My reviewer friend, C, aka the happy meerkat, recently notified me of some further tweaks in Amazon’s review policy. Most of them make perfect sense, yet a couple raise concerns. The new rules can be read here in their entirety but here are the new points:
- If your review is removed or rejected because it does not comply with our guidelines concerning promotional content, you may not resubmit a review on the same product, even if the resubmitted review includes different content.
- Reviews may only include URLs or links to other products sold on Amazon.
- Customers in the same household may not post multiple reviews of the same product.
- Customers can submit 5 non-Amazon Verified Purchase reviews each week, starting on Sundays.
- When we find unusually high numbers of reviews for a product posted in a short period of time, we may restrict reviews of these Amazon Verified Purchase reviews.
My comments
It’s obvious that Amazon is still struggling to get rid of fraudulent reviews:
- Rule #1 essentially bans offenders from tweaking their reviews in a way that will trick Amazon’s algorithms into accepting their reviews.
- Rule #2 gets rid of anyone trying to promote their own shop through Amazon.
- And rule #3 suggests a lot of people created bogus accounts in order to boost a product’s reviews.
Rule #4 is where things start getting weird. Essentially, Amazon seems to believe that only people peddling reviews for sale will review over 5 items per week. I guess they have metrics that support this, but it still sounds like a strange limitation. Before you start worrying about it, though, keep in mind that music and books are exempt: “This policy does not apply to Vine reviews or reviews on digital and physical books, music, and video.”
As for rule #5, it makes little sense to me. Most of us have ARC teams – people we send our books to, in order to launch our book with a bang. Presumably, they will post their reviews around the time of the official launch. Will Amazon arbitrarily limit the number of reviews? As C points out, the question is how many is too many? After all, Amazon created pre-orders for the sole purpose of promoting authors.
C gives the example of a best-selling coloring book that had plenty of new reviews every hour. Will books be exempt from this rule as well. So far, it appears that no: C cites one writer she has spoken to, who said they had all their release-day reviews deleted. They suspect this new rule was to blame. However, Amazon constantly tweaks review rules as they strive to balance the need for honest reviews and author needs, so they may quietly or explicitly exempt books, they way they have done in the past.
As for what counts as a verified purchase, buying a kindle copy and reviewing the paperback still counts as a non-verified purchase review and vice versa.
Amazon US vs. Amazon UK
I always assumed that review rules were universal. Turns out this is not the case. For example, Amazon UK does not ban ‘review washing‘ the way Amazon US does. In case you’re wondering, ‘review washing’ refers to the practice where, if a review gets lots of negative votes, reviewers simply ‘wash’ their review by deleting it and reposting. This makes it appear on the front page so, even if visitors don’t like their review, it will always be on the front page of a book/product.
And the UK rules now state explicitly that:
Book authors and publishers may continue to provide free or discounted copies of their books to readers, as long as the author or publisher does not require a review in exchange or attempts to influence the review.
Update: A Vine Reviewer Explains Amazon’s Point Of View
Vine reviewer Beetley Pete has kindly provided us with Amazon’s point of view. As he raises a number of excellent points, I decided to share here:
“As a Vine reviewer, I was notified of all these changes from Amazon by email. Although their domination of the market in retail may be of some concern, it is worth considering the other side of the ‘review coin’.
Many sellers (whatever the goods) have only themselves to blame. I am inundated with offers to accept free (or heavily discounted) products from companies who get my details from my reviewer profile. They are mostly from China, but also include some authors/publishing houses. If I took up even one-third of these offers, I would be reviewing close to seventy products a week. Multiply that by the number of reviewers contacted, (at least the top 5,000) and you start to see the size of the problem.
Numerous positive reviews of free goods, whether LED bulbs or an excellent new novel, do not constitute a fair deal for a buyer who is guided by them to spend their own money. Distributing dozens of free books to family, friends, and colleagues is a sure way to see many five-star reviews appear in a very short space of time. They want to help, they are part of your circle, and of course want you to do well. But is it fair to the buyer? Not really.
This works the other way too. Many companies employ specialists to write ‘dark’ reviews, constantly attacking competitor’s products or books under different identities, to try to stop them selling, or being successful. The new rules also stop this happening so frequently, which can be seen as beneficial and balancing the ‘freebie’ reviews.
As for ‘washing’ and deleting reviews, this can also be useful. I frequently update reviews of products. For example, if after testing something for some time, it stops working. I might go back to a previous five-star review and drop it down to two stars, adding that it should have lasted longer, or have been cheaper. This rarely applies to books. Once read and reviewed, opinions about these rarely change. I would only delete a review if it constantly received negative ‘clicks’, or many spiteful comments. This would indicate involvement by the seller/author, or agents of the same. I can then write a new review, stating that I believe this to be happening, and in my opinion, other reviewers should also delete their reviews. No publicity is the worst kind, after all.
Lastly, you have to consider that many top reviewers are jealous of their ranking. This causes many of them to constantly add negative clicks or comments to the reviews of ‘up and coming’ popular reviewers, hoping to downgrade their status and keep their own places near the top. Sad, but true.”
You can read C’s own comments on the new policy on her blog.
kimwrtr said:
Reblogged this on Kim's Author Support Blog.
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The Story Reading Ape said:
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog.
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claire plaisted said:
Reblogged this on Plaisted Publishing and commented:
Food for Thought on Amazon Reviews….
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Chris White said:
I know the review system is open to a certain degree of abuse but Amazon are too heavy handed.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
They can be at times, although I do share their frustration with all the underhanded techniques “marketers” come up with to make a quick buck.
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wendyunsworth said:
I read Meerkat’s excellent post a few days ago. From that I have decided that I will only post my reviews on .uk as, i now realise that all my .com reviews are unverified. I am doing this to protect my .uk account and hope this is the right thing although I know authors appreciate the review on both.
On another point, with unverified purchases, do you think a simple ‘I received a free copy from the author’ is what is needed with no mention of reviews?
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
I honestly don’t know. Personally, I now write, “I received a free copy from the author with no obligation to review” just to be on the safe side.
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wendyunsworth said:
Thanks, that sounds like a safe bet. It really is a nightmare trying not to tread on toes!
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Lol – tell me about it! Plus, said toes seem to wiggle a lot 😀
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Steve Boseley said:
As someone that is still trying to find his way through the self-publishing mine field, this is worrying to me. I’m just getting ready to publish my 2nd book and was hoping for ARC reviews. Is the wording you suggest going to be sufficient, or are we still guessing? But that still wont get round the several reviews close together rule. It seems to be getting harder by the day, or am I missing something?
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
We’re always guessing, Steve. But this is as educated a guess as you’ll find out there 🙂
I wouldn’t worry too much about the “several reviews” rule. Getting enough people to review simultaneously is an impossible task for small fry like us 🙂
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Don Massenzio said:
Reblogged this on Don Massenzio's Blog and commented:
Great post. As someone who just announced ARC’s of my new book, now I’m nervous about the reviews posting on release day.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Lol – tell me about it 😀
That’s so exciting, Don! I’m thrilled for you. Best of luck with the launch 🙂
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Don Massenzio said:
Thanks so much.
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Steve Boseley said:
Reblogged this on Steve Boseley and commented:
Great article on the complexities of Amazon. Worrying for new authors.
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Palessa said:
I have already decided that trying to get Amazon reviews just isn’t worth it. I let it go because I feel as if amazon has really stacked the deck against authors who are doing our best to do things honestly as far as reviews. I’m looking to do legit paid reviews and I’m not sorry to say that. If readers want to review, they can do so at their leisure but I’m not going to push it. It’s exhausting to beg and plead and now it may just be all for nothing for those who have ARC teams reviewing…it’s really too much and I have too much to do, like write and stuff
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maliaann said:
Reblogged this on Writing for the Whole Darn Universe.
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lovessiamese said:
Reblogged this on TheKingsKidChronicles and commented:
Thanks, Nick. This is so helpful. Sure do appreciate your willingness to keep authors updated on Amazon’s policy changes. Re-blogged from https://nicholasrossis.wordpress.com.
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Micki Peluso said:
Reblogged this on mallie1025 and commented:
excellent article on Amazon reviews
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Micki Peluso said:
REblogged on mallie1025.wordpress.com. Thanks for a great article on Amazon review rules which change almost weekly. I think they have some nerve removing reviews without telling the reviewer or the author. I review professionally and would never notice a review or a few going missing. And I have 64 reviews of my own book and if one left I’d never figure out which one it was–totally unacceptable.
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The Owl Lady said:
Reblogged this on The Owl Lady.
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