Amazon’s New Review Rules: Nobody expects the Amazon Inquisition!
by Anne R. Allen
Amazon has been tweaking its customer review rules. Some revisions appeared in late September and others debuted early in October.
So how do they affect authors? Should we be worried? Is the Amazon Review Inquisition going to excommunicate more reviewers and banish our reviews?
They will if you break the rules. But the good news is the rules aren’t quite as inscrutable as they used to be. They’re more straightforward and easier to follow.
Amazon isn’t trying to be mean to us. They’re fighting a plague of scammers. Scamming Amazon is a cottage industry in some parts of the world and the crooks sometimes get away with millions.
Everybody gets hurt by these people. Sometimes scammers gaming Kindle Unlimited walk off with a chunk of the money pie that would otherwise go to KU authors. And customers spend money on books full of gibberish, misled by bogus rave reviews.
The Zon fights back with periodic clean-ups. Unfortunately they use a heavy hand and throw out lots of babies with the bathwater.
Last year some dedicated book bloggers found all their reviews had been pulled with no explanation.
Others heard they couldn’t review because they “knew” the author, when they had simply friended the author on Facebook or Goodreads.
Authors were devastated to lose what were often their most thoughtful, well-written reviews. And Amazon started rejecting reviews from readers who had never had trouble placing reviews before.
Amazon refuses to explain review removal or rejections, except to point to their guidelines, which have been murky at best. Most reviewers and authors didn’t have a clue how their reviews had trespassed against the guidelines.
The updated rules seem to clarify things a bit.
Amazon’s New Review Rules: What has Changed?
Authors who are both traditionally and self-published need to be aware of the rules. Enforcement gets stricter all the time, and self-appointed vigilantes love to report violations.
Don’t think that because you’re not a big seller, or you write as a hobby, that you’ll fly under the radar. I know many “midlist” authors who have lost reviews. Popular genres like sci-fi, romance, and thrillers seem more likely to be scrutinized, but we all need to mind our p’s and q’s.
The new rules are similar the old ones, with a few big changes.
The New $50 Rule
“To post a review, customers must spend at least $50.00 using a valid credit or debit card. Prime subscriptions and promotional discounts don’t qualify towards the $50.00 minimum. Customers in the same household cannot submit a review for the same product.”
So now reviewers must at some time have bought at least $50 worth of merchandise from the giant retailer—with a credit card. I don’t see a yearly or monthly requirement here, so it seems to be a lifetime thing, so most people would not have a problem with this.
This is aimed at those review mills where employees with 100s of identities churn out paid reviews. Now each identity has to buy $50 worth of stuff to leave a review. And all their sisters and their cousins and their aunts can’t leave reviews on the same $50 ticket.
The credit card requirement provides a paper trail so scammers can’t create multiple identities with untraceable accounts.
The result? Fewer fake reviews! A good thing, as Martha Stewart would say.
2018 UPDATE:
Early in 2018, many frequent reviewers found their reviews were not being accepted. It turned out that Amazon had quietly changed this policy. Now a person is only allowed to review if they spend $50 at Amazon EACH YEAR. And reviewers outside of the US must spend $50 a year on the US site as well as the equivalent in Canada or the UK or wherever they live. This is a big deal, since reviews on the Amazon US site have so much more clout, and they can be seen in all the Amazon stores. But a review in, say, Canada, stays in Canada. Book bloggers are understandably upset. Read more on this on Barb Traub’s April 15, 2018 blogpost.
The New Ban on “Incentivized” Reviews
“We updated the community guidelines to prohibit incentivized reviews (a review in exchange for a free or discounted product) unless they are facilitated through the Amazon Vine program…The above changes will apply to product categories other than books. We will continue to allow the age-old practice of providing advance review copies of books.”
This doesn’t mean much to authors because of the “other than books” clause.
Except for this: maybe the reviewer-on-reviewer bullying and competition for “top reviewer” status may calm down a bit.
I’ve heard about a lot of nastiness in the Amazon review world, with vicious competition for “top reviewer status.” Apparently some high-ranked reviewers got free big-ticket items to review. (This is not the same as the “Vine” reviewer program, which is by invitation only.)
The competition among reviewers has resulted in some of the inexplicable troll reviews that can appear on your buy pages, or in the threads of comments on your reviews. Now there won’t be a financial incentive for bad behavior. Maybe it will cut down on troll reviews. (I can dream, can’t I?)
But, I repeat: AUTHORS CAN STILL GIVE FREE BOOKS TO REVIEWERS!! Don’t believe people who tell you otherwise.
The Paid Review Problem
Purchased reviews have been an embarrassment to the Zon since 2012, when the New York Times revealed indie superstar John Locke bought his way to fame and fortune with fake reviews (and many other authors had as well.) Amazon has been fighting buyers and sellers of bogus reviews ever since.
The Zon hit with a big review purge later that year, and another a couple of years later. A third purge came in 2015. Another happened last spring. I wrote about it in my post why authors should never pay for Amazon reviews.
Amazon also came down hard on a number of the paid review mills that were becoming epidemic, and the Zon sued 1000 individuals who were selling reviews on Fivrr as well as going after their customers.
Fivrr is still selling them, I hear, but don’t go there. Consequences can be dire.
What Does Amazon Consider a Paid Review?
Here’s what they say:
Paid Reviews – We do not permit reviews or votes on the helpfulness of reviews that are posted in exchange for compensation of any kind, including payment (whether in the form of money or gift certificates), bonus content, entry to a contest or sweepstakes, discounts on future purchases, extra product, or other gifts.
The following are all “paid reviews” under the new rules.
1) A review of a product other than a book that you received free.
Apparently Amazon discovered that “incentivized” reviews were much more likely to be positive. Even when the product was defective. According to Sarah Perez at Tech Crunch this was the major reason for the big change to the review system.
She offers some pretty convincing graphs to back up her conclusion.
The reason Amazon makes an exception for reviewers in their Vine program is that vendors have no direct communication with the Vine reviewers.
But as I said above, this is going to have another impact on the Amazon community. The vicious competition for high ranking in the review hierarchy no longer has a financial incentive.
Many of the nastiest troll reviews come from reviewer-on-reviewer bullies trying to knock your reviewer out of his ranking by voting down his review of your book. This change will stop rewarding troll reviewers for bad behavior.
2) A review by a book blogger whose blog is part of a paid blog tour.
This is true even if the book blogger is not paid. Often only the organizer of the tour gets paid, but the blog review is still considered a “paid review,” because the author has spent money to get it. More information on this at The Good E-Reader.
That means it can’t be posted on Amazon. Which kind of disrespects the unpaid book blogger, but it’s the rule. The blogger can post at Goodreads, though. Also, of course, Kobo, iTunes, B&N, WalMart or wherever books are reviewed or sold online. (I have some books at Walmart now! 🙂 )
You can also post a quote in the “editorial review” section, the way you can post a quote from a paid review from Kirkus or another professional review.
3) A review written by an Amazon affiliate. Probably.
If a book blogger is an Amazon or other retail affiliate—that is, they have signed up to get a few pennies every time somebody clicks through their blogs and buys a book—in a sense they receive “payment” from a positive review of that book.
This is may be why many book bloggers have had their reviews removed without explanation and some have been banned from Amazon entirely. We don’t know for sure because Amazon has never told any reviewer outright that this is the reason. (That I know of.) They just told them they had violated the rules.
Unfortunately most book bloggers have been Amazon affiliates since book review blogging began. Nobody objected.
Here’s what Amazon whisperer “Maine Colonial” says in the Amazon forum thread about Amazon’s new review rules:
“A somewhat murky area is the case of reviewers who post reviews both on Amazon and on their own blogs, with links from the blog to Amazon that result in the blogger/reviewer receiving pay if the person clicking on the link then buys the item on Amazon. It’s not entirely clear at this time, but it appears that this scenario can lead to a purge, because it violates the rule that an Amazon reviewer may not post a review on a product in which the reviewer has a financial interest. Until more is known, a blogger who has monetized his/her blog might be better off not reviewing the same product on both the blog and Amazon.”
4) A review written in exchange for a sweepstakes entry, a discount on a future purchase, coupon, or swag.
This was a regular thing with authors for years: review my book and I’ll reward you with a mug, tee-shirt, upcoming book, or an entry in a sweepstakes.
But it isn’t okay anymore, if it ever was. This is payment for a review, even if all you’re giving is a bookmark with the author’s face on it.
So be safe, authors, and don’t offer even the smallest bribe in exchange for a review.
Just whine a lot. And beg. Begging is fine. Or threats. I don’t see anything in the guidelines that prohibits threats. 🙂
Kidding. We have to stop taking these customer reviews so seriously.
5) A review written in exchange for another review.
Review trading is 100% verboten.
I’ve heard of small presses that encourage their authors to review each other. This is a bad idea. It’s fine to blurb each other—that’s what the Big Five have always done. But don’t use Amazon’s customer reviews to do it.
I also know there are some in the indie community who still try to blackmail other indies into giving them reviews.
They’ll contact an author saying, “I just gave you a nice review, so you owe me.”
You don’t. In fact if you review that author within a few weeks, you’re going to set yourself up to lose both reviews—and a whole lot more. I’m not saying this happens every time. But if you get caught, things could get nasty for both of you.
Also, there are “review exchange communities” on Facebook and other sites. People sometimes approach me in DMs asking to exchange reviews or join these sites. They are a bad idea.
DON’T EVER JOIN A REVIEW SWAPPING GROUP!! Who knows, an Amazon spy might be lurking in that “secret” group. It has happened. So don’t be unethical.
6) A review written in expectation of a free book or gift card.
Even if that gift card is only in the amount of the price of the book. A review copy must be given before the review is written or the book will be seen as payment for the review.
Update: If somebody wants a review copy, don’t use Amazon’s “gifting” system for either an ebook or a hard copy. (Unfortunately, a gifted ebook can be exchanged for cash.) Only send an ARC, and make sure the reviewer acknowledges that it has been given in exchange for an honest review.
You also can’t withhold the cost of the book until you see if the reader has actually written a review. Or refuse to pay if the review isn’t to your liking.
That’s a way to keep things honest.
I see authors doing this a lot on their blogs. “When your review goes up, send me a screenshot and I’ll send you an Amazon gift card for the price of the book.” This is now officially not okay.
You may continue to “get away with it” for a while, but this practice will make all your reviews suspect and can even get you banned from selling on Amazon. You never know when the review police will strike.
They’re like Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition. Nobody expects them. 🙂
For more on this, see my post on Disappearing Amazon Reviews.
What About Promotional Reviews?
The wording on “promotional” reviews appears to have changed. I think this should clarify things for a lot of authors and publishers. In fact I don’t remember that term being used before.
Here’s the wording in Amazon’s new review rules:
Promotional Reviews – In order to preserve the integrity of Customer Reviews, we do not permit artists, authors, developers, manufacturers, publishers, sellers or vendors to write Customer Reviews for their own products or services, to post negative reviews on competing products or services, or to vote on the helpfulness of reviews. For the same reason, family members or close friends of the person, group, or company selling on Amazon may not write Customer Reviews for those particular items.
What does that mean for authors?
1) You can’t review an anthology or boxed set that includes a piece you’ve written.
This should go without saying, but I’ve seen this happen too many times: editors and publishers ask contributors to review an anthology or boxed set that includes their work. Bad idea.
Just because an anthology is for charity does not mean it’s okay to break the rules and ask the contributors to review themselves.
If you are charging money for an anthology and leaving rave reviews of your own book, you are conning the customer. And Amazon will not smile upon you.
2) If you are involved with the production of a book, you can’t review it.
This means editors, cover designers, formatters, etc. If you’re making money from the book, you can’t review it.
That should be obvious, but in the early Wild West days of the Kindle revolution, indie authors and small publishers got away with a lot. Now they can’t.
3) Don’t leave one-stars of “rival” books
This is something that apparently happened a lot in the early days of indie publishing, when a handful of authors played Amazon like a videogame.
They would put a novel into a tiny nonfiction category like “Historical Cat Costumes” where they could be in the top 10. Then they would try to knock off the books ahead of it in that category.
So in order to push their book to #1, they’d go to Crochet Richard III’s Hat for Your Cat and leave a one-star saying, “I made this hat for my cat and Fluffy died of a brain aneurism the next day.”
Then the novel Lucrezia Borgia’s Pussy might go to #1 in the category for a day and the author could claim to have a #1 bestseller. (I’m talking about a cat here, people. A cat.)
But don’t do this. It’s stupid. And the Zon will punish such shenanigans.
What about the Prohibition of Reviewing an Author you “Know” Online?
During last year’s bizarre purge of reviews by anybody we “knew” online, authors all scrambled to unlink our Amazon accounts from Facebook and Goodreads so Amazon wouldn’t ban all our readers from writing reviews. I’d just come out with So Much for Buckingham and my reviews stopped dead. Everybody was terrified to review it.
And it made no sense.
I was interviewed last spring about this for an article in the American Bar Association Journal :
“‘Publishers tell you to make Facebook friends with your readers to promote your books,’ author Allen says. ‘So the very thing you’re doing to get readers gets you punished by Amazon.'”…Anne R. Allen in the American Bar Association Journal, July 2016
But look again at the new Amazon review rules, especially this part:
For the same reason, family members or close friends of the person, group, or company selling on Amazon may not write Customer Reviews for those particular items.
Notice the wording: “close friends.”
This may or may not be a change. I don’t know because I don’t have a copy of the old guidelines. But it looks new to me.
There is certainly a difference between “friending” or following a favorite author on social media and being an actual “close friend.” I follow Stephen King on Facebook, but I don’t think that means he’s going to invite me for a sleep-over next time I’m in Bangor if I give him a good review.
Is This Really a Change in the Rules?
Maybe I’m being insanely optimistic, but I’m hoping this is a shift.
The American Bar Association Journal considered this important enough it was one of their four featured articles of the month (and they sent a photographer out from Washington D.C. to take my photo–which kind of surprised me.)
Whatever the legal questions, don’t ask your Mom to review your book. Or your BFF. Especially if you gave her a Kindle Fire for Christmas.
But I think we’re safe to ask our blog readers and FB fans to review.
It’s probably wise to post a review to a few other sites like Kobo and iTunes, so it’s not lost. (Indie authors are leaving Amazon’s exclusive “Select” nest these days and “going wide” to other retailers as indies lose Amazon market share to Amazon imprints.)
I also think it makes sense to unlink your social media from Amazon to be safe. Here are instructions from author Tina Reber for how to disconnect your social media accounts from Amazon.
There’s also a theory that you shouldn’t put a link to your book on your blog or website that you get directly from an Amazon search, because a dated url will tip off Amazon that the review comes from a fan. Here’s a link to a blogpost with more info plus a video about the suspect urls.
I’ve heard the dated-url theory before, but it doesn’t make sense to me that Amazon doesn’t want any of an author’s fans to write reviews. Sometimes fans can be disappointed in a book and be very vocal about it in a review. Just look at reviews of some of Janet Evanovich’s later books.
How can you appeal if the Amazon police remove your review?
Let Maine Colonial answer directly from the thread on the Amazon rules page:
“If you want to appeal your purging, you can write to review-appeals@amazon.com. From what we’ve seen, you get one opportunity to make your case, but your chances of a reprieve are almost nonexistent.”
What if you want troll review removed?
UPDATE: Amazon has become much more aware of the dangers of troll reviews after the attack on a prominent politician’s book. If you suspect swarming and troll activity, do tell Amazon. There’s some great info on this from Judith Briles at The Book Designer. Contact Amazon with your genuine complaint at Seller-Performance@amazon.com and tell them what you want them to investigate and who you think the resource is—a stalker, competitor or what.
What can authors do?
As I said above, we can stop obsessing about Amazon reviews. They don’t seem to affect sales that much, and 99% of indies can’t get into Bookbub anymore anyway.
A lot of the myths you hear about reviews are just that. Don’t believe those FB memes that say you need 25-50 reviews to get ranked on Amazon. Any idiot can make a meme.
A BOOK DOES NOT NEED A CERTAIN NUMBER OF REVIEWS TO MOVE UP THE AMAZON SALES RANKS.
Only one thing does that: sales.
I had a book in the top 20 books in humor on Amazon for 30 weeks. It sometimes sold 20 copies an hour. Number of reviews at the time: 12. Would I like more reviews on all my books? You betcha! We need them to get into the book bargain newsletters, and more people buy when they see a lot of reviews. But Amazon reviews are not the be-all and end-all of bookselling.
Chill, everybody. And go write the next book.
For more info on Amazon’s new review rules, check out the Smarty Pants podcast on Amazon’s new review rules from Chris and Becky Syme this week.
UPDATE, NOVEMBER 2, 2016
Today’s Hot Sheet, (available by paid subscription only), which is written by respected publishing industry veterans Porter Anderson and Jane Friedman says much the same as what I’ve outlined here.
“The status of Amazon affiliates: if you’re an affiliate, and you review a book on your blog and cross-post at Amazon, you may see your review purged from the site. There is no official statement from Amazon about this type of situation, but Amazon affiliates should keep their reviews and commentary strictly at their site (and/or at other social media sites), and avoid posting customer reviews at Amazon.”
“If you do pay for professional reviews through industry outlets or blog tours, ensure those reviews appear only in the Editorial Reviews section. And if you’re doing something that generates dozens of positive reviews that look and feel flimsy, assume Amazon will be watching and judging.”
UPDATE, September 20, 2017
A lot of people have asked about Amazon’s policy for removing trollish negative reviews. This is their current policy, according to the Guardian on September 14, 2017.
“…we remove customer reviews that violate our community guidelines”. These include the stipulation that “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”.
They said customers’ reviews “must be related to the product and are designed to help … purchase decisions…. It’s not our role to decide what a customer would view as helpful or unhelpful in making their decision. We do however have mechanisms in place to ensure that the voices of many do not drown out the voices of a few.”
***
What about you, scriveners? Have you looked at Amazon’s new review rules? Had any reviews disappear mysteriously recently? Did you contact Amazon when reviews disappeared? What kind of response did you get?
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) October 16, 2016
BOOK OF THE WEEK
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Even if you’re not a big fan of cozies, this should be fun for all writers, because it’s a satire of the whole Amazon review system and the people who make a game of it. And sometimes KILL for it.
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Available in paper from:
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Anne—Excellent post and advice. IME reviews are like Rohrshach tests. You wonder if Reviewer A has even read the same book as Reviewer B. Happened back in the day of newspaper/magazine reviews, too. Chicago Tribune “loved” the book. Denver Post thought it was a POS. ~shrugs~
Ruth–I agree. Reviews aren’t about our books as much as they are about the reviewer. Like a Rorschach test. We should be grateful that somebody actually bought the book and it moved them enough to say something.
Well, except the “book reviews” that say, “this electric toothbrush didn’t come with batteries so I’m sending it back.” I wish Amazon would be willing to remove those. Sometimes they do, but often they don’t. 🙁
What in the name of Petroishka is “the Zon”???????? Yes, I googled. No, I didn’t find nothing. Is that some alternative club bizarro peeps on Amazon belong to, like the Vine thingy?
Luna–“The Zon” or “The Mighty Zon” is a nickname a lot of people use to refer to Amazon.com, the giant retail site.
It’s like the nickname “Liam” for “William” or “Beth” for “Elizabeth” It uses the last letters instead of the first. This is a common form of nickname in the English-speaking world.
Most of those make sense. The friends-with-the-author one is still vague. We all know each other. Authors are all Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon from another author.
An author friend who has sold over a million copies and who has hundreds of reviews for her books (99% positive – yes, that blows my mind) told me my best bet was to do a book review tour through someone like Xpresso Book Tours or Goddess Fish Tours. (Not sure on the name of that last one.) But with Amazon’s rules, those reviews wouldn’t be counted, would they?
Alex–Yes, we’re all Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Or Stephen King. Or Somebody. 🙂 It’s just silly.
The advice you got is definitely a no-no now. That is what Amazon is cracking down on. It’s one of those “loopholes” authors have used to get a lot of reviews. Pay for certain blog tours and you get a bunch of positive reviews. There’s an unspoken understanding the reviews will be positive or the bloggers will be dropped from the tour. You can see why the Zon isn’t happy about that.
So you can’t pay for a tour with the expectation of Amazon reviews anymore.
Besides, you have the best blog network of anybody I know. Your blog peeps should be able to provide you with a good blog tour for free.
Hi Anne – I just want to clarify though – are we assuming that Amazon considers Blog Tours for reviews a no-no, I couldn’t find anything specific in their updates that states this. I was wondering if this is an assumption, or if you found this in one of their many “updates.” Thanks, as a blogger we are trying to dig through the information and sort out the truth behind everything.
Parajunkee–Blog tours for reviews are fine. But if you pay for the tour, the review can’t go up as a “customer review” on Amazon. You’ll find the info on that in the link to the Good E-Reader from last November. I have not found anything in the new guidelines that changes that definition of a “paid review”.
Quotes from those reviews can go in the “editorial reviews” on Amazon. and they can be posted in their entirety on Goodreads, Kobo, GooglePlay, etc.
I have found nothing that clarifies that further about in the new Amazon rules.
Great “review” of Amazon’s process, Anne. Thanks for the information.
I’m, at best, a mid-lister but my sales plod along at a small, steady rate. However, I’ve noticed within the last 2 months my new reviews are few and far between so I think there must be something at play with changes at the Zon.
Also, I took a look at some of the recent promotions on BookBub and see many of them have only a few Amazon reviews to their credit. I was under the impression that a book needed somewhere of 20 or more decent reviews before BookBub would consider promoting it but this doesn’t seem to be the case. Anyway, back to trying to figure out how this whole game works 🙂
Very important and timely material, Anne. I haven’t looked into the gifting policy, and I cannot immediately find the link on my “front page” or the author center. But I’m assuming that means you eat the price of a book (pay the Zon) in order to get someone a “clean” copy? I’m afraid I wouldn’t have the financial wherewithal to do that. In fact, I don’t have the money, come to think of it! But I can take comfort that the reviews themselves are not crucial, next to sales. I think that’s the big point you’re making.
I only worry, I guess, about reviewing the work of a fellow author. I’ll never know what the Zon considers too close a relationship, and honestly screw them anyway. I meet someone online, I decide to read their book, and I want to post a review because I loved it. A guy with my sales rank has very little to lose- come on Bezos, let’s dance.
Too much to dream, I suppose that they’d ever say “Point One: Here’s the spirit of what we’re doing, and here are three examples of things that fit the category.” They hate being gamed, that’s what it is. So much better (and easier) to stay the man behind the curtain and stoke up the fog machine.
Will–If you’re with a small press, they should be giving you some print ARCs to send to reviewers. You can also ask for .mobi and .epub files to send to reviewers before launch.
Once the book is launched, you can either continue to send those files or gift them from Amazon or B and N o r wherever. Your choice. Gifting them looks classier, but a lot of reviewers are just fine with getting the file direct from you. A lot of authors have to pinch pennies these days.
I think you’re right about the Great Zon behind the curtain with the fog machine. They don’t seem to want too much clarity. But this change in the rules has lifted the fog a bit, so I give them credit for that.
I think you should continue to review what you like. The only time you know you’ll run into trouble is if you review somebody you work with or live with from the same IP address. They’ll just tell you they won’t post your review.
And a lot of this is pretty silly. That’s why I wrote a comedy about it.
Given the hijinks at most review sites, whether it be Yelp or Amazon, I understand the reasoning behind the new restrictions, though I don’t agree with them. Having a friend or fellow author, even a devoted ARC reader, review a book is nothing new. Trading reviews is nothing new.
The real problem is two-fold: First (angry hardcopy traditionalist here), people can’t thumb through Amazon’s books in preview. A few pages at the beginning is not enough to judge a book. People need the ability to browse randomly. Secondly, the reason the reviews are a problem is not because people are being swindled by spurious reviews but because the resulting metrics screws up Amazon’s algorithms and, therefore, the rankings.
Amazon will never provide decent or reliable curation with algorithms, though I doubt that’s their intent. As for authors relying on the rankings to make some headway with sales, I think the Amazon train ultimately leads to a dead end. A reliable, intelligent curation mechanism that involves human judgement is necessary. Until we have that, we’re all dancing to Amazon’s crazy, self-serving tune.
Keith–Authors have woven a lot of mythology around Amazon’s algos. It’s true their algos change often regarding your also-boughts and who gets prominence in emails etc. This month there’s been a huge down-tick in indie sales and that isn’t just coincidence.
But a book sales ranking is based on one thing: sales. It has nothing to do with reviews. That is a myth. I think the myth was perpetrated by the people who sell reviews. Some of them have very slick websites and I’ve seen them say this stuff in very convincing terms.
But they’re lying in order to get you to pay them for bogus reviews.
Of course book sales are going to be influenced by reviews. If you have two reviews and they’re both 2-stars,you’re not going to make many sales. One of the favorite games of review trolls is to give a brand new book 1- or 2-star reviews (showing they obviously haven’t read the book) just to be nasty. That will certainly affect the book’s sales ranking. But it’s not an algorithm thing. It’s a troll thing. Amazon has a nasty habit of protecting troll reviews and removing honest, thoughtful ones.
I agree that’s a big problem. One way we can fight it is to review on other sites. I hope Kobo will make a real effort to court indies in the next year. I’ve seen they’ve been doing some of that. I hope they’ll do more. And we can do our part. .
I realise sales RANKINGS might only be based on sales, not reviews. But the problem for many of us is appearing in the SEARCHES. No one can buy us who doesn’t already know us if our book in a popular genre doesn’t make it high in the SEARCH rankings.
People who collect data say that if you don’t appear on the first page of the search, that’s it. And apparently there’s even a huge drop-off between #1 and #4 – and even #2 – in terms of a conversion rate.
But are you saying that reviews play no role in being returned in a SEARCH?
Thanks!
Gwen–Nobody knows the algorithm that drives Amazon’s search engines or also-bought suggestions. They change often and are top secret. Anybody who claims to know them is either a high-level employee at the Zon or is only guessing. I certainly don’t.
I do know that books with Amazon imprints like Thomas and Mercer and Lake Union appear to get priority in a search these days. And of course it makes sense. They’re going to promote their own. Buying Amazon advertising may also influence the search algos.
it can appear that books with a huge number of reviews appear higher in a search, but the number of reviews may reflect sales and not the other way around. There’s no way to know if it’s a cause-and-effect situation unless you’re an Amazon insider.
It is a tangled we we weave, eh?
CS–It is tangled indeed.
Hey Anne,
Thanks for this. The Zon rules have always been a mystery to me. Though I’ve never had a problem with them, there’s always tomorrow, right?
In a way, I’m glad because these rules now put a lot of scammers out of work. That is something I think we can all celebrate. I must say I hear a lot more stories of authors who were scammed by paying for bogus ‘systems’ ‘programs’ guaranteed to get you tons of reviews or high rankings. Sadly, it will probably only be six months before some new enterprising scammer thinks up something new to rip off authors with. What a world.
For me, the take away is:
Don’t try to scam the Zon
Never pay for reviews
Unlink your social media from Amazon
And that’s a lot.
As always, thanks for looking out for us.
Have a good one.
Annie
Annie–Haha! That’s about the size of it. And I wrote my longest post ever to say what you put into 16 words.
A lot of reviewers are hurting and scared right now, so authors need to chill. Just don’t listen to the fearmongers and especially don’t pay anybody to game the system for you. It’s unethical and it will come back to bite you on the butt.
Oops, sorry, editing right now – so I must be in my checklist mode. Every word was worth reading, believe me. 😉
Thanks, Anne, for this great review of the system. I had a review removed from the Canadian Amazon site the other day. What hurt was that it was the only review of the book on the site and the reviewer was a Top 100 Reviewer. I know the person and told her. It must have been a glitch. Her review was still on her dashboard (or wherever it goes), but for some reason it was no longer public. She was able to resubmit it. This was important because AMZ CA recently removed the reviews from AMZ US off the site. Now readers only see the AMZ CA reviews, which for most others isn’t anywhere near the number that they have on AMZ US. And in many cases, it amounts to zero reviews.
Stina–I didn’t even know Amazon US reviews had been removed from AMZ CA.!That would explain the drop in my Canadian sales! Sheesh! Most Canadian reviewers review on AMZ US assuming they will carry over.
I always learn something from the comments here. That’s a doozy! What awful news!
I have had reviews disappear on my buy page that appear on my Author Central page. Author Central was able to restore them. Just a tech glitch. But scary.
Thanks for letting us know the bad news about Canada!
Anne, really good stuff here. Thanks for the clarification. I’m still laughing about the Lucrezia Borgia title–especially given this year’s political climate. Another post well worth bookmarking for future reference. I don’t think I’ve ever done any of this but at my age who remembers what I did yesterday? Keep up the great posts. My best, Paul
Paul–Haha. I couldn’t resist. I wrote that title before the recent political brouhaha about, um, cats, so the joke took on a little more bite.
You would never be one to game the system. Buying reviews and review trading clubs (where nobody actually reads each others’ books) were rampant in the early days of indie publishing. And some small presses encouraged their authors to review each other, but that stuff is mostly long gone. Three purges later, most people are just scared.
Most of the gaming of the Amazon system is big business now. Those are the people they’re going after. Unfortunately some things ordinary, honest reviewers do somehow trigger their robots and good reviews disappear for no apparent reason.
Thanks for this in-depth explanation, I’ll be saving this for future reference. And I’m still laughing at Fluffy’s brain aneurysm and Lucretia Borgia’s pussy. 😀
Veronique–I’m glad you enjoyed the jokes. Most people don’t read down that far. But did have fun. 🙂
Free audio book, please.
I have learned so much from this blog and have forwarded a number of posts to my writer’s group. I’ve been working on my novel for a year and a half part time as I have a small business and other creative endeavors. I am determined to finish and brave the dreaded rewrite waters.
My only question is, can I listen to the book on my computer? I don’t have any gadgets.
Thanks,
Madelin
Madelin–Send me an email to annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com and I’ll give you the code for the free audiobook. I’m pretty sure you can play it on any computer. I listen to them on my laptop.
Thanks for sharing the blog! Best of luck finishing the WIP and diving into the dreaded rewrites.
I don’t think I’ve had any reviews “disappear”, then again, I review on the average about once every 6 to 10 weeks (or longer), and I don’t stick strictly to books. I also do music as well. I did get a troll (at least I think it was a troll), who attempted to crucify me for a two star review I left for a non-fiction book called “The Butler’s Child”. I didn’t respond to his/her dribble and went on my merry way.
In regards to the “I’ll review yours if you review mine”, the one traditional publisher i had actually wrote that into the contract: you have to review at least book per quarter that was not in your genre.
Not sure if they still do it ’cause most of the people I was FB friend with from that publisher severed all ties with me some two years ago.
GB–Come to think of it, I don’t know if any of my reviews have disappeared either. I know about the reviews of MY books, but not the reviews I’ve written for other people’s books. Or appliances and shoes and things.
Mostly I review things other than books, just to be safe. I had one review turned down because I said I was glad they still carried the Britta filters I needed for my smaller water pitcher because my local Ralph’s no longer carried them. Mentioning Ralph’s was a no-no.
Sounds as if the person you encountered wasn’t a troll but a member of the author’s “street team” who was defending the author against a bad review. A bad idea. Authors shouldn’t ever respond to a review or send a surrogate to do it. Unless there’s a total misunderstanding, like “This is supposed to be a review of a book, not an electric toothbrush. I think you may have got your reviews mixed up.”
That publisher was REALLY being unethical there. I remember when we thought we couldn’t review books in our genre. Another one of those Amazon myths that went viral. Nothing stupider than making people review a book in a genre they don’t read. And it’s still against the Zon rules to compel people to review as part of their contract. That’s still a paid review. Glad to hear you severed ties with that bunch.
Anne,
Another quite insightful post. As a newly published author myself, a lot if this can get a bit confusing. I worry now when reviewing books I’ve read that if I review something negatively ugly it’s in the same genre, I will be viewed as going after the competition. I have to be equally careful as I work for a small press publisher. While I was one of those that did product and blog tour reviews, I was not one of the sheep who always posted positively because of that. I always tried to be honest and review with integrity and I hate that there are so many that don’t that have tainted the stew, so to speak.
Lisa–There certainly has been a lot of rumor-mongering on the subject of reviewing your own genre. Negative reviews=going after a competitor. Positive reviews=you must be BFFs. I’m not sure any of that is true. Unless there’s further evidence. I think you can go ahead and write the reviews, with the understanding the Zon may pull any review, even if you didn’t do anything remotely wrong, so back up on another site, whether it’s GR or another retailer.
There has been so much gaming of the system by everybody, that we have to stop taking it all so seriously and just follow our guts and do what we feel is right. In the end, the Zon is policed by robots and robots aren’t rational, so we can’t expect them to be.
Really clears it up, Anne – thank you! I have a friend who paid for 2 book tours, and has had all of her reviews that were put up by the blog sites, removed from Amazon. Perfect example of your no. 2. These bloggers were not paid to review her book. Only the company that set up the tour was paid. But you can imagine the lament about money not well spent.
Wish we had all known about this before.
Melodie–I really feel for your friend! That’s the boat a lot of authors find themselves in. What’s worse, Amazon won’t come out and say it in so many words The whole thing is behind a curtain and a fog machine, as Will Hahn said.
This means we’re going to have a whole lot fewer book bloggers and blog tour options.
When there are so many dangerous, big-time scammers to go after, I have no idea why Amazon decided to come down so hard on their own affiliates and these hard working book bloggers, but they did.
Very informative and thank you for sharing. I’ve hired a publicist this go around and I trust that she is savvy enough to keep abreast of the new rules. Maybe I will forward her your post. (I shouldn’t have to, she’s a big name in the industry…but who knows?) Have you seen Dan Alatorre’s post today on BookTubers? It’s an awesome interview. I’m always trying to keep up with the ever-changing world of marketing. Here’s the link: https://danalatorre.com/2016/10/16/secrets-to-getting-reviews-for-your-book-revealed-booktuber-elizabeth-hebb-tells-all/
S.K.–I’ve just had to calm down an author whose publicist had heard free ARCs were now a no-no with the Zon, so I hope yours hasn’t been listening to the same grapevine.
The link to the BookTuber video is very useful. I’ll bet BookTube is fantastic for marketing YA.
But I wanted to strangle him when he said he didn’t know why authors hate Goodreads. Obviously he doesn’t know about the notorious Goodreads Bullies. The worst sociopaths have been kicked off the site, but many are still there. They are toxic author-haters and they will torture a newbie author and send death and rape threats and try to drive them to suicide. Truly toxic, subhuman trolls.
Also, Goodreads giveaways are gamed so badly that a huge percentage of the print books end up on ebay the next day. I never recommend Goodreads print giveaways. I think they allow ebook giveaways now, but they result in maybe one review out of 25 giveaways. He must have been living under a rock.
Yeah…I got the feeling it was an effort to befriend the BookTuber he was in the process of interviewing…but yes, another interesting avenue for authors. I avoid GoodReads like the plague.
SK–Definitely some schmoozing going on there. 🙂 I could tell he wanted to stay on her good side.
Wow! I’ve purchased many blog tours that included reviews.Yikes! I should be glad nothing bad happened. Thank you so much for this info, Anne.
Patricia–I don’t know why some blog tour reviews got chosen by the Amazon Inquisition and not others. Probably because some major sellers got reviews from them and vigilantes complained. I hope your blog tour reviews don’t disappear. If they do, at least you’ll know what happened.
Thanks for breaking down the new rules so thoroughly! I’d heard of the issues with fake reviews and real ones that got caught up in the cross fire, but didn’t realize how deep some of those fake reviews went. Hopefully the new rules will make it easier for everyone.
Caitlin–Fake reviews are a real menace. A couple of years ago, I was getting followed on Twitter by dozens of review mills a week. They were very slick and had authoritative-sounding stuff on their sites, telling authors they were morons if they weren’t buying reviews. They’d say authors without a lot of reviews “don’t understand how Amazon works.” Some even used the Amazon logo.
And many of these people are still in business. i’ve heard there are whole villages in third world countries where they churn these out all day. Not just for books, of course, but for all kinds of products.
Today I was shopping for a small appliance and looked on several sites. I found identical rave reviews on Amazon, Overstock.com and about three other sites. Now I recognize them as purchased reviews from people who don’t even know what they’re reviewing, but most people wouldn’t spot them.
Interesting. I’m giving a presentation on reviewing at a writer’s conference in a couple of week, and I just finished my presentation yesterday. I thought. Now I might have to add a couple of provisos, because my understanding of the new rules differs slightly from yours.
I’ve heard the Amazon affiliate thing before and I’m in two minds about it. I’m an Amazon affiliate, and earn the grand total of around $10 per year. I mostly joined because it was a way of getting the book covers on my blog (I read a blog post where an author was chastising a blogger for using their book cover image without permission. There are some weird people out there). I can imagine if a reviewer was earning more from their affiliate payments than they spent at Amazon then it might become a problem. I can only hope …
I hadn’t heard the point that paid blog tours might now be verboten – that certainly wasn’t how I read it, but it’s a fair interpretation. I’ve just offered to influence for a paid blog tour … let’s see if that review “sticks”!
As the reviewer, it doesn’t bother me whether it sticks on Amazon or not, as it will still be on my blog. But it will probably bother the author, who has paid someone to organise a tour and get her Amazon reviews … which is the point. She’s “paid” for reviews. Even if I’m not getting paid to participate.
I disagree with this point:
“If somebody wants a review copy, use Amazon’s “gifting” system for either an ebook or a hard copy.”
As a reviewer, I don’t accept Kindle versions gifted through Amazon, because I believe Amazon DO consider them to be compensation – because a gifted Kindle book can be regifted, or exchanged for any product at Amazon. It’s not actually the gift of a $3.99 book – it’s giving the reviewer $3.99 and hoping they use the money to buy your book. Some might not.
I prefer reviewers to either email me the mobi file directly, give me a DropBox download link, or gift through Smashwords (or Bookfunnel, or other non-Amazon site).
Iola–Thanks a bunch for your input! I’m getting this info directly from Amazon, but it may be a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.
They say a book is not considered “payment” as of October 7, and I take them at their word. since it’s pretty clear in their guidelines..
The problem with the “gifting” thing is that many authors are not self-published and so they don’t have access to .mobi or .epub files and they’re not on Smashwords, so they would not be able to get those files to a reviewer.
And of course, many, many books are exclusive to Amazon, still, even though it’s now recommended that authors “go wide.” Some people are still doing well in Kindle Unlimited.
But you may be an indie-only reviewer, so you wouldn’t be interested in a trad-pub book in any case. Every reviewer has their preferences.
The most important thing in getting a book to a reviewer is to read the reviewer’s guidelines and follow them to the letter. Bloggers don’t put those guidelines on the blog for our health!
And any author who doesn’t want her book cover plastered all over the Internet should find another profession. “Please don’t advertise my product! I prefer to keep my books in my garage and not let anybody know about them.” Total Bozo!
Thanks very much for your take on things!
The affiliate bit really concerns me – I know a lot of indie review sites that try and cover (or at least contribute to) their hosting costs with affiliate links for the books they review (whether or not the review is positive). The notion of losing those reviews from Amazon feels troubling to me. Thanks for the article.
Kit–I think it concerns everybody. Book bloggers have been one of the pillars of the whole “Kindle revolution”. But Amazon now that it has its own imprints and is #6 in the new Big 6. They are no longer dependent on book bloggers.
I strongly suggest book bloggers look into other affiliates, like Google Play and Kobo and also consider a tip jar.
Kobo has a golden opportunity here to scoop up the huge indie market if they choose to. If they made a bid for the Amazon affiliates and encouraged reviewers to review at Kobo, Kobo could become the new, bookier Zon.
I heard that Amazon were burying reviews unless they had the Verified Purchase turned on, so some indie authors are advising authors to use the free days in Kindle Unlimited to allow launch teams to get the book for free before they can review it, meaning it shows as a Verified Purchase. So those of us not in Kindle Unlimited would essentially be penalised for sending advance review copies because they won’t have the Verified Purchase label. Is that true?
Icy–It’s true that Verified reviews will appear first on your buy page now. But that’s not a reason to stay in KU if you find your income falling off a cliff the way so many indies have this last quarter. Indies are leaving KU in droves. If none of your reviews are Verified, it won’t make any difference.
It’s only a problem if you have 50 rave reviews that aren’t verified and two one-stars that are. Those two one-stars will appear first and could influence sales. But that’s unlikely unless your 50 raves are purchased.
Thanks for so much helpful info, what a minefield it all is! can you tell me does some/all apply to non-US countries ie UK?
Jennie–Amazon’s rules apply to all Amazon stores throughout the world. But I think they are slower to enforce them in some stores than others. But none are immune to enforcement.
An interesting post, thank you. There has been much confusion about what it means for the writing/book community…
Trip–People love to weave all kinds of horror stories around Amazon’s rules. That’s because things have been pretty open to interpretation. Let’s hope things get more real and open with the new guidelines.
Thanks for this piece of wisdom/advice, Anne. (And I love the humour inserts too!)
Certainly, it might explain why I don’t seem to be getting reviews now! I’ll link this in my blog.
Nik–Thanks for the link love! I think we’ve all seen our review numbers fall. Reviewers are feeling scared and disrespected. A lot of them just don’t see the point any more. Most of them started reviewing as a kindness to other readers, and when they’re treated like criminals by Amazon and they get flak from authors, they figure, why bother?
I’ve heard about using the date Amazon links also. I’ve never lost reviews for any of my books but I know authors who have. Like most writers, I’m a big reader and I always leave reviews for indie authors. As far as I know they’ve never been removed. It’s all so very complicated and frustrating.
Susan–The thing about dated links doesn’t make sense to me. Why would Amazon want to keep people from reviewing their favorite authors?
Thanks for being a regular reviewer. I think that’s the best way to keep the system honest. Leave honest reviews! Indie authors especially need our support. Even a negative review is helpful.
Anne: You’ve done it again. You’ve written a killer post that is so helpful. I’d been hearing conflicting interpretations about Amazon’s new review rules and you explained them so well in this post. Thank you for that. It’s sad that book bloggers from blogging tours will have their reviews removed but as you said, if we write great books, we don’t need to worry about accumulating 50+ reviews. Keep writing these awesome posts!
Frances–Thanks so much! Authors are hearing a lot of scary stuff, but I see no reason for alarm.
The changes are not so good for reviewers who have been getting big ticket items free, but they have nothing to do with the book world.
Affiliates getting their reviews removed feel betrayed, and I understand why they’re angry. That’s been going on since last February.
But I hear Google Play affiliates make a better percentage, so reviewers might consider branching out. Or just give up on affiliate marketing. As one commenter said here yesterday, affiliates get about $10 a month from Amazon.
Maybe they could put out a tip jar instead.
And I’m so glad you pointed out how silly it is to have 1000s of reviews. The truth is no reader is going to read 50+ reviews. Amassing a ton of reviews used to be a way to get into BookBub, but BB is pretty much the domain of the Big 5 now, so we can calm down and start concentrating on getting visible on many platforms. Amazon is not the only game in town anymore.
Unbelievable quagmire that must be negotiated–and a GREAT post. Highly informative, thoughtful, excellent coverage of this timely topic,,,, and great advice. I have always wondered why reviews are removed when a NEW EDITION of a book is placed on Amazon. Why would reviews be removed (or hidden or (?) when the book , the new edition, is the same content?
Regardless, this whole article on ‘reviews’ is certainly helpful..Bookmarked! .Thank you, Anne
Raymond–Good question. It’s happened to me. When a new edition goes up, the reviews have to “migrate” and sometimes they don’t make it. You can contact Author Central and you’ll usually get the reviews back.
But sometimes the review will come under scrutiny in the re-instatement process and be found in violation for some reason. Usually it’s just a glitch, though, so always ask. .
Thanks for such a thoughtful article. The following is simply thinking out loud. No response necessary, merely food for thought.
Personally, I think that Amazon needs gate-keepers to make sure the books they take on are “professional” before they ever take them. Wal-mart and other big retailers make sure their products are in good shape before they put them on the shelf. More specifically, bookstores do this, of course, otherwise they would go out of business.
Question: Don’t Kirkus and Publishers Weekly have channels where they charge to review books? What about them?
Question: What about books sold at book signings? I pay for these books through create space, so a percentage comes out of my pocket, and if these subsequent readers do not spend $50 on Amazon they can not leave a review? I sell 85% of my books at signings. So for me, this sucks.
You know, come to think of it, I am sort of over the whole Amazon thing at this point, at least as far as “sales” and “rank.” As a relatively smart indie writer and marketer of her own (non-genre) books, no matter how hard I work to get the word out on Amazon, the mountain of crappy books is too high to climb over at this point. Amazon should do what I mentioned above: Be gatekeepers from the get-go, bring in books they know will sell, and purge the crap. Or if a book doesn’t sell a copy in, say, a year, boot it out.
Sadly, these idealistic thoughts will never come to fruition. It is too late for any of that.
I will take your advice and give up pushing so hard for reviews. It’s too taxing.
So now, I will get off-line and do what I’m supposed to do: Write.
: )
Leslie–Amazon is the world’s biggest retailer. They can’t test every product before they sell it. That wouldn’t be possible. Reviews are supposed to help us make wise purchases. That’s why they want to keep them honest.
PW no longer has for-purchase reviews. Kirkus does. Some people find this unethical.
Amazon has always required its reviewers to be customers. It’s not a review site like Yelp. It’s a retailer. Now it requires reviewers to buy $50 worth of products in a lifetime. This is to keep crooks from gaming the system. I don’t think that’s unfair.
If you prefer to shop at Walmart or B and N, you can review at Walmart or B and N. If you sell all your books via signings, maybe you’d do best posting reviews on your own website–and maybe even selling via your own website Some authors do well controlling their own sales.
Certainly this is the time for indie authors to “go wide” and sell on as many platforms as possible.
.
What upsets me is the fact that all the books I buy and sell to readers at book signings, etc, cannot gender a review. Unless the book is bought through Amazon by the person leaving the review, they can’t post it. I’ve had people tell me they won’t get any more books from me, because they can’t review them. The books were bought through Amazon (by me, the author), but because Amazon can’t tell the person reviewing the book bought it from me, they make those copies ineligible for reviews. Not fair! Amazon needs to figure out a way to make author-generated sales eligible for reviews or I won’t be buying too many books from them them anymore…
Susan–I don’t know why your customers can’t leave reviews. Anybody can leave a review of a book on Amazon as long as the reviewer has an Amazon account.
A reviewer can read the book from the library, borrow it from a friend, get it free from the author (as it says above), buy it from the author, an indie bookstore or even Barnes and Noble.
Maybe the reader who told you this didn’t have an Amazon account. There IS a rule now that you must have bought $50 worth of merchandize from Amazon with a credit card sometime in your life before you can leave a review.
But anybody who has an Amazon account who says they have been unable to leave an Amazon review of a book they bought elsewhere or received free is having tech issues or hasn’t actually tried to leave a review. They may be saying this because they can buy the book cheaper from Amazon than from you.
Buying the book from Amazon is only required in order to get a “Verified” review. Those appear higher on your buy page. But all reviews of the book, no matter how it was acquired, will appear, as long as the review doesn’t contain profanity, links to other books or otherwise violate Amazon’s rules.
Also, having a reviewing account in one Amazon country (e.g. US) enables you to review at all Amazon sites.
I regularly review at Amazon UK and Australia, although I certainly haven’t spent $50 at Amazon Australia. I’ve also left a couple of reviews at Amazon Canada, just to see if I could. I could, even though I’ve never spent a cent there.
Iola–Thanks much for that clarification. I’ve left reviews on AMZ UK in the past, but I also bought a lot of stuff, since I was living over there, so I didn’t know if that applied. That helps!
So that $50 qualifies you to review world-wide, everybody!
The comments on these posts are always a goldmine of information. Thanks a bunch, Iola!
I’d love a free audio book. I found your article very interesting particularly as I have just started my own book review website after some of my reviews disappearing from Amazon. I’m still not sure why they disappeared as I was in no way associated with the authors.
Leanne–Great! just send me an email to annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com with “free audiobook” in the subject line and I’ll send you the code for the free audiobook.
I think it’s very wise to start your own review blog if you’ve been having trouble with the Zon robots removing your reviews for no apparent reason. The trouble is robots are stupid and something totally benign can trigger the bots, and nobody will ever tell you what it is.
And rather than being an affiliate, it might be better to just put a digital “tip jar” on your site. You’ll probably make more money. Best of luck with the new website! I look forward to getting your email.
As a Vine member, I have been contacted directly before by the publisher and/or author to ask whether I received the product (usually a book), when would my review of it be posted, etc. Whether they still allow that today, I don’t know as it has been a few months since that happened to me.
Kevin–That certainly is a violation of Amazon’s rules. I’m amazed at how pushy some publishers, authors and publicists can be. I’ve had publicists write and pretty much demand I write a book review on this blog and we have NEVER written a review here in 7 years.
I hope you reported them to Amazon. That should get them removed from the Vine program for pressuring a reviewer.. At least you should tell them they are violating the rules.
Thanks so much for the informative post.
I am a writer, and I love to support Indie authors.
Simple … or it should be.
I posted reviews on Zon well before I ever had my 1st book published. If I have something to say about a book that may impact negatively, (Less than 3 stars) I will not post a review. That is a decision I made long ago, and one I will continue to follow. If I have enjoyed a book, if it has given me pleasure, information, access to a hitherto unknown place to explore, I have no hesitation in saying just that. I also have no hesitation in posting that review on my small blog. I have never “Met” an author whose book I have reviewed, Not face to face … but we have all a commonality of interest … “We love the written word” or the audio word, or the word that popped into our scrambled brain a lifetime ago. It saddens me immensely that our love of what we do, our passion for sharing the knowledge and wisdom of others can be viewed by others as suspicious. Sigh … I think I may just spend the remainder of my day in my ‘Paranoid corner’.
Soooz–If you haven’t had any reviews refused or removed by now, I’m sure you’re fine. In fact it sounds as if you’re exactly the kind of reviewer that everybody appreciates. Keep doing what you’re doing!
Amazon is only trying to get the people who are gaming the system. It doesn’t sound as if anything you’re doing is likely to raise any red flags or trigger any robot “Inquisitions.”
No need to be paranoid. I wrote this post to get people to calm down, because there were some very silly rumors out there. Keep doing what you’re doing. Thanks for being a thoughtful reviewer!
Thank you, that’s a kind thing to say. Soooz shall now remove her foil wrapped head, and leave the ‘paranoid corner.’ I have books to read/write or review. lol.
This is another excellent post. Writers all over my social media are flinging themselves over cliffs about the new rules. Thanks for stopping me from being a lemming. 🙂 I’d love a free audio book if I haven’t miscounted.
Mary Ann–Great! Just send me an email at annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com and I’ll send you the code for the free audiobook.
People sure are having attacks of the vapours, aren’t they? They all seem to be getting upset about the fact that verified reviews will get listed first on your buy page. That doesn’t mean other reviews will be taken down. Just that the verified ones will be first. Not the end of the world, dears. Have some smelling salts. 🙂
Yes, they’re in a panic all right. I’m lucky, I guess. I’ve never had a review of mine taken down.
*runs off to send you my email*
Thank you for clarifying the muck!!! I’ve seen / read so much about reviews my head was swimming. The way I see it, anyone with any integrity (there’s the rub, right) knows that to garner oodles of reviews without legitimate reviewers is a no-no. I barely have ANY reviews on mine, but I’m still a newbie. I do, however, write reviews. A lot of them. And I’ve changed my disclaimer wording to indicate that yes, I was give said book (if that is the case) and no, I was NOT required to post a review.
I for one appreciate that Amazon is taking the issue seriously, and changing the rules to weed out scammer reviews. They have to know, though, that the publishing industry depends heavily on reviews! I see it this way, as an author, I am a “co-worker” with other authors. In any other industry, coworkers fraternize outside of the work setting, become friends, etc. Doesn’t mean I’m suddenly going to compromise my standards and write a glowing review for my friend’s book that I haven’t read, or read and didn’t like!
Okay, I’mma stop (ranting) now before it turns into my own blog post! ha!
Thanks again for the great information!
ps, I followed your blog!
Robin–Welcome to the blog! Your thoughts echo mine exactly. One of the problems with Amazon reviews is that Amazon is not primarily a bookstore. It is a huge retailer. I for one pay a lot more attention to reviews of appliances and clothing than I do of books. A couple of reviews that say. “This buk wuz to hard two reed” aren’t going to stop me from buying a book.
But if I see one for an electric toothbrush that says, “The battery compartment leaks and I almost got electrocuted”, then I pay attention. It’s that kind of review that Amazon is concerned with, when 50 rave reviews that have been paid for drown out that one legit complaint.
When it comes to books, I think an author’s “fans” are as likely to give an honest review as anybody else. In fact, they can often be the crankiest if they’re not pleased.
That’s why I think Amazon made that “close friends” stipulation in the new rules. And I’m going to believe them. We all “know” each other, in the sense that you followed my blog and I’ll probably read your reviews or whatever. I don’t think that’s unethical in any way. I can’t imagine Mr. Bezos thinks it is.
As I said, some of my bestsellers have fewer than 15 reviews, so I refuse to take these things so seriously. I also got blackballed by some of the “Goodreads Bullies” when I stood up for a newbie who was getting rape and death threats from them, so I got a bunch of one-stars to “punish me”. Those didn’t stop my sales either. In fact, I think they increased them.
So everybody needs to have a Snickers bar and keep things in perspective.
And thanks for being a thoughtful reviewer. That helps readers choose which books to buy, and that’s being a good citizen and member of the book community!
My concern is how effect the search engine is on Amazon. Yes, I realise there are hundreds of books out there yet the same ones appear at the top when initiating a search. And they do seem to be based on the quantity of reviews rather than the subject matter. Is this what may change (for the better?)?
Karen–I don’t pretend to know anything about Amazon’s search engine algorithms. That’s a whole ‘nother thing.
I do know that they continue to favor Amazon imprints over indies these days. That was very clear in this month’s Author Earnings report. That’s why so many indies are going wide and leaving KU. I don’t think it has anything to do with the number of reviews, but I could be wrong about that. Amazon’s search engine algorithms are top secret.
But don’t expect the search engine to favor self-publishers, no matter how many reviews they have. Amazon has become #6 of the Big Six and they take care of their own.
Wow, so much information. Thanks you for doing the research and sharing it with us. You are amazing!
Christine–Thanks! Everybody was getting so upset, I figured I’d better find out what was really going on!
book selling is a hard old game. I’m not sure how it works. I’ve got 23 reviews all five star and my book Lily Poole is crashing. So reviews don’t sell books as you mentioned. The big question is what does?
Jack–Everybody’s sales have been crashing in the past two months. It’s an epidemic. Only authors with Amazon imprints seem to be seeing growth.
What sells books over time is 1) multiple titles 2) a big platform over multiple media 3) lots of interaction with readers (for that I suggest a blog, so you can control that interaction.) 4) luck.
why have sales been crashing? what’s changed? I could do multiple titles as I’ve enough first draft stuff for several books. Lots of interactions with readers. Difficult and time consuming but I see it as a winning formula, but then I noticed a strange side-effect. Some asked what I was writing now and I said I wasn’t. I was marketing. Endlessly writing and investigating. I’ve got a blog here that nobody reads, but that doesn’t really worry me. Luck. Yes I’d love to bottle that and sell it to the unlucky. Price again and the laws of supple and demand would need to kick in here. Thanks for replying.
Jack–Here’s a link to the October Author Earnings report http://authorearnings.com/report/october-2016/ There are as many theories about the slump as there are marketers. You can read them all and draw your own conclusions.
Or you can keep writing, spread a wide net, and work harder. That’s what I’m doing. 🙂
Making a living selling books has always been tough. There was a time, at the beginning of the indie revolution, when it got a little easier. That time is over. It’s back to the grindstone time. As indie guru Bob Mayer said recently. “So what’s new?” Here’s his post on the deflation of the indie bubble http://writeitforward.com/publishing-everything-old-is-new-again/
Great, and timely!, post–thanks, Anne! I think #3 and #5 are still unfair, but as you say, it’s their rules, and the financial strategy of diversifying one’s portfolio should definitely apply here. I should get on that, but…there’s also the manuscript calling…and Nano…I think I know my Prime Directive! 🙂
Margaret–Good to see you here! Lots of this stuff is unfair and heavy handed. As I said, babies are getting thrown out with the bathwater with calloused abandon.
The treatment of book bloggers is pretty awful, since they were encouraged to become affiliates in the first place..
But it helps to know the thinking behind what’s going on. When you know these aren’t acts of random irrational cruelty, it helps. At least I think it does.
Best of luck with NaNo!
This is so upsetting because it basically puts tour group businesses like mine out of business when the author is technically paying for the organization of a tour not the reviews. Plus the whole idea of the linking by Amazon Associates was for book bloggers to link the their site increasing their sales and the pennies we make on those sales hardly dent their income but help us. I mainly use my Amazon income to purchase prizes (books) from Amazon to give away on my blog.
Being disabled and home bound this is not the news I needed and will force me to make some choices regarding not only my online life but my entire life. I am not sure how to move forward from this.
Lori–This has been Amazon’s policy for over a year. If you haven’t got dinged, maybe you’re managing to fly under their radar.
As I have said to many other commenters, the affiliate money is such a tiny amount it may make sense to let it go and change to Google Play, Kobo or use a tip jar.
Blog tours are still very valuable, whether or not the reviews are posted as Amazon “customer reviews”. They are still reviews that can be shared on the author’s website and they can be quoted in the Amazon “editorial reviews” and used in quotes promoting the book (with permission, of course.)
And, as you saw, I put the word “probably” in there. This is the experience of many, many book bloggers, but Amazon has not come out and said that definitely they are removing all affiliate reviews. So if your reviews haven’t been removed, you may be just fine. But do be prepared and make sure you post your reviews in more than one place.
Amazon isn’t the only game in town. Authors and bloggers have to start thinking outside the Amazon box. Your blog is still your blog and your reviews are still valuable to readers and authors. Consider monetizing in some other way.
Thanks Anne, I am hoping we tour providers can get together and make some lemonade out of these lemons. I have reached out to some who knew nothing about the way book tours had been singled out. We not only want to protect ourselves but the bloggers that work with us.
This really hit hard when I first read and took last night to digest it and have been researching it at length this afternoon.
I do post my reviews at several sites in addition to my blog but authors like them on Amazon because of its size and are told “magic things happen when you hit x number of reviews”.
Your words are encouraging. I appreciate that. 🙂
Lori–Book bloggers are the backbone of the online book community and they are important entirely separately from Amazon and its capricious algorithms and review rules.
Catherine Ryan Hyde and I devote several chapters of our book HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE to the importance of book bloggers. And we make no mention of Amazon.
So don’t get discouraged. You do a great service for the entire community.
That whole thing about “X number of Amazon reviews makes magic” was never based on provable facts and I never bought into it.
One fabulous review from a great book blog will sell a lot more books than 50 Fivrr reviews that say “Very to be nice book for me. I like very much.”
Keep up the good work and relax!
Another fantastically informative article Anne. I have a few author friends who have been banned fron writing reviews, not even knowing what they did wrong. I try to keep my nose clean and still use the old disclaimer before posting on Amazon, if I was gifted a copy of the book, and so far, so good (Hope I don’t jinx it, lol) Another point I’ll add is I’d heard through the grapevine that another way Amazon pegs writers and accuses as friend reviews is through links used to promote a book on our blogs. For example: If I’m writing a book review and featuring a book with buy links that I’ve gone to the book’s Amazon page to retrieve the URL, after the book’s ASIN number there is additional info in that URL that comes after the ASIN. Apparently this info has something in it which makes Amazon think there’s a connection from someone buying from that link and the author and blogger. It is advised when copy and pasting the buy link to erase what comes directly after the ASIN. I’m not sure how much validity that holds but I do that when reviewing books I’ve read from authors I know, on my blog, And it’s kept me safe so far. 🙂
DG–All that information about the “dated URLs” is in the post down in the section under the header WHAT ABOUT THE PROHIBITION OF REVIEWING AUTHORS YOU KNOW ONLINE”. I provide a link to the video about it.
I don’t buy it, but a lot of people do. In any case, It’s easy to strip the date out of your url if you’re worried. I use the auth.lit URLs because they are international and go to the Amazon store of the country you’re in. They are not dated.
I think the unfortunate authors who got banned probably got banned for more serious infringements than dated urls. Here are some possibilities
1) They may have used a provider on Fiverr or elsewhere who sold reviews. They may have used that provider for a cover or banner design, and done nothing wrong, but because they are on the provider’s list of customers and the provider writes a lot of fake reviews, they’re the babies that got thrown out with the bathwaters.
2) They may have belonged to a Facebook group that has been known to trade reviews.
3) They may have had a number of reviews by a reviewer who had been banned.
4) An Amazon vigilante didn’t like them.
Thanks so much Anne for re-iterating and passing this good info along. Consider it noted! 🙂
Hi! I’m a newbie indie author and found this site thanks to the book designer website and their list of authors who are doing social media well. I haven’t had any experience with Amazon (or any other) reviews lately, but this is fascinating information.
If I’m not too late, I would love a free audio book.
Thanks,
Julie
Julie–Welcome! You’re not too late. Some of the people who said they wanted audiobooks never contacted me. So just send me an email at annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com and I’ll send you instructions and the code for a free audiobook.
Best of luck with your new indie career!
Great article! As an indie author, I share my peers’ frustration with Amazon’s review policies, but I do agree that the fault lies with the scammers and not with Amazon. They are merely trying to protect their reputation and do the best they can to serve their customers. It’s sad that sometimes it’s the honest indie authors who have to pay the price for the misdeeds of others, but at the end of the day Amazon is not YouTube where pretty much anything goes. Amazon is a store. They expect people to pay their hard earned money for the goods they provide and a slew of dishonest reviews is just not good for anyone.
Greta–The problem starts with the scammers, that’s for sure. If Amazon weren’t so huge, they wouldn’t have to do so much of the policing with robots, and the policing wouldn’t be so arbitrary. I wish they had more humans to deal with complaints, because it’s resulted in a lot of unfairness.
But Amazon’s #1 priority is to the customer, and as authors, we aren’t customers. We’re vendors. So sometimes we get the nasty end of the stick.
Excellent post, Anne. I’m a debut romance author with the The Wild Rose Press. My book releases on 18 November, and I have a review tour booked with Goddess Fish Promotions. I was hoping to get a few reviews which could be posted to Amazon, but now I guess that is up for debate. Never mind, I like your philosophy of not getting my knickers in a twist over Zon reviews. The review exposure on the blogger’s site’s will be great and if they are good reviews, I’m sure I can utilize them somewhere.
I’m sharing your post with some of my writing groups. Best, Anni. xx
Anni–Congratulations on your debut! You can get blurbs for your “editorial review” section on Amazon from your book tour, plus you can get Goodreads reviews, which are very useful. I assume Wild Rose isn’t Amazon exclusive, so you can also have those reviews posted to Kobo and B and N. (I just checked and my sales at B and N and Kobo soared last month, so it’s worth paying attention there.)
You can also query some book bloggers on your own. If they’re not part of a paid tour, they can review you on Amazon.
Thanks for sharing the post!
Not sure if you have all five of your Free Audiobook comments, but if you don’t, I would love to have one. This post was very informative, but what I like best about it is your calm demeanor. Yes, Amazon is taking down reviews and changing their rules, but no worries it isn’t the most important thing in the long run. Thank you for that, because I know a LOT of people who are panicking. Your thoughtful responses to comments are great as well and I am now subscribing to your blog. Great to find someone who really interacts.
Ducky–We have had five comments, but not all five have asked for their codes, so I figure it’s first-come first-served. Just send me an email to annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com and I’ll send you instructions and the code for the free audiobook!
Amazon needed to change the rules. Scammers ruin things for everybody. And I’m sure they’ll have to keep tweaking things as people keep finding ways to game the system.
When I was a newbie I believed all the stuff about reviews being at the center of a writer’s career. Until I got on the bad side of a bunch of vigilantes who “swarmed” one of my buy pages with one stars and started sending me death threats. I had panic attacks and figured my career was over.
But a strange thing happened. My book started climbing the charts. And kept climbing. I started selling a couple hundred books a day. Thousands a week. Then another book hit the bestseller charts. With almost no reviews. It was all BS.
So I figured I needed to spread the word. I’m glad you appreciate it. Thanks for subscribing!
I think it is important to post this – Read the last line on this Amazon Blog Post from October 3, 2016. I noticed several of the other links were to posts from a year ago when there was that family/friend fiasco.
Update on Customer Reviews
October 3, 2016
Customer reviews are one of the most valuable tools we offer customers for making informed purchase decisions, and we work hard to make sure they are doing their job. In just the past year, we’ve improved review ratings by introducing a machine learned algorithm that gives more weight to newer, more helpful reviews; applying stricter criteria to qualify for the Amazon verified purchase badge; and suspending, banning or suing thousands of individuals for attempting to manipulate reviews.
Our community guidelines have always prohibited compensation for reviews, with an exception – reviewers could post a review in exchange for a free or discounted product as long as they disclosed that fact. These so-called ‘incentivized reviews’ make up only a tiny fraction of the tens of millions of reviews on Amazon, and when done carefully, they can be helpful to customers by providing a foundation of reviews for new or less well-known products.
Today, we updated the community guidelines to prohibit incentivized reviews unless they are facilitated through the Amazon Vine program. We launched Vine several years ago to carefully facilitate these kinds of reviews and have been happy with feedback from customers and vendors. Here’s how Vine works: Amazon – not the vendor or seller – identifies and invites trusted and helpful reviewers on Amazon to post opinions about new and pre-release products; we do not incentivize positive star ratings, attempt to influence the content of reviews, or even require a review to be written; and we limit the total number of Vine reviews that we display for each product. Vine has important controls in place and has proven to be especially valuable for getting early reviews on new products that have not yet been able to generate enough sales to have significant numbers of organic reviews. We also have ideas for how to continue to make Vine an even more useful program going forward. Details on that as we have them.
The above changes will apply to product categories other than books. We will continue to allow the age-old practice of providing advance review copies of books.
Thank you.
– Chee Chew, VP, Customer Experience
Lori–I posted a link to this in the first sentence of this post. It’s the link that says. “others debuted early in October.” I’ve also taken the pertinent quotes and posted them with analysis and bolded them. These new rules are what prompted this post.
But if people would prefer to read the October rules here and not click away from this blog, here they are! So thanks!
Amazon is so capricious -I only post a review with a request that if I review I will post it. I also disclose relationships and that the review is an except from a blog review. If they remove my reviews I don’t really let it bug me.
As a Maine resident I am unable to participate as an affiliate due to our tax laws.
Fangs–I didn’t know that Maine didn’t allow Amazon affiliate marketing! I’m always learning from our commenters!
I think Amazon especially welcomes comments that come through their own review requests. I had one of mine refused when I posted it through a review request, but that was because I mentioned another retailer in a negative way. I didn’t realize that was not allowed.
This was so incredibly helpful! I had heard about the new rules and had even read some, but this explained it a lot more in depth, which is exactly what I needed. This whole purging business is rather scary and it’s a shame that even being an affiliate could get you banned :/ Amazon is really weeding out ways for book bloggers to make money. That’s a shame.
Paige–The purges are done by robots, like everything else these days, which means there’s no reasoning involved. I’m not sure they really thought this through in terms of what it would do to book bloggers.
I hope Kobo will make a pitch to book bloggers This is their big chance. They’re looking for a way to have curated books on their site (they don’t want to have those gibberish books and all the porn that ends up on the Zon. Having a book blogger stamp of approval would could be a big bonus. I’ve suggested it to them. I hope they listen.)
Thank you for the post. I used to beg for reviews, but now I think I’m going to do a hands off policy. It ‘s like walking in a minefield, you don’t know where to step.
Ilona–It’s fine to ask for reviews, and it’s okay to have a “review team” that you send pre-launch ARCs to. They specifically say that IS permitted. Just make sure there’s no payment involved and you’re not related to the reviewers and you don’t use the same computer.
Judging by the amount of comments I’m probably too late but what the heck – FREE AUDIOBOOK. I found your piece very informative and am so grateful to Kishan Paul for sharing your post on FB. Thank you for clarifying some of the new rules. I am wondering if there will be a problem with “street teams” or “Launch teams” when it comes to reviews. I guess time will tell. I was worried about launching without reviews, now it doesn’t seem so scary – thanks again!!
GS–For your free audiobook, just send an email to me at annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com and I’ll send you the code and instructions for downloading your free audiobook (and I won’t put you on any mailing lists)
There is no prohibition of review teams or launch teams, and they can get free ARCs, just as before. That is specifically allowed in the guidelines. No problem. Just make sure the review teams aren’t related to you or using your computer. And don’t pay them!
But I have launched books without pre-launch reviews because I was busy with other projects and the books ended up doing fine. They catch up eventually.
Excellent post and very helpful. An additional point, however: As a reader, I chose to post a review of a book which included both positive statements and critique about the dialogue (this was a book set in Scotland in the 16th century and included dialog such as “No problem”). I purposely kept it professional and not harsh; however, I began to receive very nasty emails from a friend of the author. As a result, I decided that it would be the last time I put in a reader review that had the least whiff of negative comment because I don’t need those kinds of emails. As a result, I’ve come to the decision that reader reviews aren’t much good because they’re all too positive and don’t give me, as a reader, a true sense of the opinions among the readership as a whole.
Aline–Ugh! I apologize on behalf of all authors for that awful behavior. When we tell authors they should never respond to reviews, we also mean don’t have your BFF respond to reviews. How unprofessional!
Especially for such a minor point. That kind of stuff drives me nuts. Some people don’t mind anachronisms at all. There was that Robin Hood series a few years ago that used contemporary slang and it took away from the show for me, but lots of people loved it.
What a review like yours can do is warn away the readers who aren’t going to enjoy anachronisms, and let people who do know this will be their cup of tea.
I have a sleuth who is anything but kick-ass. She fights the bad guys with hair-spray and a well-placed stiletto heel, but nobody will ever mistake her for Jack Reacher. Some reviewers hate that. They say so. That helps people who like a sleuth who’s more Bridget Jones than Indiana Jones find what they’re looking for.
If every reviewer likes everything, reviews mean nothing. So thanks for your honest reviews, wherever you choose to post them!
This blog post is WAY too long. It would have been far better to chop this post into three or even four different posts. Some information is not relevant. For instance, how will Amazon control paid for reviews? If an author wants to spend money on people to post reviews, there’s nothing Amazon can do about that. I’ve been reviewing books for years, under a pseudonym, and never had any trouble.
Thanks for your input. Good luck with that. http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/10/19/amazon-cracks-down-fake-reviews/74213892/
Excellent and concisely-detailed article about the new rules, and thanks so much for sharing. I’ve bookmarked it, and shared it with many of my writing / published colleagues. Write on!
Kerry–Thanks for spreading the word! It always helps to know the rules!
Thank you, Anne. Very comprehensive, and it indeed does clarify a lot. However, the judgmental edge on the Zon-bies’ part still remains in some unfair ways.
Phil–I love the name “Zon-bies” for our robot overlords on Amazon! And no, they are not fair or rational. Machines never are.
I fear that soon our whole world will soon be run this way. Or some robot will push a button and we’ll all be back living in caves. Equally terrifying.
Great article on Amazon reviews. It make a murky situation a little bit more clear.
I have an interesting situation that’s almost the opposite. A few years back when one of my books had just come out, my dad’s (vindictive) ex-wife wrote a review of it, not disclosing the relationship between us. It was a lousy review and 1 star, and managed to be negative without indicating in any way that she’d actually read the book.
At the time I tried to have Amazon take it down, and they refused. It IS several years old, but since it’s the only 1 star review of my book (the rest are all 4 or 5 stars), it shows up every time as a sample of a negative review.
Wish I could make them take that one down!
Here’s the link, if you are interested: https://smile.amazon.com/Lady-Two-Lands-Elizabeth-Delisi-ebook/dp/B01F0KL5X0/
Elizabeth–Thanks so much for sharing your story. This is one aspect of reviews where Amazon is falling down on the job: the use of customer reviews for bullying and harassment.
Your evil ex-stepmother’s review is an obvious example of violation of the TOS. She states right in the review that she personally knows the author. Then she trashes the book, with no evidence she has read it. I hope more people report abuse.
I can see you still have a great star rating and your reviews are great, so she hasn’t hurt your sales any, but she is hurting Amazon’s review system. They should pay as much attention to this kind of abuse of their system as they do to the paid reviews.
I know many many other authors have suffered from this kind of bullying, so I appreciate that you’ve shared this. I hope Amazon will do something about this!
Thanks, Anne. I hope so too! Thought I’m not holding my breath.
Thank you so much for writing this post. I found it very informative. I am a blog owner and one of my bloggers has been banned from posting reviews on Amazon. To which we still have no idea why. But, the clue may be in this post. I am sharing with my bloggers now.
Tasty–I’m so sorry to hear about your friend. I hope he/she is still reviewing and is posting on other retail sites like B& N, Kobo, iTunes, GooglePlay, and Walmart. It may be because of affiliate marketing, working the blog tour circuit, or it may be because of some trollish fellow reviewer. I’m hearing more and more of that kind of bullying triggering an Amazon ban.
But there are so many more fish in the sea. In September, my combined Kobo, iTunes and B and N sales were higher than Amazon. And my Audiobooks and Print book income was higher than ebooks. We need to stop seeing Amazon as the only game in town. Tell your friend to be a superstar in a new venue!
Very helpful (and funny). A friend of mine left a review that mysteriously disappeared within an hour of posting. He probably came up against the $50 rule as he isn’t involved in social media.
Nikolas–The $50 rule has nothing to do with social media! It has to do with being an Amazon customer.
If your friend were not an Amazon customer, he he would not have been allowed to post a review at all.
But there are many ways to run afoul of the Zon rules. They do not allow profanity, links to another website, the mention of another retailer and many other things. Here’s a link to the full Amazon TOS. http://amzn.to/2f5KJP5
I’m glad I could give you a laugh!
I found this very helpful. I once had a reviewer admit they based the review only on the “Look Inside” and unfortunately, many people found it helpful. Though I contacted Amazon about it, they would not remove it.
I would love to have a FREE AUDIOBOOK if it’s still available. I love audiobooks!
Thank you 🙂
dledford–I can so often tell that people haven’t read more than the “look inside” because they often don’t even know that my boxed set has three books in it, or that the setting moves from San Francisco to London after the third chapter of another. But I’ve never heard a reviewer admit it.
I wonder why they want to review a “Look Inside?” Those are usually extremely negative reviews, so I don’t get the point. But there’s a lot about Amazon review culture I still don’t get.
I’ve had way more than 5 people said they want a free audiobook, but I think only four have actually picked them up. So if you send me an email to annerallen.allen at gmail.com, I’ll send you the code and instructions for downloading.
Thank you so much for this, very helpful (though also confusing:-). I have a rather dumb question: How do you even know that you might have lost reviews? It’s not like on Yelp (compared to which Amazon rules seem positively saintly) where you can see all the disallowed reviews. So if I”ve lost a lot of Amazon reviews, I probably wouldn’t even know it. I only know that I don’t seem to be getting any more, even though I keep selling my book – so it could be that some old ones keep getting removed, but I don’t know.
Sine–You’re a lot less obsessed with your reviews than most of us, and that’s a good thing.
I check my reviews a lot less than I used to, but I still tend to notice my number of stars, even though I may try to avoid reading the negative reviews. But If I suddenly have 10 fewer reviews than I had last month, I definitely notice. But then, I’m not one of those authors who has 1000s of reviews. If you do, probably none of this matters to you very much.
Sometimes a review will appear in my Author Central feed, but it’s not on my buy page. That can often be because it has been removed.
But if you can avoid paying any attention to your star rating or your reviews at all, hooray! We all need to have what you’re having. Sales are really all that matter. Most of us aren’t that detached.
Hi Anne,
Thank you for the comprehensive article.
Can you please point me to the Amazon guidelines re “paid reviews”? I can’t find these words anywhere in their guidelines.
I am especially interested in the following quote you use in your article: “A review by a book blogger whose blog is part of a paid blog tour.”
I have found the guidelines re Promotional Content (https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=202094170), but I can’t see any reference to book bloggers and paid blog tours.
Lynda–I don’t have time to go back through all of Amazon’s guidelines for you, but they have always had a ban on paid reviews. You’ll find many links to those in the piece above. You’ll find specific links to those in the article in the Good E-Reader I linked to in #2 in the article above. If you click through my links, you’ll find the Amazon guideline links. I couldn’t post them all here. I only posted the new bits.
Anne,
Thank you for taking the time to reply.
I read Amazon’s guidelines prior to commenting and, as I stated above, the only reference I can find to paying for reviews is in Amazon’s Promotion Content guidelines (https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=202094170), which don’t allow a customer to post “a review in exchange for cash.”
I can’t find any mention of book bloggers or paid book tours except, as you mention, in the Good E-Reader article (http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/here-are-all-the-new-amazon-book-review-policies) which is dated November 2015.
Are you sure those conditions still apply? The only link back to Amazon in that article is via another Good E-Reader article (http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/amazon-starts-to-enforce-draconian-e-book-review-policy) to the Community Guidelines (https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=14279631) which have been amended since that article was written.
The podcast you mention (https://cksyme.com/episode20/) states that there is a distinct difference between paying for an advertisement for your book and paying for a review.
I’m happy for anyone to show me where I’m going wrong in my interpretation.
Lynda–Did you read any of the articles I linked to? Why would Amazon be suing all these paid review sites if they were okay with paid reviews?
If Amazon has changed the rules, the American Bar Association doesn’t know about it. Why would the major magazine for lawyers run a story on Amazon suing paid reviewers if they never did it?
If this has changed, not one news organization on the planet has been told about it. Just Google “Amazon Paid Reviews” if you don’t like clicking on my links.
This article is here to be helpful. If you don’t know how to click on a link, I can’t help you. Sorry.
Lynda–Here’s the link. It was right there in my article on Why you Shouldn’t pay for Amazon’ reviews. https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200414320
Here’s what it says.
“You may not write reviews for products or services that you have a financial interest in, including reviews for products or services that you or your competitors sell. Additionally, you may not provide compensation (including free or discounted products) for a review. Review solicitations that ask for only positive reviews or that offer compensation are prohibited”
I believe this is the best post I have ever read about Amazon reviewing. Thank you for taking the time to research and write it. Every time an author asks me about reader reviews, a link to this post will be my answer. And, yes, we do put the significance of reader reviews on a much higher pedestal than they deserve. Editorial reviews count. Reader reviews are good for warm, fuzzy feelings (provided they don’t trash your work). — Temple Emmet Williams, Former editor at the Reader’s Digest
Temple–Thanks so much! I’ve had much kudos from *Writer’s Digest* but often when I tell people, they think I’m saying *Reader’s Digest* and are disappointed when they realize I’ve said “Writer’s.”
But now I can say I’ve actually had some praise from a *READER’S Digest* editor! A new height in my career. 🙂 Many thanks!
You’ve put it perfectly. EDITORIAL REVIEWS ARE WHAT COUNT. So book blogger reviews are still very, very valuable, and they should not feel discouraged. Book blog tours and their reviews are still essential to most book launches.
Reader reviews are more for those warm fuzzies. The big numbers only matter when you’re buying BookBub reviews, and BookBub probably won’t take your ad anyway, unless you’ve got a bargain backlist title with a major publisher
Interesting perspective, because as a reader, I ignore editorial reviews. Never read them. I read other reader reviews.
Thank you SO much for this article! I’ve never understood exactly how all this worked, and was sure that I needed the “25 to 50” reviews. I will be a little calmer now when checking my ranking status.
Linda–I’ve seen plenty of bestsellers with only a handful of reviews. That’s a myth. So yes, relax!
Thanks for an interesting article on Amazon’s New Review Rules. This is helpful but there is one point where I believe your advice is wrong. You say that Amazon Sales Ranking is influenced by sales only. I believe this is wrong. With the help of a machine-learning algorithm, Amazon now gives greater weight to newer, more helpful and verified customer reviews when determining top reviews to display, and when calculating a product’s overall rating. This is pretty much admitted in black and white by Amazon with it’s announcement of the new Review Rules, and has been known in smaller circles such as http://www.geekwire.com/2015/amazon-changes-its-influential-formula-for-calculating-product-ratings/
I believe where the confusion about getting 20 or so reviews for your book stems from is the research done by the Economist where it showed that it helped convert your book to more sales (which in turn raises your Amazon Sales Rank). For more on this read :https://econsultancy.com/blog/3521-how-amazon-made-2-7bn-with-one-small-tweak
On the whole Amazon should be praised for trying to clean up its reviews and guidelines, but they continue to go about it in a rash way, often punishing the authors as much as those that write fake reviews. Often, it reacts after the horse has already bolted and their approach is too broad, throwing the baby out with the bath water. I only wish they copied other vendors who are more serious about he integrity of the reviews by allowing only “verified purchase” reviews to be posted. Alternatively, they and the market should accept that (as on the Amazon Spanish sites) they are called “opinions” rather than reviews, and should anyone to express their opinions. After all, are the customer reviews on Amazon really reviews? How many times do you find one-line reviews that clearly express that they did not read the book, such as “like the cover, will try to read the book one day”. Let’s face it, Amazon could do a lot better if the really wanted to about managing reviews. I guess the reason they don’t is because they know that reviews help sell – hence why they send emails out to us asking us to review books. Bottom line is that reviews sell books.
Richard–Sales rank is not the same as *search engine* ranking or placement of reviews on the buy page, which are done by algorithm. Algos are secret and change often, and none of us has access to those.
Amazon has recently said they will place newer reviews first rather than the ones with the most “likes”. That isn’t the subject of this piece, but it is something that is generally good for readers and authors both, because it keeps the stale reviews from dominating and making your book look dated.
I agree 100% with your opinions on “reviews”. Customer reviews are more like comments or opinions than reviews. I’d love to see them called “opinions” rather than reviews, and I’ve written other blogposts advocating that.
I also agree, as I’ve said in this piece, they use much too heavy a hand and throw out way too many babies with the bathwater. It’s been terribly hard on authors and legitimate reviewers. Wonderful reviewers have had their work of many years simply wiped out, and authors have lost their best reviews. It’s been heartbreaking.
At the same time, Amazon refuses to remove obvious troll reviews where the “reviewer” states clearly “I never read this book, but I hate this author because she has different political views from mine” or whatever. This is when we, as readers, need to report abuse. One report won’t get a review removed, but 10 or 20 or 30 will. So we can help by reporting abuse when we see it.
Thanks for your input. I agree with your assessment of Amazon’s need to do much better.
So I just created a Facebook group with the intention of getting local authors together to read one another’s books and write reviews. The books would be put on a table, and everyone would choose which books they wanted to pick up to look at, and from those which they wanted to review.
I see you say review groups are a big no-no, but I couldn’t find anything specific about this on Amazon. There are two things you say in particular that I’m wondering about: Amazon will remove you if it seems you swapped reviews…you reviewed their work and in turn they have placed a review for you, and if Amazon sees you with many new reviews in a short amount of time, they will flag that as well. Where did you see this on Amazon’s new rules page? I’m trying to figure out if my meetup group violates the rules. There is the possibility of a review swap at my meetup, but it wouldn’t be a requirement…a quid pro quo…would love your opinion.
I loved reading this post as well as your earlier one about reviews not actually being that important. Thanks!
Lori–Swapping reviews in any way is a no-no for Amazon. If you get caught you’d be in deep do-do. They also don’t want reviews from anybody who “knows” you either online or off.
They feel that both kinds of reviews can’t be honest. Friends don’t give friends bad reviews and swapped reviews are almost always going to be favorable on both sides.
Not always, of course, Some famous writers gave horrible reviews to each other. Dorothy Parker could be scathing to her peers. But those weren’t “customer reviews” which Amazon can control because they own the site.
Will you get caught and reported? It’s much more likely to happen during one of their “purges” and there isn’t one going on right now that I know of. But it’s not as if they give warnings.
I know many groups that have review swapping clubs like yours. I’m asked to join them fairly often. But I don’t do it and I warn them they could lose their Amazon privileges. I’m not willing to take that chance.
But it does mean I don’t have many reviews.
So do it at your own informed risk. Don’t assume you’re safe in a “closed” or even “secret” FB group. All it takes is one member who joins in order to bust review swappers Amazon is full of vigilantes who want to make sure you don’t swap reviews.
I wish I had better news, but this is what Amazon does to try to keep their reviews honest. I wish they would pay as much attention to troll reviews. 🙁
Very informative and intruiging.
It’s disheartening when an honest review gets pulled. I recently had one of mine taken down, but, of course, Amazon doesn’t say why. They don’t even mention it was removed, as far as I can tell. I found out by chance.
jlennidorner–Isn’t it heartbreaking? I’ve lost some over the years. I’m not ever quite sure which one it was, but the number of reviews goes down and I remember a glowing one I can’t find anymore. (Although sometimes they’re preserved in your Author Central account.) And no, the Zon never tells you why. Their attitude is “You know what you did.” But most of the time, we don’t have a clue.
I see no reviews disappearing from books published by Top 5 publishers or books published under Amazon’s own 13 imprints…
Hmmmmmmm
Patricia–Actually I’ve heard from reviewers who have had ALL their reviews removed recently–mostly of ARCs from the Big 5. Now Amazon imprints… I don’t know. I’ll bet not.
The close friends portion is the same. I was hit by this from Amazon last year. Problem was, I have zero close friends who read my books. All my reviewers are readers who friended me on facebook and Goodreads after finding my stories. Unfortunately, the word itself has caused a problem. The other unfortunate part is Amazon removes their reviews with no recourse available to the author. The term “close friend” is a loose term and can be wielded by Amazon like a big stick of “guilty with no chance of proving your innocence.”
Natasza–This post was written a year ago, and I think things are even worse now. Only 4 of the reviews of my latest Camilla mystery have stayed. All the others disappeared. And many of them were reviewers I only “know” because they read this blog. It’s getting to be absurd. We need to start cultivating reviews on other platforms like Kobo and Apple. Amazon’s review system is broken.
Gifting books to be reviewed is likely why your reviews disappeared. Please remove that part of the instructions. Also, the reviewer doesn’t have to buy your book with your gift. They can buy anything with it. Just email them the ebook or use Bookfunnel or Instafreebie in order to give reviewers their books to review. These reviews won’t be verified reviews, but they should stay posted.
Cherise–Thanks for the update. This post was written a year and a half ago, before the big book-gifting scandal with boxed sets happened last summer..
I have already made it very clear that gift cards are not acceptable. Gift books used to be accepted until the practice was abused.
Personally, I always send ARCs direct from my publisher. That seems to be the best plan. I’ve heard some unpleasant things about scammers at Instafreebie. I’m not sure if BookFunnel has the same problems.
I did not know that review swapping was against the community guidelines policy until I got in trouble for it. When I joined a review swap group on Goodreads, I didn’t realize it was a bad thing. Amazon removed all my reviews (not that I had done a lot with this group) and banned me from writing more reviews on all purchases. I contacted them, gave some explanations, made clear that I’m a CreateSpace & KDP author as well as a Prime member. They apologized for the inconvenience and restored my privileges. As a new Indie author, there have been some growing pains – this being one of them. I saw a Tweet from an author emphasizing the advantages of having 50 reviews & I put a post on Facebook last night asking for more reviews – I had 46 at the time. Now I have 49! Thanks for the article, it was beneficial to read and I have bookmarked it. -Rosalie King
Rosalie–There’s so much disinformation and mythmaking that goes on in the indie world that it’s hard for new authors to know what to believe. Review swapping has always been banned at Amazon, but there are still so many review swapping groups that Amazon has to keep cracking down.
You’re very lucky that you reached somebody compassionate when you contacted Amazon. Many authors not only get banned from reviewing for life, but they can have their own books banned as well. The Zon tends to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
The “50 reviews” myth seems to continue to spread. Not true, though. A book with a lot of reviews looks more popular to readers, but there’s no magic number. The number of verified reviews does matter to Amazon, but again, there’s no set number.
I enjoyed your article!
Stacia–Thanks!
Thank you so much for this detailed article clarifying some of the Amazon rules. It is exactly what I was looking for.
Carole–There have been a lot more rule changes in the last couple of months, so I’m due for another update. It’s not Amazon’s fault. The scammers are always three steps ahead of them.
Gotta love thos spammers with their comments that have nothing to do with the post. Idiots like this is why I have comment moderation enabled on my blog.
Sorry I didn’t get to this right away. The spam filter usually gets these. Sometimes I turn off comment moderation so I can have a little break from the blog. The spam filter elves usually take care of things.