product. Instead of complaining to Amazon about their Central American judicial system (guilty until proven innocent), perhaps everyone should start complaining to him or the board of directors directly.
GB–According to David Gaughran’s post–and the comments–a number of these authors have Mr. Bezos email address and have written to him. I don’t know if any of them have tried snail mail. A registered letter to him personally, delivered via snail mail would be the best way. But he simply may not care. Anne Rice tried to set up a meeting with him and offered to fly to Seattle to talk about the troll problem, but he never responded. If Anne Rice can’t get through, no lowly indie author will.
They’d be better getting this into the press. A HuffPo article might get things going. New York Times would be even better. Maybe contact 60 Minutes….?
Thanks for a great post, Anne. I’m so happy Anne Rice mentioned this blog because it’s new to me but will now be on my favorites. I had a terrible time back in 2014 with the trolls and have to live with the bad reviews with high upvotes. To this day, they jump on anything I publish but I can tell their ranks are decreasing and the dissolution of the “fora” is a start. I fear they lurk in Goodreads private groups now. I sure hope they don’t swarm down on Anne Rice for her endorsement of this post.
Maggie–Welcome! I didn’t realize Anne had shared this on her page, so I went over and thanked her. We communicated a lot when she started that petition. But it seemed that the trolls were winning…until now.
I’ve been a target of these slimy critters myself so I truly empathize. That’s great news that you have seen their ranks decreasing. Thank goodness.
They will go to Goodreads, but Goodreads has kicked out the worst of their trolls in the past, and I think they will now, too. They need for their site to be legit.
I was trolled in book one of my Nora Tierney English Mysteries, where it was clear from the comments the troll hadnt read the book. To my surprise, said troll, who loathed Bk 1, somehow felt compelled to read Book 2, leaving the same negative comments…
Marni–I’m sorry to hear you went through that. They’ll “punish” an author for the mildest of “transgressions” –like asking a question in a dreaded Amazon forum. Often the author’s only “crime” was thinking the forum was what it was supposed to be, and not the “turf” of cyber-gang warfare.
Isn’t it amazing how they feel compelled to “read” so many of your books when they hate them? They also love to leave troll reviews of genres they hate. And why would they read a pink book with a cartoon girl on the cover when they hate “chick lit”? Ack!
Excellent info here Anne. Although closing down the fora is a big step and Amazon taking off bad reviews when they come in in droves is a positive step, it doesn’t seem to do a lot for Indies though. I hardly think an unknown Indie who was being trolled and got for example, 5 bad reviews undeservedly would cause Amazon to look into it. And about Amazon taking off reviews that don’t pertain to the product won’t help us much either since all those trolls have to write is ‘This book was boring and a terrible read” and I’m sure Amazon considers that statement pertaining to a book. And even sadder is when an author pays for a Bookbub ad and is lucky to break even but accumulates many reviews, that should flag the book to Amazon. It seems we’re never on the winning end of the stick with them. But like I said it’s a step with a long, long way to go to becoming fair with authors. 🙂
Debby–Yes. These are just baby steps, as I said, but at least they’re taking them. There’s a precedent now for removing swarms of one-stars. Will they do that for a small press or self-published book? Probably not, right away, but reporting abuse and using their words can help. “This is a high number of unverified reviews posted in a short amount of time.” That can trigger a robot to take notice.
And yes, a “this book made me vomit” review might stay, but a “this author should kill herself” review can be removed now. The latter is not related to the product.
But I agree Amazon is not treating authors with much respect. This Bookbub thing is horrendous abuse.
I thought it worth mentioning that Kboards is a private, well moderated, forum. Amazon have no power there, but rumour has it they do read.
None of the activity you describe happening in the Amazon forums can occur there. The author section of the forum is very troll aware, and the moderators are fast to respond when they appear.
One thing I will suggest as part of reader action against troll reviews, is to upvote a review you think is completely accurate. If enough people upvote accurate reviews, the troll reviews are pushed off the page, and thus lose a lot of their power to hurt the author.
Timothy–Yes. I’ve got two links to the Kboards in my opener. I’ve always got useful information there. The whole system seems very well moderated.
Great reminder to upvote helpful reviews! Even if they’re negative, if they help the reader, do upvote. Anything that honestly helps the reader is valuable and keeps the review system from being abused.
Pity they can’t include a multiple choice question where you have to tell Amazon what happened at the end of the book before they let you post your review (obviously the multiple choice answers only appear to the reviewer so you don’t have spoilers!) True, some of the trolls might actually read it and pass on the answer, but at least that might be a sale…
Icy–Haha! Brilliant idea! I think half the reviews on Amazon come from people who have only read the “look inside” because they’re racking up points for “Top Reviewer” status. Some leave positive reviews, but it’s still obvious they’ve only read a couple of pages. The whole “Top Reviewer” game is a menace to readers and writers alike.
That… is a GREAT idea 🙂
Great post Anne, and congrats on your new book, another Camille Randall mystery, I love them! I wanted to buy it but it wasn’t on sale when I landed on Amazon.com (it was over $5 for me because I live in Europe) Still, I wonder why this is so…I thought I’d let you know.
Claude–I don’t know why you didn’t get the page with the sale. But it is only on sale in the US and the UK. Here’s the US link http://amzn.to/2gDa4S5 and here’s the UK link. http://amzn.to/2gGltAp I wish Amazon would allow countdown sales to go to all Amazon stores, but unfortunately, they only apply to those two countries. But contact me and I’ll get you a copy.
Educate us, the reader. Its we who look at titles, maybe read a few reviews to decide to buy. Unverified purchase reviews = ignore the review as troll. Purchased verified reviews = legitimate. Because of this article , I now know to skip over non verified purchased reviews. That takes away their biggest weapon. people no longer will place value in, non verified purchased reviews.
Danna–Unfortunately that’s not true. A lot of the very best reviews come from book review bloggers, who are usually sent an advance review copy by the publisher or author–so that’s not a verified purchase review. Also people who frequent independent bookstores and libraries can write wonderful reviews, and they will not be verified purchases.
And worst of all, the game-playing trolls love to buy an ebook and return it within minutes before they write a troll review. But because they bought from Amazon, that will be a verified purchase. I didn’t have room to get into all the games that trolls play in this piece, but that’s one of them.
The best way to tell if a review is legit is read it carefully. Does it talk about the content of the book or just the author or the genre? Does it mention any characters, scenes, themes or ideas? People who haven’t read the book won’t be able to address those things..
I’m one of the many innocent authors who’ve been swept up in Amazon’s catch-all net. Nearly $8k has been ripped away for July & August because the Great and Mighty Zon says I’ve somehow manipulated page reads, although they cannot and WILL NOT communicate further on how this little author (me) managed to do so. Over twenty-five emails and zero action on Amazon’s part, except to pass me along to various departments and KDP customer service people. Each gives me the same exact auto-response. David Gaughran is helping those of us who are being bullied by nondisclosure and vague replies.
Sheri–My heart goes out to you! This is a horrible, horrible situation. David is doing a great job of bringing the attention of the publishing community to it, but the info needs o go wide. I would strongly advise you to find a journalist who will write about this for the general public. Try Slate or the Daily Beast or even the Guardian in the UK. The Guardian has run a lot of articles about Amazon’s shortcomings.
It’s awful that you’re having money ripped out of your pocket by badly written algorithms. Find a way to blanket the news media with the story.
Thank you, Anne, for this post. There are many authors out there that will take some sort of comfort from these words. I know I do.
However, there is one aspect to this Review Troll monster that wasn’t mentioned: the book fans that attack the honest reviewer in force.
Years ago, I was subjected to this precise form of treatment. I had purchased a non-fiction book on social media marketing for writers from Amazon Kindle based on the recommendation of a fellow writer in one of my discussions groups. The reviews were all highly ranked — 4 and 5 stars with zero 1 – 3 stars. That should have been my first clue that something was off, but I was still new to the publishing world and didn’t know any better.
The book: well, I didn’t like it. It was bogged down with unnecessary exposition and irrelevant author anecdotes. It was poorly edited, and that’s being nice. The book in question drove me nuts. I’m glad that others were able to get something of value from the book, but the tactics discussed were not going to work for me and most of the other writers that I know.
At the time, I had developed the practice of leaving an honest review on Goodreads and Amazon for every book I read — stating what I liked about the book and what I didn’t.
Well… I was attacked on multiple fronts from multiple sources, all who were supposed fans of the book. The urge to defend myself and my views was incredibly strong, but I stayed my actions. “Don’t feed the trolls.” I was in tears because of the attacks. I had left an honest review, but according to the attackers, I had no clue what a review was for (one even hinted at saying that one should only ever leave 4 or 5 star reviews). And according to many of the attackers, because I wasn’t published, I clearly had no clue what it took to write a book. (Just because a person isn’t published doesn’t mean they can’t write, but I won’t go into that argument.) The attacks were so malicious that I felt confident that had I actually been published at the time, they would have gone after my book too.
I have not reviewed a book since, and will NEVER review a book again.
Earlier this year, after the attacks almost died away, hopefully meaning that the review that sparked the attacks had been buried, several years after that review had been written, I had removed ALL reviews that I have ever written (including the 5-star ones) from Amazon. On Goodreads, the only reviews that remain are the ones for Angela Ackerman’s Thesaurus books.
After chatting with several New York Times best-selling authors about reviews, all of them have said that you should NEVER review a book, good or bad. Instead, if you like a book, tell your lists. Tell your fans and your followers. There is no better way to show an author how much you enjoyed a book than helping them spread the word about the book’s existence. This is the advice that I give new writers now, telling them about my own reviewing horror story. It’s just not worth the emotional heartache.
As mentioned as part of your post, some have been forced to stop reviewing because of the trolls playing actions to bring down the positive effect of a high-ranking review, but the attacks do go the other way too. What happened to me is proof of that.
As a side note: Earlier this year, I attended a conference where the author of the book I had reviewed was presenting. She actually told a room full of writers (over 300 writers) that if you don’t like a review on Amazon that you should quietly send a private message to some of your fans and let them handle it. “The review will mysteriously disappear.” I was beyond words.
It’s actually because of her comments (and actions) at that conference that I now feel confident in coming forward to discuss publicly what happened. Word will spread. She has killed her own career. She doesn’t need any help from me.
Judy–My heart goes out to you. This is one of the worst aspects of the review system. I didn’t go into it here because I was specifically talking about Amazon crackdowns.
But this IS the subject of my new mystery novel, The Queen of Staves, (on sale for 99c until Wednesday! 🙂 ) Also the preceding one, So Much for Buckingham.
The hero, Ronzo, is a music blogger who gives a band an unfavorable review and is persecuted so horribly by the band and its fans that he has to fake his own death and live off the grid. It’s not so far from the truth. I know some reviewers who have been bullied so badly they left social media and had to stay off the Internet for years.
As you say, this stuff is perpetrated by authors through their newsletters and DMs, so it’s not something Amazon can crack down on. But it’s very real and just as terrible as people who use Amazon for revenge “reviews.”.
I’m appalled that an author would ever say such a thing at a Writer’s Conference. I hope the word does get out!
We all get bad reviews, because not everybody is going to like every single book. They are part of the job description of being an author. Anybody who can’t take a bad review isn’t ready to publish. Thanks for leaving up Angela Ackerman’s reviews! Her books are fantastic.
Thank you for this!
This blog really hits home for me. I read about the trolls when I first decided I wanted to work toward being a full time writer. I had very minor experience with their swift cruelty and completely recoiled from Goodreads. I have recently realized that I allowed my forward movement to be frozen for fear of possibly doing well then being attacked for it.
Because of your blog and the following comments, I have learned a few things that will help me tremendously.
R. M.–I’m so glad this post helped. I think Goodreads may be a lost cause. I got a whole lot of one-stars yesterday in retaliation for this post. But guess what? Not one on Amazon! That means Amazon’s algos are working–at least for the reviews. I don’t think Amazon is malevolent. As a customer, I have nothing but good things to report. The problem is they depend on robots. Not malevolent, but stupid.
But don’t let these stupid games keep you from your dreams. Everybody gets one-stars on Goodreads. So nobody pays attention to Goodreads. As an agent told me: ‘Go to GR, put up a profile, link to your blog and leave. Never go back.” That’s the best advice any author can take.
I had all of the reviews I had written (over 600) over the past twenty years taken down because Amazon believed I was “colluding”. I have no idea what they mean as I don’t “collude”. 600 reviews over 20 years. At least the zons haven’t found me and my reviews on Goodreads.
Rebecca–I am so sorry to hear one more story of an honest reviewer caught up in Amazon’s draconian sweep last year. I’m urging reviewers who were treated unfairly to post those reviews on other retail sites, like iTunes, Google Play, Kobo, etc. There’s no reason Amazon needs to be given the monopoly on reviews.
Yes, most sales happen there, but that may be shifting. Authors are getting out of KU in droves because of the recent crackdown and it’s time for authors and reviewers to put some focus on other retailers. If we all do it, we can break the Zon’s near-monopoly and let them know that treating indies and reviewers so badly can have consequences.
As readers read more and more on phone apps, reviews on iTunes and Google Play will have much more power. Since your reviews are still on Goodreads, you could cut and paste. Just a thought.
Thanks for being a reviewer, in spite of all the horrors!
One of the mistakes some reviewers make is also friending an author on FB. Amazon considers this a close connection, and wont accept a review in this situation. (Which is rubbish of course.) If a reviewer consistently reviews an author on their FB friends list, and does this for a number of them every time a book comes out, Amazon may conclude you’re “colluding”. The problem is though, it’s a bot doing the assessment, not a person.
You should be complaining to Amazon about losing your reviews, stick up for yourself as not doing anything wrong. If you need help doing this, go to Kboards, post an explanation, and someone will tell you how to go about it.
Before you do, cull your FB for any author you regularly review.
The reviews are not lost, and Amazon can put them back. Convincing them to is another matter, but it has been done before.
Timothy–I hope Rebecca can get some help at the Kboards. But tons of book bloggers got their reviews pulled because they’re Amazon affiliates. Because they made a tiny amount if somebody bought the book by clicking through from the blog, that was considered “payment” for the review. Draconian, as I said. And they’d never enforced it before October 2016.
Another way to avoid the FB friend problem is unlink your FB account from Amazon.
I keep hearing horror stories like this. Exactly what are author’s supposed to do? This is just sad.
Jeanne–Reviewers and authors need to go wide. Review everywhere. Kobo, Google Play, iTunes. Keep Amazon from being the only game in town. Bookbub actually favors authors who go wide.
I agree. I’ve gone wide with my debut novel. I will make a point to start reviewing beyond Amazon and Goodreads.
Thankfully, I haven’t been trolled. I read articles like this and find myself thinking we authors just can’t win. So far, though, I haven’t experienced any of the bad stuff on Amazon.
Melissa–Keeping your head down and not drawing attention usually keeps you off their radar. Also following the “Laws of the Amazon Jungle.” You’ll find a link above to the article that tells you how to stay safe on Amazon and other social media. It’s in the section near the bottom on Abuse of Reviewers and Authors. “
I was shocked to find out I became a target since I have a minimal online presence. I sell mostly hard copies at Comicon and book conventions. But apparently I ticked one of my buyers off because he created a Goodreads account to give me a one-star review, mentioning my appearance, but not the content of my book. His other ratings were all for political nonfiction books and it was easy to see his affiliation. Just that one bad rating really drove my overall rating down, so I was not pleased. But of course, I knew better than to respond.
Kristin–How awful! The power that social media gives to trolls and terrorists is insane. Something needs to be done. A simple thing would be to not allow so many sock puppet accounts. Nobody needs to start 1000s of new accounts that just leave one-star “reviews” on books with opposing political views. (Which of course are never reviews at all.) Some of these people are actually operatives of enemy governments. These people are terrorists, pure and simple. We need new laws to cover this stuff.
Anne and Ruth, I am shocked beyond belief of what is going on at Amazon. I had no idea about trolls at all. And, now with some authors trying to trademark common words from the dictionary, I am wondering when all of this mayhem will end. I have just bought your book and Ruth’s too, for my Kindle, and I know both will be outstanding because I read your posts often. Thank you so much for your strong support for authors and how courageous you both are to report about this horrible abuse of many authors.
One question, is it really true about this Trademark scandal? Should I have signed the petition and reblogged it on my WordPress site, twitter, and Facebook? Thank you, K. D. 🙂
K.D.–This is stuff newbies aren’t aware of but we need to learn, because these horrors are only getting worse. I wrote this 7 months ago, and Amazon’s crackdowns on reviewers are getting more draconian. But they don’t crack down on trolls at all.
For more recent stuff on Amazon and the Trademark issue, click on “Home” above and on the main page scroll down to “Black Hat Authors” and “Amazon Gets Medieval on Paid Reviews.”
The Trademark issue or “cockygate” is very real, as you can read in my ‘Black Hat” post. But the RWA and some very savvy lawyers are dealing with it, so while signing petitions or reblogging will give them moral support, it’s not actually going to change the outcome. What will make the difference is the US legal system, which usually works pretty well. I think Ms. Cockygate will get her comeuppance.
I just got nailed by someone who ripped my travel book to shreds, even though it had nearly all 4- and 5-star reviews and all positive comments. Sales have taken a big dip.
I went to the reviewer’s profile page and saw that he had only 5 total reviews. More importantly, he had set his review posts to private so no one could see what he was doing. As you probably know, the default view is public. Highly suspicious.
So with a $3 Kindle purchase and an anonymous account, you can cost an author (and Amazon) hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
Can I guarantee he is a troll who is the author of a similar book? No, not without the help of Amazon KDP, which is nearly impossible to contact.
Well, Scott, too a certain extent, indie authors left the field to the trolls. Like I mentioned previously, as a top reviewer who actually surveyed the Hall-of-Fame reviewers (who gave me answers b/c I was a top reviewer too) I published “the book” about this topic in 2015, and updated it 2016/17/18. Experts advice for less than the price of a cup of coffee. If you think that the majority of indie authors would have heeded the advice I gave in these books you are mistaken.
(a) They wanted my book for free and wrote me emails “I accept your book for review, when can I send you mine.” I received more than 100 of these emails. Undoubtedly, this was the scheme some person who runs a group but doesn’t review themselves suggested, and people followed that crazy advice.
(b) Since when does an expert pay twice (giving the book for free + spending hours to review the books of the people who might really need this advice) for offering best advice for less than the cost of a cup of coffee?
(c) When Amazon began tracking down on “friends reviews,” obviously, anybody who reviewed a large number of books became a potential target of Amazon’s algorithm, hence top reviewers risked years of work when writing w new book review.
(d) In general, indie authors did not see that or didn’t want to see it. Authors whose books may have had 6 friends reviews and then received a 3-star review from a top reviewer ranted in FB groups about “nasty reviewers.”
(e) In Spring of 2018, Amazon began kicking out top reviewers at a rate of 2% every three weeks, I published this finding on my well-read blog and showed the stats.
(f) No change in behavior from the authors
(g) 11 of the 12 Hall-of-Fame reviewers who reviewed my own book “Naked Truths About getting book reviews” got kicked out too. These were people who had written upwards of 10,000 reviews.
(h) The result of all this was that top reviewers who reviewed books retreated. Who wants to be targeted by Amazon because of what other people are doing?
(i) Since the top reviewers wrote mostly very good reviews because they didn’t have time or interest to finish books they didn’t like this left the enormous vacuum of excellent books reviewers you see today.
By the way, last week, Amazon changed something about their algorithms – again. For two days, Amazon listed the actual number of reviews all books received (including the ones of the reviewers the kicked out) and then they disappeared again.
That’s a strong indicator that they changed their algorithm somehow.
When I wrote my books about getting book reviews and related topics I monitored all of Amazon’s activities, multiple times per day, which is a heck of a work. But, if indie authors do not appreciate this work but want the work for free, one just can’t do it. How was I supposed to do that?
So, thumbs up, something in the algorithm was changed – mostly likely tightened – last week.
Also, which is what I forgot to mention in above posting, I don’t see myself as a lone victim in all of this. Since I knew quite a few Hall-of-Fame reviewers, I know for a fact that most of them whose email address were live at some point got haunted in some way.
In fact, even top reviewers who removed their email addresses got haunted non-stop. At least one but probably three or four people had pulled our email addresses in 2016 or 2017 and either sold them or gave them as ” a bonus” to people who purchased “their programs.”
On average, Hall-of-Fame reviewers received more than 10K emails per year.
Which is all info I published. ‘ Don’t know why so many indie authors thought we’d appreciate additional canned emails (designed by people who are neither good email writers nor book reviewers).
Scott and Gisela–Thanks for the wealth of information, Gisela!
You are absolutely right about the problem that every single indie author is told that they can get reviews if they just send their ebooks to Amazon top reviewers. As if these unpaid volunteers OWE them a review. It’s driven many, many reviewers off the site. Gisela, I think you once told me about one author whose toxic harassment made you give up reviewing for a while. Horrible stuff.
Everybody who works online should get a refresher course in the Golden Rule.
And as she says, when good reviewers are silenced, that leaves more room for the trolls. What I said in this thread 3 years ago was that I suspected many of the trolls work for Amazon. We have since found out there is a whole Amazon underground that will remove a bad review for a hefty fee. So what’s easier than writing a nasty review and then taking money to remove it. Simple extortion.
I don’t know the answer. Things have got out of hand–even worse than they were when I wrote this 3 years ago–and Amazon’s solution to everything seems to be to ban the best reviewers and keep the trolls.
Tomorrow I’ll be writing about an alternative to Amazon and Goodreads–BookBub, which isn’t just about pricey ads anymore. I hope you’ll stop by.
And thanks again for your thoughtful comments.
Ann, thanks for chiming in. If you know of any people at amazon who remove reviews you better let them know. It’s strictly forbidden to remove reviews against money or any other favors.
I myself had three reviews removed, upon my request. After one of my books was featured in Success magazine, “reviewers” published my insights in their reviews. That is forbidden too, by Amazon, hence I made my requests. 2 or 3 email back and forth and the reviews were removed.
The two basic principle of taking advice regarding getting reviews are:
(a) Find out how many books “the expert” whose advice you are considering actually reviews and don’t believe anything anybody who doesn’t review at least 50 books per year. Finding out this information is easy: Just comment under the blog, “Where can I find your book reviews, please?”
(b) Secondly, if the suggested method sounds too easy, it’s a hoax. It is not easy to get anybody to devote a few hours of their time to reading a book they didn’t select themselves or a book from an author they have never heard about. Too many “book marketers” try to build their lists by spreading “this is easy”-advice. Well, it’s not. All of us are busy.
Gisela–If Amazon doesn’t listen to the Wall Street Journal, they’re not likely to listen to me. 🙂 In 2018 the WSJ published an expose of the underground Amazon review economy. It’s behind a paywall, but you can read the first paragraph. Lots of stuff has been written about it since, but Amazon doesn’t seem interested in controlling it. https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-investigates-employees-leaking-data-for-bribes-1537106401
Oh, ghee, wow, Anne, I had no idea. But, like I said, I stop following all of Amazon’s book review developments a while ago. I was even featured on Bloomberg’s podcast “Decrypted” as the Amazon review expert, if that didn’t convince authors I can’t help. Aside from Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Bezos, most of us can’t work for free.
Of course, another problem is that Amazon makes a lot less money on ebooks. If you so want they shot themselves in the foot, when they started KU (and promised it’d always be available) when they came out with the Kindle.
Today, book marketing relies on giving away free books hence Amazon not only makes no money on the free books they have to pay the delivery costs out of their pocket. Which is why they are more concerned with their product selection and the delivery thereof.
Gisela–I’ve been avoiding the subject too. Just too crazy-making. That’s why I’m writing about BookBub reviews for tomorrow.
I do get your point that free books don’t make any money for the Zon (or the author) but the idea is that they are supposed to sell more books in the long run. I don’t think that works anymore, though. Marketers are always selling authors whatever worked 5 years ago.
Anne, you are right – it was the concept.
Even Amazon seemed to believe that (e.g. we allow authors to give away their books for free and if the good ones we’ll make money for years in a row.”)
Alas, the marketers who talked everybody, including people who couldn’t write a decent HS essay, into publishing a book killed that plan, for Amazon and the rest of us. And, of course, it was primarily these authors who started cheating, the good ones and the ones who wanted to hone their craft didn’t need to.
“Free” is the most dangerous word in the world, b/c absolutely nothing is free. Hence the idea, that everybody can just publish a book practically for free and then market it for free, and free reviewers will come running to fulfill authors’ needs for free, is ludicrous.
In 2018, I wrote a blog predicting that if the “free-free-free”-concept would be supported only a bit longer, in five years from then (2023) publishing and marketing a new book would cost more than “before Kindle” when aspiring authors self-published on their own dime or invested into finding a publisher.
Boy, was I wrong. Since printing books got so much cheaper we have arrived at this junction already. And, marketing costs have risen in the ridiculous.
=> Amazon fires employees for leaking customer email addresses and phone numbers – Jan. 10, 2020
https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/10/amazon-employees-email-address/
Thanks much for the link!!