Amazon Rules to Qualify for Wiritng a Review
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 Oct.
So how do they touch authors? Should nosotros be worried? Is the Amazon Review Inquisition going to anathematize more reviewers and banish our reviews?
They volition if you break the rules. But the good news is the rules aren't quite as inscrutable every bit they used to exist. They're more straightforward and easier to follow.
Amazon isn't trying to exist 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 past these people. Sometimes scammers gaming Kindle Unlimited walk off with a chunk of the coin pie that would otherwise go to KU authors. And customers spend money on books total 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.
Final yr some dedicated book bloggers establish all their reviews had been pulled with no explanation.
Others heard they couldn't review considering they "knew" the author, when they had simply friended the author on Facebook or Goodreads.
Authors were devastated to lose what were often their well-nigh thoughtful, well-written reviews. And Amazon started rejecting reviews from readers who had never had problem placing reviews before.
Amazon refuses to explain review removal or rejections, except to point to their guidelines, which have been murky at best. Nigh reviewers and authors didn't take a clue how their reviews had trespassed against the guidelines.
The updated rules seem to clarify things a flake.
Amazon'south New Review Rules: What has Changed?
Authors who are both traditionally and self-published demand to be enlightened of the rules. Enforcement gets stricter all the time, and self-appointed vigilantes dear to report violations.
Don't retrieve that because you're not a large seller, or you write every bit a hobby, that you lot'll fly under the radar. I know many "midlist" authors who accept lost reviews. Popular genres like sci-fi, romance, and thrillers seem more likely to be scrutinized, simply we all demand to listen our p's and q'south.
The new rules are similar the former ones, with a few large changes.
The New $50 Rule
"To post a review, customers must spend at to the lowest degree $l.00 using a valid credit or debit carte du jour. 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 at present 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, and so it seems to be a lifetime affair, so most people would non 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 tin't leave reviews on the same $50 ticket.
The credit card requirement provides a paper trail and then scammers can't create multiple identities with untraceable accounts.
The result? Fewer faux reviews! A skillful thing, as Martha Stewart would say.
2018 UPDATE:
Early on in 2018, many frequent reviewers plant their reviews were not being accustomed. 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 exterior of the US must spend $l a yr on the United states site as well as the equivalent in Canada or the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland or wherever they live. This is a big bargain, since reviews on the Amazon United states site have so much more than 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 than on this on Barb Traub'southward April xv, 2018 blogpost.
The New Ban on "Incentivized" Reviews
"We updated the community guidelines to prohibit incentivized reviews (a review in substitution 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 permit the age-old practice of providing advance review copies of books."
This doesn't hateful much to authors because of the "other than books" clause.
Except for this: maybe the reviewer-on-reviewer bullying and contest for "tiptop reviewer" status may calm downwards a bit.
I've heard about a lot of nastiness in the Amazon review earth, with vicious competition for "top reviewer status." Apparently some high-ranked reviewers got free large-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. At present there won't be a financial incentive for bad beliefs. Maybe it will cutting downwardly on troll reviews. (I can dream, tin can't I?)
Just, I repeat: AUTHORS Can Even so Give FREE BOOKS TO REVIEWERS!! Don't believe people who tell you lot 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 simulated reviews (and many other authors had as well.) Amazon has been fighting buyers and sellers of artificial reviews e'er since.
The Zon hit with a big review purge later that year, and some other a couple of years later. A tertiary purge came in 2015. Some other happened last spring. I wrote about it in my post why authors should never pay for Amazon reviews.
Amazon also came downward 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 every bit going subsequently their customers.
Fivrr is still selling them, I hear, simply don't go there. Consequences can be dire.
What Does Amazon Consider a Paid Review?
Hither's what they say:
Paid Reviews – We do not permit reviews or votes on the helpfulness of reviews that are posted in exchange for bounty of any kind, including payment (whether in the form of money or souvenir certificates), bonus content, entry to a contest or sweepstakes, discounts on future purchases, extra product, or other gifts.
The post-obit are all "paid reviews" under the new rules.
1) A review of a product other than a book that yous received free.
Apparently Amazon discovered that "incentivized" reviews were much more probable to be positive. Even when the production was defective. According to Sarah Perez at Tech Crisis this was the major reason for the big modify to the review system.
She offers some pretty convincing graphs to support her conclusion.
The reason Amazon makes an exception for reviewers in their Vine program is that vendors have no directly advice with the Vine reviewers.
Only every bit I said above, this is going to have some other impact on the Amazon customs. 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 volition stop rewarding troll reviewers for bad behavior.
2) A review by a book blogger whose web log is part of a paid blog tour.
This is true fifty-fifty if the volume blogger is not paid. Ofttimes only the organizer of the bout gets paid, simply the blog review is still considered a "paid review," because the author has spent money to get information technology. More information on this at The Good East-Reader.
That ways it can't be posted on Amazon. Which kind of disrespects the unpaid book blogger, just it's the rule. The blogger can post at Goodreads, though. Also, of grade, Kobo, iTunes, B&Due north, WalMart or wherever books are reviewed or sold online. (I accept some books at Walmart now! 🙂 )
You tin also postal service a quote in the "editorial review" section, the way you tin 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 take 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. Nosotros don't know for sure because Amazon has never told whatever 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 virtually Amazon'southward new review rules:
"A somewhat murky area is the instance of reviewers who mail 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, considering it violates the rule that an Amazon reviewer may non mail service a review on a product in which the reviewer has a fiscal interest. Until more is known, a blogger who has monetized his/her blog might be improve off non reviewing the aforementioned product on both the web log and Amazon."
four) A review written in exchange for a sweepstakes entry, a discount on a time to come buy, coupon, or swag.
This was a regular matter with authors for years: review my book and I'll advantage you with a mug, tee-shirt, upcoming book, or an entry in a sweepstakes.
Only it isn't okay anymore, if it ever was. This is payment for a review, even if all yous're giving is a bookmark with the author'southward face on it.
So be safe, authors, and don't offering fifty-fifty 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 accept to terminate taking these customer reviews so seriously.
v) A review written in exchange for some other review.
Review trading is 100% verboten.
I've heard of small presses that encourage their authors to review each other. This is a bad thought. It's fine to blurb each other—that's what the Big Five have ever done. But don't employ Amazon's client reviews to do it.
I also know in that location are some in the indie community who however try to blackmail other indies into giving them reviews.
They'll contact an author proverb, "I simply gave you a squeamish review, so you lot owe me."
You don't. In fact if you review that author within a few weeks, y'all're going to prepare yourself upwards to lose both reviews—and a whole lot more. I'm not saying this happens every fourth dimension. But if you get defenseless, things could get nasty for both of you lot.
As well, there are "review exchange communities" on Facebook and other sites. People sometimes approach me in DMs request to exchange reviews or bring together these sites. They are a bad idea.
DON'T EVER Bring together A REVIEW SWAPPING GROUP!! Who knows, an Amazon spy might exist lurking in that "secret" group. It has happened. So don't be unethical.
half dozen) A review written in expectation of a free volume or gift card.
Even if that gift card is but in the amount of the price of the book. A review re-create must be givenbefore the review is written or the book volition exist 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 difficult re-create. (Unfortunately, a gifted ebook tin can be exchanged for cash.) Only ship 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 continue things honest.
I see authors doing this a lot on their blogs. "When your review goes upwards, send me a screenshot and I'll transport y'all an Amazon gift menu for the price of the volume." This is now officially not okay.
You lot may continue to "get away with it" for a while, just 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, come across my post on Disappearing Amazon Reviews.
What About Promotional Reviews?
The wording on "promotional" reviews appears to take changed. I think this should clarify things for a lot of authors and publishers. In fact I don't think that term being used earlier.
Here'due south the diction in Amazon's new review rules:
Promotional Reviews – In order to preserve the integrity of Client Reviews, we practise not permit artists, authors, developers, manufacturers, publishers, sellers or vendors to write Customer Reviews for their own products or services, to mail service 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 visitor selling on Amazon may not write Customer Reviews for those item items.
What does that mean for authors?
ane) You lot 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 also 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 volume, 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 coin from the book, you lot can't review it.
That should be obvious, but in the early Wild West days of the Kindle revolution, indie authors and small-scale publishers got away with a lot. At present 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 True cat Costumes" where they could exist in the elevation x. Then they would try to knock off the books ahead of information technology in that category.
And so in order to push their book to #1, they'd go to Crochet Richard 3'southward Chapeau for Your Cat and go out a ane-star saying, "I made this hat for my cat and Fluffy died of a brain aneurism the next mean solar day."
Then the novelLucrezia Borgia's Pussy might get to#i in the category for a day and the author could merits to have a #1 bestseller. (I'm talking nearly a cat here, people. A cat.)
But don't do this. It'southward stupid. And the Zon will punish such shenanigans.
What about the Prohibition of Reviewing an Writer yous "Know" Online?
During last year'southward bizarre purge of reviews past 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 And so Much for Buckingham and my reviews stopped dead. Everybody was terrified to review it.
And it made no sense.
I was interviewed concluding spring most this for an article in the American Bar Association Journal :
"'Publishers tell yous to make Facebook friends with your readers to promote your books,' author Allen says. 'So the very matter you're doing to get readers gets you punished by Amazon.'"…Anne R. Allen in the American Bar Clan Journal, July 2016
Merely expect again at the new Amazon review rules, specially this part:
For the same reason, family members or close friends of the person, group, or company selling on Amazon may non write Customer Reviews for those item items.
Notice the wording: "close friends."
This may or may not exist a change. I don't know because I don't take a copy of the old guidelines. Only it looks new to me.
At that place is certainly a divergence betwixt "friending" or following a favorite author on social media and existence an bodily "close friend." I follow Stephen King on Facebook, only I don't think that ways he's going to invite me for a sleep-over adjacent time I'k in Bangor if I give him a skillful review.
Is This Really a Modify in the Rules?
Maybe I'm being insanely optimistic, but I'yard hoping this is a shift.
TheAmerican 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 volume. Or your BFF. Especially if you gave her a Kindle Fire for Christmas.
Simply I think we're safety to ask our blog readers and FB fans to review.
It'southward 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'southward exclusive "Select" nest these days and "going wide" to other retailers equally indies lose Amazon market place share to Amazon imprints.)
I also call up 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'due south also a theory that yous shouldn't put a link to your volume on your blog or website that you get directly from an Amazon search, because a dated url volition 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 earlier, only it doesn't make sense to me that Amazon doesn't want any of an author'southward fans to write reviews. Sometimes fans tin be disappointed in a book and be very vocal near it in a review. Only look at reviews of some of Janet Evanovich'due south later on books.
How can you lot appeal if the Amazon police remove your review?
Let Maine Colonial reply directly from the thread on the Amazon rules page:
"If y'all want to appeal your purging, you tin can write to review-appeals@amazon.com. From what we've seen, you get i opportunity to brand your case, but your chances of a reprieve are almost nonexistent."
What if yous want troll review removed?
UPDATE: Amazon has become much more enlightened of the dangers of troll reviews afterwards the attack on a prominent politico's book. If yous doubtable swarming and troll activity, practise tell Amazon. At that place'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?
Every bit I said above, we can stop obsessing nearly Amazon reviews. They don't seem to affect sales that much, and 99% of indies can't go into Bookbub anymore anyway.
A lot of the myths you hear about reviews are merely that. Don't believe those FB memes that say you lot demand 25-fifty reviews to get ranked on Amazon. Any idiot can make a meme.
A BOOK DOES NOT Need A CERTAIN NUMBER OF REVIEWS TO Move Upwards THE AMAZON SALES RANKS.
Merely one thing does that: sales.
I had a book in the peak 20 books in sense of humor on Amazon for thirty weeks. It sometimes sold 20 copies an hour. Number of reviews at the time: 12. Would I like more reviews on all my books? Y'all betcha! We need them to get into the book deal newsletters, and more people buy when they see a lot of reviews. Just Amazon reviews are not the exist-all and stop-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'southward new review rules from Chris and Becky Syme this week.
UPDATE, NOVEMBER two, 2016
Today'south Hot Canvass, (available by paid subscription merely), which is written by respected publishing industry veterans Porter Anderson and Jane Friedman says much the same as what I've outlined hither.
"The status of Amazon affiliates: if you lot're an affiliate, and yous review a volume on your blog and cross-post at Amazon, you may see your review purged from the site. There is no official argument 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 y'all 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 expect and feel flimsy, presume Amazon will be watching and judging."
UPDATE, September 20, 2017
A lot of people have asked about Amazon'south policy for removing trollish negative reviews. This is their current policy, according to theGuardian 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 … buy decisions…. It's not our function to make up one's mind what a customer would view every bit helpful or unhelpful in making their decision. We do however take mechanisms in place to ensure that the voices of many do non drown out the voices of a few."
***
What nearly you, scriveners? Have you looked at Amazon's new review rules? Had whatever 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
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