Amazon’s paid review crackdown may have punished “over a million” innocent customers.
by Anne R. Allen
My inbox has been bursting with unsolicited emails for the past few weeks. I must be on a new list of “easy prey” circulating in the the author-scamming community.
Several sleazy guys with dodgy language skills have hit me with nasty ones. They use the classic “negging” approach perfected by the “how to pick up girls with low self-esteem” folks that hang out in the rape-y sub-basements of Reddit and 4Chan.
These emails will “analyze” the Amazon buy page of one of my books—always assuming I’ve only written the one—mansplaining how I’m too stupid to know it’s overpriced, too short, has a bad cover, a bad sales rank (even when it’s a bestseller) and of course, has an insufficient number of reviews.
(BTW, for those who don’t believe me when I say books are getting shorter, Porter Anderson and Hugh Howey both gave my “shorter books” post a nice mention at Writer Unboxed this week.)
The emailing creeps have no idea I’m with a small press, and they’re actually dissing my publisher. But I can imagine this approach is pretty effective on self-publishers, especially relative newbies. Some judgey stranger offering unpleasant criticism in your morning email can shake an author’s confidence.
And they’re counting on that. Once you’re feeling vulnerable, they pitch bogus or wildly overpriced services, “break into Hollywood” scams, worthless interviews, and that old warhorse, paid Amazon reviews.
In May, I’ll address the problems of the overpriced interviews and other scams.
But when I started to research the paid review business this week, I ran into a bunch of new dramas and draconian changes. So I decided to devote this post to the latest Amazon review horrors.
DO NOT Pay for Amazon Customer Reviews!
One email notified me that I’d failed to get “enough” reviews on my new Author Blog Book. But I could get 25 Amazon reviews from him for only $900! He implied I’d been stupid not to do this before.
Dude, here’s the reason many of us “fail” to get tons of Amazon reviews anymore: scammy review-sellers like you.
This is because Amazon fights paid review violations with robots, which are wrong more often than not. And they’re scaring off real reviewers.
In 2016, the Zon changed their TOS to require reviewers to be Amazon customers and forbid any payment—including free products or gift cards—to reviewers of anything other than books. (Book reviewers can review free books as long as they disclose.) This was supposed to crack down on the rampant gaming of Amazon’s review system. For more, see my 2016 post on Amazon’s New Review Rules.
But many innocents lost reviews too. Some long-time reviewers decided to review only on their own blogs. There’s a lovely review of my Author Blog book on Mark Tilbury’s blog the “negging” guys won’t see, but it gets Tweeted a lot.
A review on a blog is useful, and can be quoted in Amazon’s “editorial review” section, which often has more clout with readers.
But Amazon has recently made more draconian changes. The guidelines have been modified again, and so have the punishments.
It used to be that customers violating Amazon’s TOS were banned from SELLING on Amazon, but the new policy bans them from BUYING.
Your account will be deleted. No warning. No explanations.
If you feel the need to buy reviews, the legit ones (like Kirkus) may be valuable to you as “editorial reviews” and can provide quotes for advertising, but paid reviews in the “customer review” thread are a very bad idea. No matter what the “neg” guys say.
Amazon’s Review Police-Bots Deleted “Over a Million” Innocent Customers’ Accounts this Month.
Amazon’s latest police-bots are out for blood: if they even suspect you of breaking the rules, your account gets deleted with no warning.
Suddenly Fire TVs don’t work. Alexa is silent. Books you’re in the middle of reading…gone. No Amazon streaming TV. Your account no longer exists. No refunds. No apologies.
In late March, these mindless thug-bots deleted innocent customers’ accounts by the 1000s (“over a million,” according to some.)
There’s a rumor this came from a hack designed to discredit Amazon as a part of recent political attacks the company, but Amazon hasn’t acknowledged a hack.
The victims got this explanation:
“The account has been deleted for one or both of the following reasons.
- Your reviews were posted in exchange for compensation, such as gift cards to purchase the product, product refunds, review swaps, or free or discounted products, and/or
- Your account was used for commercial purposes.”
Digital Trends investigated. Amazon’s explanation: “Amazon has taken action against bad actors and those who have violated our community rules.”
You can read victims’ laments in the Twitter thread #AmazonClosed. They don’t sound like “bad actors” to me:
“My account was closed…but I quit reviewing last year when Amazon changed their TOS!”
“Amazon closed my account after 15 years. Prime member, Kindle books, gift card balance. Need answers.”
“RUDE reps, supervisors and all sticking to the same script.”
“No apology for a month of lies and customer service failures.”
“student couldn’t use an audiobook she needed for her history class.”
“Closed my account, but are still charging my card for Prime.”
Some accounts have reappeared. But plenty have not.
Facebook groups have formed to file class action suits, so this drama will unfold in the courts. You can read more at Business Insider, and EdSurge. But for some reason, this hasn’t made the major news outlets.
Amazon’s Robots Do a Lousy Job of Policing Paid Reviews, but Don’t Put Yourself in Their Crosshairs
Nobody knows if any of these 1000s of people actually traded or bought reviews. Or if they’d ever reviewed anything.
But we can be pretty sure that if you DO trade or buy reviews and you’re caught, your career—as well as your shopping—is over on Amazon.
So don’t listen to the negging and send those review-sellers to spam. Even if they seem legit. ANY compensation for an Amazon review—no matter how “fair”—can get you the boot.
Amazon’s Escalating Scam Problem.
The paid review problem isn’t the only scam-policing that Amazon’s robots have got wrong.
- Recently they blocked publication of a book by a bestseller because they didn’t believe she would self-publish.
- There’s been piracy and money laundering going on at CreateSpace that would make a wild thriller plot.
- Plus The New Publishing Standard reports that half the UK bestsellers violate Amazon’s Metadata Rules. No police-bots seem to notice.
- Kindle Unlimited scams abound, especially by authors who use click farming to inflate their numbers, and stuff books with 1000s of repetitive pages, with an incentive to click to the end—thus logging in 1000s of “pages read” that weren’t. They get a much bigger piece of the zero-sum pie that Amazon has created with the KU payout system. Industry watchdog David Gaughran has had a lot to say about that particular scam. Although Amazon has taken some of the scammers to court and recently won a victory over one of the more egregious crooks, Mr. Gaughran Tweets that the scammers still dominate the “bestseller” lists in KU.
Real Reviewers Are Leaving Amazon.
The most recent crackdown doesn’t only involve draconian punishments for suspected paid reviewers.
Amazon is also banning reviewers from posting in more than one Amazon store. It used to be reviews could be posted in the US Amazon store as well as Canada, UK, Australia, etc., so a UK reviewer could also post a review on Amazon.com, where it had a potential to increase a book’s sales and get it into Bookbub and other newsletters.
But since overseas review farms have been abusing this practice, Amazon is now requiring that reviewers spend the equivalent of $50 per year in each Amazon store, every year. (That’s a big change from requiring a one-time purchase of $50 or more from any one Amazon store, which was the rule instituted in 2016.)
So honest reviewers, who are working for free, are now supposed to pay to play. And pay a lot. According to reviewer Barb Taub, “In the name of discouraging ‘fake’ reviews, [Amazon’s] new policy requires reviewers like me to spend $50 on Amazon’s US site and even more, £40 on Amazon UK. before I can share my review.”
Book reviewers like Barb Taub have had enough. The comment thread on her post shows exactly why it’s so hard to get real Amazon reviews these days.
Some examples:
“After trying multiple times to submit it, only to be rejected without explanation, I have given up.”
“If it’s too hard to post reviews on Amazon, I’ll just post them on my own blog and call it a day.”
“I can’t help thinking this policy change wasn’t well thought out. It just sort of appeared with very little fanfare.”
“I’ve been a loyal Amazon reviewer since 1998 (it’s tells you when you became a customer) and yet they decided to pull all my reviews….When I emailed them on the matter they quite rudely told me they didn’t need to answer my questions, it was final.
“Meanwhile, the fake reviews carry on getting posted……”
Driving away real reviewers just opens up the market for the fake review farms where neg-guy hangs out.
It’s Time for Reviews to “Go Wide.”
I’m going to put it out there that it’s time for reviewers to branch out to other retailers like Kobo, iTunes, Google Play, Smashwords, and B&N, where one review could make a big difference in sales. If reviews were spread out, it would help everybody—even Amazon, since they obviously can’t keep up with the scams.
Many do post to Goodreads, but Goodreads is owned by Amazon, so it’s not guaranteed safe. Plus it’s riddled with trolls, who are nurtured by the Goodreads system.
One troll, who goes by the name “Annette” has rated nearly 4000 books since she joined last year. She gives every single book one star. No written reviews, just that one star. I reported her the first day she joined, six months ago, because on that one day she gave 400 one star ratings. All my books were included, but mostly she hit vegan cookbooks and yoga instruction manuals. I figured my books were in healthy company. 🙂 But Goodreads said she wasn’t breaking any rules—admitting that Goodreads “ratings” are easily played and completely useless.
But reviewing on on other retailers would make a big impact. Recently most indie authors have found it’s more lucrative to “go wide” on all platforms rather than stay exclusive with Amazon, partly because of the rampant gaming of Kindle Unlimited I mentioned above.
I hope reviewers will do the same. We’re having some nice success with Kobo promotions of my books. A few reviews on the site would help enormously.
Then scammers like the neg-guy would at least have to work a little harder to dis us for not having enough reviews.
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) April 22, 2018
UPDATE 5/26/18
In an unannounced change in May, Amazon has apparently banned reviews of free review copies. You must BUY a book from Amazon to review it on Amazon according to Nate Hoffelder at the Digital Reader.
But I saw a tweet from a reviewer a week later who says that the new rule is that a book can’t have more than a certain (secret) number of unverified reviews in any five day period. So if you aren’t getting a ton of reviews, an unverified review (of a free review copy) will probably not set off Amazon’s alarm bells.
UPDATE, 4/24/18:
Yesterday the Washington Post ran an article on Amazon’s fake review problem, which made it sound pretty severe, and shows why the Zon is cracking down so hard.
But today industry watchdog David Gaughran offered some enlightening information that refutes some of the data in the WaPo article.
It seems that Amazon is using some very dodgy data from an outfit called ReviewMeta to flag “fake” reviews. Two “proofs” of wrongdoing, according to ReviewMeta are: 1) reviewers who mention the name of the book 2) reviewers who review more than one book in a series. Their algorithm flags those as fake reviews.
So if you’ve had your reviews removed, or your account has been deleted, it may have happened because you broke these “rules” which have no relevance to book reviewing.
This may be why the robots are getting things so very, very wrong.
***
What about you, scriveners? Have you suffered the recent Amazon “purge”–or any of the earlier ones? Do you know anybody who has lost an Amazon account in the past few weeks? Do you still review on Amazon?
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Wow, Anne. I knew there were problems, but many of these details are new to me. Some valid reviews of my books have been deleted by Amazon. I shrugged and ignored, but wondered why.
Re Annette: I reported her to Goodreads as well. This was their reply:
“Hi Kathy,
“Thank you for taking the time to write in. We’ve looked at this user’s activity on the admin side, but the profile does not appear to raise any of our standard red flags.
“To clarify, Goodreads policy allows users to rate a book as soon as it is listed on the site. We do not dictate on what basis Goodreads members form their personal opinions about a book, so we have no rules about reading the full text of a book before rating and reviewing it. We recognize that not everyone will agree with this policy, but it is one that has worked well for the Goodreads community over time.
“We also don’t have a requirement that members maintain a minimum average rating, as everyone uses the rating system differently. Given this, we aren’t able to remove ratings for being one-star alone, and we also aren’t able to remove accounts simply because of their low ratings.
“As the member hasn’t broken any rules and seems to be legitimate, we can’t remove any of the ratings. We understand this isn’t the answer you were hoping for. However, if you’re concerned about a site member’s activity in the future, please let us know and we’ll be happy to look into it.
“Sincerely,
“The Goodreads Team”
I fail to understand how the Goodreads bots (and humans) find this type of activity valid–while removing so many at Amazon.
*sigh*
Kathy–I’m glad you reported the Annette troll, although the response is infuriating. Before ‘she” set her profile to private, it was clear she was trolling particular subgenres. That means she’s probably is paid to down vote them by a rival.
I mean, 20 books of vegan smoothies given a one-star in one day? If I’d had the time, I probably could have found the book of vegan smoothies that didn’t have the one-star, and that was certainly who she was working for. But Goodreads simply does not care. Which means their ratings mean absolutely nothing.
For anyone who has had their Amazon account suspended, check this Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1519885701643780/
Kathy–Thanks so much for posting that. I asked to join, hoping I can get more information about what’s being done to get people’s accounts back.
Goodreads is owned by Amazon so it doesn’t surprise me that they responded that way.
It’s likely that we need a better system for reviews. The star system is pretty useless because people define it differently. I might rate a pretty decent book as three stars, while someone else might consider three stars a not-so good book. Netflix went to a simple thumbs up/thumbs down system. That might be better. And I think if a review is posted on any of the sites on Amazon like UK, it should be applied across the board.
Linda–The system is definitely broken. And Amazon’s system is the worst. They consider a 3-star a “critical” review, so only 4 and 5 stars are considered positive, which doesn’t give reviewers much leeway. The Netflix system might work better.
And suddenly banning UK, CA, AU, etc reviewers from reviewing on Amazon US is so bizarre and unhelpful. Amazon should treat the professional reviewers with respect, not this kind of contempt.
I knew the review system was a mess, but I didn’t know it was *this much* of a mess! Thanks for the informative run down. Aaaaaaargh.
Ruth–I was pretty shocked. A million accounts deleted. Amazon used to be customer friendly. That sure has turned around!!
All those accounts just deleted. That’s scary.
I’ll take reviews on Barnes and Noble and iTunes, please. According to my royalty statements, over half my eBook sales come from those places anyway.
Alex–I’m getting a lot more sales on other platforms, too. I’m finally getting some traction on Kobo, which is great. It is bigger than Amazon in Canada. But I sure don’t have any reviews there. That would help so much!
Anne, are you direct on KOBO or through an aggregater?
Jeanne–My publisher handles that, but I think they use D2D.
Social Media has a serious problem with the front line being “bots” to manage content. One of my pastimes is reporting fake accounts on twitter and Facebook.
I no longer get porn on twitter in that they allow you to report porn and do delete accounts. I got quite a few ironic hearts by porn accounts on twitter to a post about who I had reported and the accounts deleted. It took awhile, but the posts stopped.
Unless someone posts something really obscene, the account goes with community standards no matter the outrageous name on Faceobok.
I read an article about people who monitor content on social media. Many quit due to the awful things they see. Unlike law enforcement who acknowledge people need counseling when viewing such content, social media does not take care of it’s workers who may be hired as independent contractors without the wonderful benefits these companies offer their regular employees.
Amazon, all of the social media sites are new with growing pains. Some of these growing pains need to be regulated much like amazon’s monopoly on the book market needs to be monitored. I buy a lot of books via Amazon. But I do buy from other retail sites.
Ann–Thanks for volunteering to fight fake social media accounts! We all benefit from your work. And also for reminding us that a lot of the workers who are screening this stuff are underpaid and overworked. How awful that they have to look at horrific content all day.
Luckily Amazon’s near-monopoly is diminishing, at least with ebooks. I have two Kindle devices, so of course I always go to Amazon, but now I wish I didn’t. I’m so glad I didn’t get a Fire TV. It’s scary to be at their mercy, knowing they could take it all away at any moment for no reason.
So this is crazy. I help Tammy on her Rabid Reader’s Reviews homepage on the backend. She does get a lot of review requests from indie authors and publishers. She also downloads free books. From your post, I get that you now have to mention that the book was a free download — which is kind of stupid. You usually pick up books through free downloads randomly.
Tammy usually posts her reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. If the author is from the U.K., she’ll post there as well. I understand Amazon’s policy — they have to do something — but I’m not really sure that they will be able to solve the problem by expecting revenues per site.
I totally agree with you regarding diversifying. Reviewing on Smashwords, iTunes and Kobo is certainly a great idea. Of course, this will hurt Amazon in the long run because Kindle Unlimited’s ToS requires exclusivity.
I also think authors should look into LibraryThing. For extensive use, LibraryThing requires an annual or a lifetime fee from the author and reader. This can be a helpful filter regarding trolls. AFAIK, they also have a stricter policy.
Another site for readers and authors is: https://www.rifflebooks.com/
It kind of works like Pinterest. Publisher’s Weekly, GalleyNet and The Guardian mentioned this site.
Range Woman–Free downloads don’t have to be disclosed. In fact, if they’re from Amazon during a freebie run–or if the reviewer has Prime–that’s a “verified purchase.” Disclosure is only necessary when the reviewer gets the book directly from the author or publisher for the purpose of a review.
Requiring payment to post on Amazon UK is very new. She may not have run into it yet. I just saw a FB post from a reviewer who ran into it for the first time today. I think there’s going to be a big outcry.
Book bloggers like Tammy have been the lifeblood of the online book sales industry for a decade. By cutting them off, I think Amazon is cutting off its nose to spite its face. This is going to cause a huge drop-off in legit reviews, and the field will be wide open for scammers who know how to game the system.
Sites like LibraryThing and Rifflebooks may benefit, too. I hope so. Thanks for the link.
Thanks for the information about free downloads, Anne. The problem with foreign Amazon sites is that you can’t actually order there. AFAIK, you will always be redirected to your location because of sales tax issues. Tammy doesn’t live in the U.S. anymore, so that would mean she can’t post on Amazon U.S. anymore — or let’s say it is going to be harder.
In most cases, I’m inclined to say that it isn’t all that important. An extensive review on her homepage allows authors to share it on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ (what she, respectively I, do anyway). She posts on Goodreads but who knows if Amazon at one point will crack down on this site as well. I do understand their problem and monitoring requires a lot of manpower.
It hasn’t happened to me or anyone I know…yet. I wonder if this kind of thing applies to bloggers who review books (that they receive as ARCs or free) and then post reviews on Amazon? Is that considered a “paid” review?
Jeanne–Most of the people this happened to never left any kind of reviews, so it’s some kind of glitch, but it shows that Amazon is planning some nasty punishments. This is all brand new and just started to roll out in the last month.
An ARC is not considered a paid review, but you do have to disclose that it came from the publisher.
It’s not supposed to, so long as you declare the connection (I just did one for Christopher Moore’s “Noir.”
Now, I’m considering pulling all 300+ reviews, in light of Allen’s post. I’m afraid I have linked a post on my site to Amazon using my affiliate link, which technically means I’m violating their terms (even though they’re sometimes for 3-star and lower books).
If their bot catches me and deletes my account, there goes my publishing career, with no recourse or appeal. I guess I could sign on with a different account, but do I really need the hassle? No, better to pull them and make sure. I’ve already pulled my press’ only books in KU for this reason as well.
Bill–It would be tragic to have to pull all your reviews. 300+! (And I’d love to read your review of Noir. I LOVE Chris Moore. I’d better go do it quick.) I have heard of affiliates getting all their reviews deleted, but I haven’t heard of them getting booted. You might want to check out the thread of #AmazonClosed to see if that seems to be happening.
Starting a new buying account not related to reviews might be a good plan. It might allow all those reviews to stay. It would be so devastating for the authors if you had to remove them. Even negative reviews are a big bonus for the author.
Hi Anne,
It’s frightening that robots have been in charge of something so huge. They’re obviously getting it all VERY wrong if the numbers of closed accounts are anything to go by. I’ve had people tell me that they’d tried leaving reviews on multiple Zons but were blocked from doing so, and then were even more confused because they’d spent money on those sites as well as the UK one. Customer service is next to zero on this matter and I’m not surprised people are considering legal action.
Thanks also for the mention of my review.
Mark–Robots are definitely the problem. They’re not working the way they’re supposed to and nobody seems to be in charge. The employees who respond to complaints are obviously underlings who are told to stick to a script and behave like robots themselves.
I’m dealing with this with my payments. Every month I get an email saying that my bank details are invalid and Amazon.ca can’t pay me. Then Amazon.ca pays me. But I’ve written 4 times asking them to stop sending the emails, and 4 employees have written back saying I must change banks because I’m in the wrong.
That’s the new Amazon script: THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS WRONG.
Amazon got where they are because of good customer service. But they’ve done a 180 on that. Now it’s %&*@ off and go shop somewhere else. It might be time to buy stock in WalMart. 🙂
And thanks for the great review!
Gave up on posting reviews on Amazon years ago after realising they had a set word count a requirement that you had to mention details of the book but still allowed the phrase “Evelyn Waugh was the original riot grrrl” to get through unnoticed, at least with goodreads although still Amazon you can have fun doubt Amazon would ever allow
Artemis
by Andy Weir (Goodreads Author)
U 50×66
Kevinjwoods’s review Feb 23, 2018 · edit
really liked it
Nice to read a story about the ins and outs of welding in space, who knew there were so many details to remember, where you can and cannot use a welding torch, how to turn it on in a vacuum, which equipment is best for a lunar environment etc.
Occasionally a plot about criminals tries to intervene but don’t worry welding fans if you just wait a few chapters more of the extensive details of lunar welding will arrive.
Sure to become a future classic among the welding fraternity, recommended
Or
Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death (The Grantchester Mysteries #1)
by James Runcie (Goodreads Author)
U 50×66
Kevinjwoods’s review Apr 19, 2018 · edit
it was ok
Should be violently thrown in the direction of any charity store or jumble sale willing to take it off your hands
I admit to being curious about what authors think about reviews like these.
Kevin–““Evelyn Waugh was the original riot grrrl”?? I’m seriously ROTFL. Too funny. Troll reviews are a huge problem. But snarky reviews by people who have actually read the book? We don’t like it but we have to take our lumps. Here’s a post on troll reviews http://bit.ly/2fsf6j5
Good idea, to encourage reviews on Kobo and itunes. And you’ve explained our recent angst in Canada: we can’t post reviews to Amazon.com anymore, for American books. This is definitely a new thing.
I have a double whammy, in that my Amazon account was hacked via the Yahoo mega-hack last year. I’m still frozen out of it. Any message Amazon tries to send me goes to the hacker, not to me. Nothing can be done, the Amazon manager tell me. I’ve lost all my kindle books and can’t transfer them to a new kindle. Not to mention the whole credit card fraud that took place immediately, which was the actual purpose of the hack.
Thanks again for this valuable post, Anne!
Melodie–Getting hacked is horrible. This is something the big tech companies need to get ahead of, instead of just saying. “So you got hacked? Too bad. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” Sorry you have to go through that.
Actually, the FTC policy has long been you do have to disclose the source of the book regardless of whether or not it came from a free download, the the publicist, the author, etc. I have a certain stalker author who, because of a negative review written over a decade ago, files complaints every few months with the FTC and other folks about my review work. I have been investigated by the FTC and other parties multiple times over his false allegations and cleared.
As to spreading reviews wide—always done this because limiting to one platform, where the rules can change at any point— is just smart. Amazon has a long history of encouraging and supporting reviews of zero depth or meaning. I have noticed it is getting more difficult, once again, to deal with them. I might be another “real reviewer” that may just finally pull the plug on them.
Kevin–I had no idea that the FTC wants you to say where you got the book. Amazon considers downloads during a freebie run to be “verified purchases” so that kind of goes against their policy as it exists now. And I don’t think people disclose free Goodreads giveaways either. What about KU reads? I guess they aren’t really free because people pay for KU.
How awful that you had to go through that with the stalker. In my novel So Much for Buckingham, I wrote about review anger that leads to murder. I think it just might. There certainly have been some instances of assault on reviewers. Authors need to realize that any review is a gift.
Thanks for being a “real reviewer” and I hope to see you on Kobo!
Thanks Anne, you always bring valuable information to my attention. I have been reviewing books on Ama-zon and Ama-zonUK and goodreads under my personal name for a long time. I may be in for a surprise, I will know in a couple of hours because I am going to post a new review this afternoon.
I could not post on Ama-zonUK. So I went to Kobo.
Hyper–So this is the first time you’ve been shut out of AmUK? This is obviously a very new policy. And a silly one, IMO. Thanks for letting us know.
I have been posting reviews nearly every week for over two years. Not today.
A couple of years ago I lost several reviews from all of my books. One of the nicest and most honest reviewers I know was banned from Amazon without explanation or recourse. Recently, more reviews for my books (all traditionally published) have disappeared. The big “A” has lost control of itself.
Thanks for an informative post.
–Michael
Michael–I’ve lost reviews too. I’ll go to a book one day and it has three fewer reviews than before. And often they were reviews by thoughtful book bloggers.
I agree that the Zon seems to have lost control. The robots are in charge now.
Anne, I just realized I read “The Gatsby Game” a long time ago, before I’d ever visited your site. Now I find out it was you who wrote it! It’s a great book.
Tricia–Awesome! It’s so much fun to meet a reader! I’m so glad you liked the book.
Hi Anne,
I’m a newbie, and paid Goodreads to run give-away advertised as a way to get noticed through reviews that would show up on Amazon, too!. But while I have reviews on Goodreads, none of them are showing up on Amazon. I have to wonder why it’s okay to pay through Goodreads to giveaway your book, hoping for honest reviews (where apparently they don’t care about abuse), and yet they will not allow such reviews on my book page. (I also wondered about an immediate 3 star review with no comment and “private” on the person who posted it. I don’t have to wonder now.)
I’m paying AMS for ads and one has appeared only 8 times in 10 days. I realize I need to work harder on my book description but it feels like I’ve already been tossed into the black hole of unread books and it’s only been three weeks. I will add more editorial comments but I’m worried, now, that I might word them wrong.
I know people are reading because of the sign-ups on my website (and the KU pages read) and they would only find that link by reading to the end of the book. I will assume that people are not reviewing right now, which is sad because Amazon used to be a great platform for self-published authors and widened the marketplace beyond the big publishers. That was a good thing.
It’s a catch 22 and frustrating, since many promotional sites or review blogs require you to have 15-20 reviews before they will even allow you to submit–then if you are fortunate, you can pay them to give away your book. The hardest part of this experience is definitely trying to gain exposure.
Sue–You bring up something I hadn’t thought about. Goodreads giveaways used to be free (except the author’s cost for postage) but when they allowed ebook giveaways, they started charging. So in a sense, those are paid reviews. I wonder if Amazon is blocking those books? They own Goodreads, so they have that data. Hmmm.
But don’t despair. After three weeks, you’re not going to have much traction, no matter what you do. The best way to promote your first book is to write your second. Those newsletters are only good for discounted books, and you don’t want to discount if you only have one title.. The discounted book is supposed to sell your others.
Robot-admins killed Squidoo. They don’t work. They ban so many honest and good posts and still allow the spammy and cheaty ones to get through.
I wonder how much of a blow Amazon will suffer from this? Highly arrogant behavior.
I’m off to make copies of my Kindle books, because even though I’ve paid for them, it seems that they can delete my access to everything I paid for. Hm… Looks a lot like theft, doesn’t it?
Britt–I didn’t know that about Squidoo! So they did just what the Zon is doing? Robots throw out the baby and keep the dirty bathwater. Not a good business model.
They won’t take the Kindle books you’ve paid for. Just the KU and audiobooks you may be in the middle of reading. At least I haven’t heard of that so far.
But yes, it is theft. Especially when they’re still charging for Prime, but they won’t let you use it. That’s not going to go well for them in the courts, But unless the fines are huge, it won’t make any difference. And they certainly don’t care about their reputation anymore. So they may just pay up and shrug it off, knowing how many people are addicted to Prime.
Hi Anne — Thanks again for fascinating information. It seems to me that we brought all this (& more) upon ourselves when we redefined what a monopoly is in the ’80s (“we” being the American government). Heavy sigh.
CS–Right. When we make companies “too big to fail” they’re also too big to care. Plus corporations are people, and we’re not.
What awful news Anne, orders of magnitude worse than I had heard. And the comments show you how badly needed this column was- dear lord, what is the media thinking, that this isn’t a story?
I’m tiptoeing around now and praying I haven’t already ignorantly done something to anger the bots. Going wide is looking better all the time, just going to take me some time. Some formerly-free time!
Will–Yeah. It sure shocked me out of my complacency. I’m pretty addicted to the Zon myself. I have a Kindle and a Kindle Fire and I have Prime and watch Amazon TV all the time. I love it that I can buy whatever I need without running to the store.
So the thought of losing all that (plus the big chunk of change I’ve paid for Prime) is kind of scary. I’m hoping this post won’t trigger the Zon’s wrath.
I’m not dissing the company. Just this new review policy that uses stupid robots to drive away customers and doesn’t seem to touch the scammers.. Nobody can think that’s a good idea.
Yeah, a little prayer probably is as good a plan as any.
I’ve also read the series that includes “The Lady of the Lakewood Diner”, also great reads.
Tricia–I’m so glad to hear it!! It’s wonderful to hear from readers who enjoy your books. 🙂
What a frigging mess!
Darlene–I agree. I sure hope they clean it up soon.
Wow Ann, $900 smackaroos for 25 reviews. That’s $36 a pop. You’d have to sell a lot of books just to recoup your ‘investment.’ The sad thing is that there are lots of indies out there who swallow this sort of thing.
I do get weary of all the keystone cop maneuvers at the Zon. Just the other day a friend of mine had all of her reviews pulled because they claimed she knew all the authors. But even if it were true, she bought the books, none of them were given to her, why can’t she write a review? My friend didn’t go quietly however, and got on the horn to customer service and railed at them until they restored her reviews – so that is possible to do. In the meantime, she has come up with an alternate solution to this.
GoodReads is a kind of odd site, I agree, although I never hear of reviews being pulled there. I do like the idea of doing reviews on blogs a lot. And if you want to swap reviews with other authors this might be a better solution. As long as your blog isn’t linked to Amazon, I’d guess their bots wouldn’t get an alert. LOL. But you never know.
Also, if I got your book at Amazon, would Kobo let me review it on their site? Or is it just whatever you purchase from them? If you know…
Personally, I am over the exclusive Amazon relationship – it hasn’t really yielded great results for me either. In fact, I see writers gaming the system constantly and becoming ‘best sellers’ with some pretty crappy books and covers and blurbs.
Anyway, draft2digital makes things super easy from formatting to distribution so I think I will be going with them and going wide soon. I think Kindle Select works for new releases. You can go exclusive for those first three months, do the freebie promos, etc etc – then go wide after that. At least that’s my current plan.
We can only hope that at some point the Zon’s left hand can figure out what its right hand is doing and stop shooting wrong targets.
Good post, thanks.
Annie
Annie–It gives me hope that your friend got somebody on the phone who would actually do something. That’s good news.
Goodreads doesn’t pull anything. Well, if you complain they may remove a review that contains a rape or death threat, but that’s about it. So the trolls love to hang out there. So although a review there can do some good, it’s also not keeping very good company.
Whatever you do on your own blog is fine (well, not death threats: law enforcement might come calling.) But Amazon has no interest in stuff outside their own site, so don’t worry.
I agree that it still seems to be good to launch in KU and then go wide after 3 months.
I join you in the “hope that at some point the Zon’s left hand can figure out what its right hand is doing and stop shooting wrong targets.”
I rarely leave reviews there any more, not because of the aforementioned issues, but mostly because trying to distill what I like or dislike about a book or a c.d. (which makes up about 97% of my purchases) into some kind of meaningful review is usually an exercise in aggravation.
I’ll still continue to self-pub through Amazon and Createspace, but I”ll also continue to publish through Smashwords. if I do start to write reviews again, it will probably pop up on my blog or FB pages.
GB–Amazon reviews are considered so much more important than any others, but maybe that will change with the new developments. A plug for a book you like on Facebook will probably bring the author more actual sales. Good plan.
Wow – this is incredible information !
I was not aware of most of it.
Scary!
And I heard that Amazon is interested in getting into the healthcare business. Have you heard that?
Patti
Patricia–You’re right! What a nightmare that would be! “Sorry, we’ll have to stop this operation because your Amazon account has been suspended. We can’t sew you up again so please die now.” That would not be a nice situation. I hope it doesn’t happen.
Hi Anne, another timely and info-packed post which I will share.
For maybe 2 years now, I’ve wondered why my sales have been pretty good on Amazon but reviews have barely appeared. Of course, there’s always the possibility that the books haven’t appealed to readers, but I wonder too whether reviewers are being halted in their steps, disenfranchised or worse, Maybe they’re just plain over the ‘issues’ of reviewing.
As for Goodreads, I gave up on that many years ago after a serious bout of bullying by moderators in the pre-Amazon days. I don’t even go there now – perhaps to my book list’s detriment.
One question: you mentioned Kirkus Reviews, for which one pays. What about Readers’ Favorites, Indie B.R.A.G and Chanticleer?
I’ve been reviewed by all. I’ve won silver medallions and highly commendeds with RF and been a finalist in Chanticleer and am up for another award with them this year and my books have all been awarded Indie B’R.A.G gold medals. I’ve always been chuffed to have those accolades and have always felt they are honest, unambiguous reviews. What’s your opinion?
Many thanks for your hard work.
Pru–Thanks for stopping by! I’m afraid I don’t know anything about those review sites. If they review on their site and don’t promise to post to Amazon, and the reviews seem to work for your advertising, then the expense may be worthwhile to you.
A Kirkus review costs over $500 and doesn’t seem to give a good ROI for most authors, so I wouldn’t go there personally, but I know some authors do, who want to get into libraries. It may help especially with literary and children’s books. But Kirkus is a venerable publication that goes out to all US librarians (I’m not sure about their international status.)
Thanks for your swift response, Anne. They actually don’t post to Amazon, so I hope they are left alone by the Big A. I have personally used them in editorial reviews of my books there so time will tell. Each of the review sites post to their own select websites (with big followings) so I guess that makes me breathe much easier. By the way, Kirkus is way beyond this humble indie’s pocket!!! 😉
Pru–I think that kind of review can be valuable, especially for a specific genre, when genre readers come often to the site. We may see more of this, with Amazon driving reviewers away. Targeting the right review site might be a very wise use of advertising money.
I’m weary of Amazon. It seems like something new to screw authors, and now they’re screwing their customers. My publisher and I are still trying to get the rankings back on some of my books after that last sweep of punishment though I can’t figure out why I was targeted. Amazon is a monster.
Susan–I’m sure Amazon doesn’t mean to screw anybody, but they just rely too much on bots to do their policing. I’m so sorry you lost your rankings! That’s the pits, and their actions often make no sense at all. I hope your publisher can get you back in the mainstream. Getting sidelined like that can cause a huge drop in sales, I know.
I have seen Goodreads pull reviews. An Ireland based author of books with Irish themes rated 1500 books one day and more than 900 the next when she was caught out by authors in my chosen genres: lesfic (lesbian fiction). She rated any book by an Irish writer 5 stars and any book with any sort of LGBT theme with 1 star. When enough authors complained, Goodreads/Amazon pulled the reviews. She either shut down her account or they did.
A Scotland based reader and blogger I work with a lot for reviews recently ran into the problem of not being able to post on the U.S. and U.K. Amazon sites as she had done in the past. What’s more, for several months now, I – being US based – have been unable to gift her Kindle copies of new work to read in exchange for an honest review. Her, or anyone else outside the U.S. My most reliable reader/reviewers are in the UK, Australia and the Dominican Republic. I can no longer gift them anything via Amazon.
My books are wide. I have no reviews on Kobo and I struggle there. I have one ARC team member who reviews on Apple for me. It helps a lot…when she likes a book.
Anne–I’m so glad to hear that GR was able to do at least some policing of that bigot. That’s horrible. Good to know that triggered a take-down.
The problem of Amazon separating its international stores seems to have hit everybody hard. I have no idea why, in this era of globalization, they have such a thing, but I’m sure it has to do with those third world click farms that game KU.
I think any review on Kobo goes international. In fact, Kobo outsells Amazon in most international book markets.
Amazon really doesn’t want us to gift books to reviewers. That’s because the gifting program has been gamed so often. So it’s best to just send a .mobi or .epub file to the reviewer.
My publisher has been running specials on Kobo and they really work, so it’s worth it to look into them. I had some big sales during one of their runs. (They’re usually genre or theme based.) Having an Apple reviewer would be magic. I wish I had one!
Our digital world with digital robot babysitters. The authors take a beating on this. Reviews are hard enough to get and when Amazon makes it tough on reviewers, that isn’t incentive. Also, that $50 charge spend per site it ridiculous! Nobody wants to write a review bad enough to have to spend money to do so. This isn’t an optimistic scenario for us authors. But excellent article Anne. 🙂
DG–It’s obvious that Amazon does NOT like book bloggers, and they’re trying to get them off the site. They only want unprofessional buyers to review. But book bloggers have been doing their work for them, selling books Amazon makes a profit on, for nearly a decade. Driving them away is not going to work well for them in the long run, IMO.
But the final outcome may be that Amazon reviews fade away and will no longer matter any more than B&N reviews do now.. That would be a good thing all around.
Don’t you agree that reviews on our books it would become harder to sell books?
I’m an online shopper for many household items and always read reviews on products. I feel the positive reviews inspire me more to purchase. I can’t help thinking doesn’t Amazon realize these reviews help them sell more too. 🙂
Debby–I’m not saying that reviews aren’t useful, but that Amazon reviews are considered the only show in town, and spreading the review power around wouldn’t be a bad thing.
One of those was a 4 star review and one was a 2 star review, sometimes I just need to point out pet hates like the shock twist when a narrator with no connection to the plot suddenly turns out to be the killer/victim or when everyone never mentions something until the plot requires them too.
But the rare genius stuff needs mention too like the classic novel where the victim is killed by an icicle staggers back and the weapon vanishes.
Kevin–A lot of reviewers take great pride in their work, and I think authors appreciate that, even when they disagree with your conclusions. I have a lot of negative reviews from people who don’t get my humor. I figure they keep away the people who won’t enjoy my work and that’s a good thing. 🙂
A thought- I have talked with someone who worked for and analyzed the culture at Amazon and surrounding Bezos. It was all very encouraging of ideas but also very cutthroat. So if you had a good idea (save the company money and time with these cool bots!) then you got to run with it and probably promoted. But the entirety of it is on you. And if it fails, you fail too. So I don’t think the bots are forever. I think that’s why they keep changing. All the complaints meant someone failed. And someone else said ‘The idea was good it just needs some tweaks….’
I think we’ll see a revision in a year. I don’t know if it will be good or bad. I also think if we want this sort of thing to change, you might need a reporter to get an interview with the current idea person running the bots.
Angelica–Thanks for the encouraging thoughts. That all makes sense. The people I know who work in Silicon Valley say it is indeed cutthroat. And also that the customers are the guinea pigs a good deal of the time. So that all supports your theory.
Thanks for the positive input!
This is what annoys me, Anne – that the real reviews get removed, and the fakes/dodgy ones remain. Over the last six months I must have had about 15 genuine reviews removed, but I’ve often looked on books published by small independents, to find that their authors all review each other and, of course, give 5*. I’m currently reading a book to review it for the book reviewing team I’m in, and I notice that it has a review from the author’s husband. I know these are not the paid reviews you’ve talked about, but they’re still pretty dodgy!
The latest difficulty I’m finding is that, yes, some readers who live outside the UK can no longer post their reviews on the site where most of my readers are. Doesn’t bother me too much if my UK readers can’t review on .com, because most of them don’t bother anyway, but I NEED those reviews on UK. Yes, they can tweet them, etc, but I imagine at least half of my sales come from Amazon browsing, and those people will never see those lovely reviews on Goodreads and .com. I really, really hope this doesn’t get worse… book blog reviews DO sell books, but only for the few days after they come out. Amazon is the place where you need them, for continued sales.
Terry–You’re right that trading reviews is rampant with some small presses. I’ve even seen emails they send out to their authors demanding they review fellow authors as part of their publishing agreement. I’ve never heard of Amazon cracking down on this problem specifically, but it could happen and probably has.
Trading reviews and getting reviews from friends and family is strictly forbidden, so if you see it an report it, I’m sure the reviews would be taken down.
Troll reviews, on the other hand are almost never removed. Ditto mistakes like “This dress is too small and I don’t like the color” as a book review.
Yes, ideally it would be great if Amazon would continue to allow book bloggers to review, but it looks as if they’re waging war against them. I’m just encouraging them not to give up entirely. Reviewing on their own blogs, plus Kobo and Goodreads is better than not reviewing at all, which is what’s happening with a lot of reviewers.
My blog post about having my amazon reviewing account deleted is the most read post on my blog! I’m now trying not to use Amazon. https://clarissagosling.com/2017/11/27/blacklisted-by-amazon/
Clarissa–That post and the comments are heartbreaking. This confirms that Amazon is at war with book reviewers. They just don’t want them on the site anymore. Thanks for moving to Kobo and continuing to review. We need you!!
I know and I feel so powerless to do anything about it – for myself or anyone else. Moving away from them is the only thing I can do, but what impact does one person have?
Clarissa–If you’re leading a movement to Kobo, you may have a very big impact indeed. You’re just one of the first.
If I get a good review on one of my books, I copy and paste it onto the book’s page on my website so there’a a record but I might start screenshotting! I still review on Amazon but I had no idea the problem had gotten so out of hand. Time to start promoting my books elsewhere…
Icy–Technically, a review is Amazon’s property and we’re not supposed to copy and paste them onto our websites. But given the fact that so many reviews are disappearing, I think it’s probably wise to keep a record, even if you don’t post them right away. Once the review has been “wiped” it wouldn’t belong to Amazon anymore, so I should think you could use it anywhere you like.
I might start taking screenshots, too.
Eek I didn’t know we weren’t supposed to copy and paste…but I shall keep a record of them for a while. Yea Gads, it’s like they don’t want us to sell anything!!
Icy–It’s it not one thing, it’s another. 🙂 But I haven’t heard of anybody getting dinged for copy and pasting a review from Amazon lately. I think they have bigger fish to fry.
Thank you Anne.. there have been quite a few voices raised in disbelief in the last couple of weeks and I, like so many have called Amazon out on this latest decision. This is going to hurt their bottom line as reviews dry up. Even 1 or 2 dollars commission on the sale of an eBook across the millions sold each year is going to add up and hurt them financially. As authors we are listed on each of the countries Amazon affiliates and sales of our books in the UK and US in particular in many cases provides them with over $50 of commission. Since they already have our account details and verified them to receive royalties, it should be a straightforward formula to qualify to review books of others. Buying a shovel for $50 does not qualify you to review a book and perhaps like many secret shopping outfits, you get put on a verified reviewers register following 5 accepted reviews. There has to be an alternative that will work. As to Annette… wow he or she… clearly has nothing better to do and needs to get a life. I will keep an eye out for them and report and perhaps if enough of us to that Goodread/Amazon might do something about it. I hope they will leave Goodreads alone as that is the one place that reviews from other Amazon accounts come together and if reviewers do post there too, it is very helpful.. thanks again for the indepth update. best wishes Sally
Sally–Until I started researching this, I thought the idea of “certifying” reviewers would be a good one. But now I’m seeing a pattern of something quite different. They’re not cracking down on review farms and paid reviews. They’re cracking down on people who write a lot of reviews, no matter whether they are paid or not. They just don’t want professional reviewers on the site.
This will eliminate the thoughtful, well-written review, and we’ll get a lot more of the “Delivered promptly. Thanks” type of review that is of no use to customers.
That would be great if you could report the Annette troll. If they get enough reports, maybe they’ll reach critical mass and get rid of her and some of the other trolls. I think it’s highly likely that “Annette” is being paid to down-rank certain types of books, probably to promote the sales of a rival’s books..
I can’t believe you are still having to tell people not to pay for reviews. I mean… Gah! This has NEVER been a good idea (new policies or not).
I do spend time on GoodReads but, honestly, as little as possible. I do think it’s “riddled with trolls”. The scary thing here is, as I mentioned on Barb’s post, Amazon holds all the cards and they know this. With one click, they can wipe out everything. They can do this and, as you say, they will usually give no warning, no explanation. I feel a bit held hostage. Thank you for this post and for suggesting other places to post reviews.
I agree with Terry (and you) in the comments here that authentic, thoughtful reviews are being removed while obvious (and sometime not-so-obvious) troll/fake reviews are not being removed.
This is a hot mess.
Sarah–You’re right. I’ve been screaming this for at least 5 years. But there are always newbies who get duped by these scammers. They’re told they MUST get reviews, so they think this must be the way to do it. (That’s what the scammers tell them, and they can be convincing.)
It is hard on customers as well. When they pull the long, well written thoughtful reviews and leave the book reviews that say “I vomited” or “I had to return it and order in a bigger size” it’s not helpful to anybody.
I agree things are a mess right now. I hope they can figure out a way to fight fake reviews without driving out all the real reviewers.
Anne, this was an awesome post with solid info. Frankly, I’m often in my own writer bubble and didn’t realize so much goofiness was going on. I “went wide” this month with 7 of my books because of the erratic nature of the KENP system. At the same time, reviews on Amazon dropped to a trickle even as sales stayed strong. Over time, the number of reader reviews is going to be less important to book sales, simply because there will be too much of a penalty attached to them.
Carmen–I think “goofiness” is a good word. It’s not malevolent, just totally wacky because no humans are in charge. Going wide works for me. I’m not getting the sales on Amazon that I used to, but we’re getting traction on other retail sites.
And I think you’re right that reader reviews are going to mean less, since only trolls who know how to game the system will be allowed to review. That could be a good thing. Editorial reviews are much more useful to most readers.
Wow! I really learned so much helpful information about reviews and Amazon. I published my first book and have it for sale on Amazon and B&N. This is so new to me and confusing. Writing my book was hard but not as much as selling, marketing and reviews! I need to learn how to save my books in my kindle library.
Kay–It is hard these days! It’s even harder when the ground rules change so often you feel like you’re living in an earthquake. Yes, I’m afraid that writing the book is the “easy” part. Thanks for stopping by. We aim to help new writers with our advice every Sunday.
BookBub is a great site to leave reviews and user-friendly.
Stephen–I thought Bookbub was a newsletter. I went to the site, but it’s members only. Are you allowed to leave reviews of regular books, or only the ones that pay the big bux for their advertising? This is new to me. I don’t think most people know they have a review site, or how to access it. I sure don’t, even though I get the newsletter.
I don’t think a members-only site can substitute for Amazon or any other retailer, since, well, most people can’t go there.
Anne, BookBub is possibly best known for its book promo package. Apparently, it’s hard to be accepted for it.
However, I discovered purely by chance, that any author can set up an author page there and add their books. This is the link you need https://insights.bookbub.com/recommendations/
I have had reviews for my books posted there and have reviewed other authors’ books.
One of the really nice things I like about the site is a reader/visitor can recommend a book/review.
It’s such a “clean’ site too, easy to use and navigate. I do think as more authors and reviwers get to know about its benefits, it could become the Numero Uno book review site as clearly Amazon is not interested in reviews and GR is not ideal either because of the trolls and the giveaway abuses.
On the latter, you may wish to take a look at my recent blog post https://www.stephenbentley.info/goodreads-giveaways-you-have-to-be-kidding/
Great site of yours and a good post too 🙂
Stephen
Anne, It’s no more of a members site than Amazon from a review point. Effectively, Amazon is now a members site if you wish to leave a review by having a $50 spend.
BookBub is free to authors and readers.
Stephen–Thanks for all the info! I certainly know all about Bookbub’s notoriously picky newsletter. I had no idea that the hoi polloi were allowed entrance without having to qualify. I will definitely look into it. This could be the alternative to Amazon that we’ve been looking for!
Hi Anne, I have done a blog post on BookBub and reviews. Kind of a 101 but hope authors and reviewers find it helpful.
It can be found here https://www.stephenbentley.info/digging-bookbub-the-review-answer-to-amazon-goodreads/
Thank you!
Stephen–That’s helpful, and I’ve shared your post. But I’m surprised you accuse me of rehashing old news, since most of the 100s of 1000s of accounts were closed in the past 4 weeks and the news has only been reported in tech magazines and blogs, not the mainstream media. And the Washington Post only covered the review problem four days ago. Stuff that happened 4 weeks ago may be old news to you, but I scooped the WaPo.
Hi Anne, I have no wish to become embroiled in a side discussion about “old news.” I have replied to you in full on my blog.
You may wish to check that WaPo article again because what you have written about ReviewMeta being used by Amazon is not accurate.
You wrote, “It seems that Amazon is using some very dodgy data from an outfit called ReviewMeta to flag “fake” reviews.”
It was the Post who used ReviewMeta not Amazon. Later in the WaPo article it also states, “ReviewMeta, a website that helps consumers spot suspicious Amazon reviews.”
Amazon do not use it. It is used by consumers.
Although my account at Amazon hasn’t been purged–yet–I have lost legitimate reviews in the past. Some of them were verified purchases…so maybe it was the reviewers themselves who pulled them. I’ll never know, and those reviews never returned. I will say that Amazon, while offering amazing service (by and large) is cutting their own nose off to spite their face with this approach. I applaud them for cracking down on the fiverr scandals, but at the same time they are depriving honest writers of potential earnings. I’m not self-published, but all the same I feel the same pain that the self-pubbed authors do when losing a review.
Thank you, Ms. Allen, for writing that which needed to be written.
J.S. Many verified purchases have been pulled by Amazon. If they think the reviewer is a “bad actor” then all their reviews get pulled. Whether or not every book has been a freebie (and whether or not the reviewer is guilty of anything.)
I agree that Amazon is doing the most harm to themselves here. There has to be a better way to fight paid reviews.
Instead, here’s what I do. I offer someone a free copy of my book if they want it and ask them specifically for an honest review. They can do what they please from there. I don’t pay them to give me positive reviews, but I let my writing and storytelling skills do the talking there. I just simply give them something to read.
Adurotri–That’s what all of us do. It’s how an ethical author gets reviews.
But some newbies have been bamboozled by the paid review people who make them feel stupid for not buying reviews. The newbies then think it’s standard practice and the scams continue.
True.
Wow, Anne! As a service publisher, this is really scary. I have known for years that a good portion of reviews on Amazon were fake, but their heavy handed approach isn’t winning any favor with me or my clients. I’ll be passing this information along. Thanks so much for sharing!
William–That’s the problem–so many fake reviews. Not just on Amazon. I’ve read that all those Yelp and other reviews may be 1/3 fakes. I know plumbers and other tradespeople who have been persuaded to buy reviews. And that hurts us all.
So it’s a big problem, but this is not the solution. At all. And authors and their publishers will feel the most pain.
Hm. I wonder if this explains why, when I had a successful promo earlier this year and sold over 1000 books, I got only 2 new reviews.
I used to be able to count on at least one new review per hundred books sold, so this was a huge disappointment. I’m just relieved I haven’t (yet) had any removed, because it looks like new ones are going to be very hard to come by 🙁
Deborah–That is exactly the problem. Amazon is scaring off legitimate reviewers, while unwittingly encouraging the scammers. Everybody I know is having trouble getting reviews these days. I’ve seen the statistic that we now get one review per 5000 downloads. But even that may be high since the latest purge.
Oh boy, that’s a scary figure! And definitely explains the lack of new reviews. I wondered what had happened to them, but I’ve been so focused on writing my next book I guess I’ve had my head in the sand. Thanks for bringing me up to speed, even if it isn’t what I wanted to hear 🙁
You recommend Kirkus reviews? Please take this advice that Kirkus reviews is a SCAM!!! Listen, authors and publishers, we got a 400 dollar review (one paragraph, with spelling mistakes) which couldn’t even see the genre of the book correctly. Do NOT waste your money on a Kirkus reviews. You will not get anything back for it.
Vincent–I don’t recommend Kirkus reviews for most authors. I said if you feel the need to pay (which I don’t) then put the review in the editorial section.
As I said in my comment to Prue Batten. “A Kirkus review costs over $500 and doesn’t seem to give a good ROI for most authors, so I wouldn’t go there personally, but I know some authors do, who want to get into libraries. It may help especially with literary and children’s books. Kirkus is a venerable publication that goes out to all US librarians.”
Some authors of children’s books say they did have a good ROI on a Kirkus review because of its ability to reach librarians. But I do NOT recommend them myself.
Yes, they can and do ding you IF you post at Amazon first. I avoid that by posting all my copyrighted reviews on my blog first and promoting them. I wait at least a week before adding them to other platforms like Goodreads, Blogger News Network, Amazon, and others.
I also know a number librarians who have dumped KIRKUS as their merit has gone down sharply in recent years. Don’t think they are worth it now…if they ever were. And their paid review service is way worse.
Kevin–Thank you!! I didn’t have any up to date information and that’s really important to know. Post reviews on your blog FIRST!!
And I’m even more down on Kirkus since they started advertising on FB and even sent me an email asking me to recommend them. They’re getting slimy. Glad to know Librarians are onto them!!
Sad that whenever someone sets up a system, someone else turns it into a scam. And that here we have yet another hurdle for the hardworking, underpaid (mostly), and underrated authors of the world.
Colonialist–That seems to be the nature of the digital age. As soon as something is invented the first thing that happens is the creeps have to figure out a way to hack it or game it or pervert it. We live in a very strange time.
I don’t think that happened in the mechanical age. You don’t hear about people trying to sabotage the Model T or trying to get the original horseless carriages to crash on purpose for their own amusement.
And yes, I think most of us are underpaid and undervalued. Sigh.
On one hand this defies belief, because they’re cutting off their nose to spite their face. On the other hand it’s totally believable, because they’re so huge that they can afford to lose sales from one department. I have friends that, despite all the bad press Amazon has been getting, continue to buy from their other departments and have the goods delivered because it’s convenient. In fact, one of my friends knows all the challenges authors face, and deeply sympathizes, but can’t bring herself to go back to in-store shopping. This is especially problematic for people who need to rely on online shopping due to illness or disability. Amazon (among many other huge corporations, e.g., Facebook) are monopolies that need to be split up. Personally, I think it’s the only real and expeditious solution.
Tina– I agree about monopolies. And we can do our bit by spreading our money around. And by continuing to ask them to live up to their “customer service” reputation. If they lose that, customers will leave. Especially when the next big thing shows up.
My family had our “family” account suspended at Amazon for two weeks for “suspicious” activity last year. I was thankful that my author account has always been separate from our family account, but still. It was really irritating since they had just charged us for our prime membership payment. We called, e-mailed, and repeated that process every two days until they fixed it. We kept getting the “Oh, well, I’ll talk to my manager, and we kept saying, “we would love to talk to your manager,” until they got it sorted out. We never did find out what the “suspicious” activity was. They wouldn’t tell us.
We still have prime, only because we have a college student who rents some of her books through them. However, if it happens again … well, I’ve heard Barnes and Noble also rents textbooks.
Tyrean–I’m glad to hear your account was restored. I see that a lot of them have been restored, but it takes, as you say, lots of hoop jumping and groveling.
I don’t know why they don’t issue a warning first, say what the problem is, and then let you defend yourself. Sometimes people break the TOS without even knowing it. Telling people what they’ve supposedly done would be a big start.
sorry for not reading all the posts, i’m about to meet a friend for breakfast, hopefully later but…..I recently had all my reviews from amazon uk and com ( over 3000 on each, I’ve been reviewing books for several years) removed for the second time in six months. I read a lot, I’m disabled, reading I can do, and read free books, KU books, some I buy and lots of ARCs. After appealing both times i got a standard “sorry- mistake” auto post email and reviews re-instated. No idea what i did wrong though despite asking…and I still get maybe 15-20 emails a day asking me to review things for free, saying I buy, they refund via pay-pal when i add my five star review. No pressure there then! Some even offer to pay on top of that. I did start reporting to amazon and I know they are being used, some people hit “reply to all” so I can see positive responses but given how touchy amazon are about reviews i don’t really want my name flagged….even posting this gave me a bit of hesitancy, i posted on another blog about reviews and wondered if the might amazon bots might track me that way. I’ve always been open so reviews are under my real name and I always add if they are ARC reviews.
I post on goodreads, used to post them on B&N but that site is so unpredictable and touchy about reviews that after another frustrating few days failing to get reviews uploaded i gave up about three months back. Google, Itunes and smashwords would only let me post a review if i’d bought book through them when i tried a year of so ago, may have changed, i don’t know, haven’t looked since, but that rules out cross-posting and arcs.
If it wasn’t that I love reading and couldn’t afford to sustain the amount of books i go through without arcs I’d probably not bother, but the whole reason I got into this in the first place was adding reviews to share opinions as I use them such a lot when purchasing books and products. Its not hard to spot most fake reviews, they tend to be very generic cut and paste ones, or ones that say meaningless things like, “Five stars!!!! Great book, buy it now ” which tells people nothing about it but can be used for endless reviews. substitute book for product ID and its even more generic.
Jeannie–Thanks much for taking the time to share your story. You are exactly the reviewer that every author is told to target. But they’re never told that you are a volunteer working for free out of your love of books, and you should be treated with utmost respect and gratitude.
There are dozens of courses and books that tell authors that pressuring book bloggers and habitual reviewers for reviews is the way to fame and fortune. It makes me furious. I’m going to blog about the mistreatment of book blog reviewers next month. But whether you have a blog or not, this is not acceptable behavior.
This part is the most shocking: “I still get maybe 15-20 emails a day asking me to review things for free, saying I buy, they refund via pay-pal when i add my five star review.”
That’s why Amazon is so furious and why they’re flailing around with these crazy bots. If they did have a bot that would put an end to this abuse, it would help every one of us..
I hope you’ll try posting to Kobo and, as some commenters have suggested, Bookbub. I know B&N can be infuriating. I got one rave review there that had one star. I contacted the reviewer and she said she gave it 5 stars, but it changed to 1 when she posted and so far she couldn’t fix it. Sigh.
Do keep reviewing, even if it’s just at GR.. We appreciate your hard work.
Jeannie – thank you for taking the time to review books even when the world seems to conspire against you doing that. And double thank you for not accepting payment. It shocks and appalls me that so many “authors” (in quotes because I’m using that term loosely if they are willing to do this) pay for reviews. If I can’t earn a review based on the strength of my writing, then I don’t want one. Knowing that I’m competing with these people whose work is often sub-par royally pisses me off. I work hard on my writing and spend money where it belongs – editors, covers, advertising – and wish everyone had enough pride and integrity to do the same.
So thank you, thank you for reading and reviewing.
Thanks for your posting.Keep sharing this type of article.
Lisa–Thanks for letting us know you appreciate it!
Awesome post – and you are absolutely correct. We just wrote an article about this very topic and included some ideas like using the Amazon’s Early Reviewer Program, send follow-up emails to ask for reviews and Use product inserts!
Mike–That sounds fantastic. Can you give us a link to your article?
I’ve been looking into this out of curiosity and you know, the bad thing is that SO many indie authors self-publish on Amazon that it’s become such a go to place to leave reviews. I’m definitely going to look into BookBub though as well as Kobo! I have, however, been able to leave reviews for books I’ve borrowed through Overdrive! So that’s something.
Nicole–I’ll be writing a post on all the benefits of Bookbub in January. It has great reviews and also you can get recommendations for new reads from your favorite authors. Even very big names. It’s the place to be right now.
Amazon has become a pay-to-play advertising space now, and indie authors need to stop partying like it’s 2009 and move to more author and reviewer-friendly retailers.
Good to know that Overdrive has some kind of pull at the Zon, but don’t count on that continuing.
And I’m afraid that when you have that many millions of suppliers/buyers and billions of sales, you will have people trying to game the systems to make more money than they should. And it’s funny how loudly some of the self-entitled ones will yell when the ‘tricks’ they were using get turned off.
And from where I sit they do seem to be taking as much care as they can – otherwise the ‘collateral damage’ could be much worse than it has been so far.
And I’m still waiting for Jeff to decide he’s sold enough kindles and he can divert an extra twenty million a month to another project by closing KU – and then he could delete all that email saying he isn’t running it right!
If you don’t like Amazon then don’t use them – there’s still Walmart or Target – who never do nothing wrong. YMMV …
Lisa–Oh, my I missed this comment that’s almost a year old. Sorry. Wouldn’t it be nice if he’d close KU? But it seems to be a big moneymaker for the Zon.
It’s not sensible to tell anybody not to use Amazon. Walmart and Target don’t have online bookstores.
But what we can do is look elsewhere for reviews. Bookbub is a civilized place with real reviews and so far no trolls.
Thank you, Anne. From the comments, this is a timely topic. I don’t seek reviews but am happy when someone takes the time to give me some valuable feedback. I was taken off balance with my very first review on Amazon. I read it and it was obvious the person had not read the book. I write local mysteries set in South Kingstown. In her short 1 star “critique” she made mention of the wrong setting (North Kingstown) and the wrong genre (travelogue) and then said she didn’t like the book. That was the sum total of her “review”. I naively brought this to Amazon’s attention, but after 2 years, it’s still there and my fellow authors who have better credentials can’t validly review my books because they haven’t spent $50.
But it looks like I’m in good company from others who’ve been frustrated with this ill-conceived process.
Claremary–My first Amazon review was awful too. The reader liked it but gave it one star because she thought that was a good thing! A gold star! Haha.
But it’s even more frustrating when people review the wrong book or just don’t read it. Or give you one star and say “I don’t know. My wife ordered this book.” Why, oh why, do they write a review? Who knows?
And no, Amazon will never remove those. Grrr.