Annamaria on Monday
I know. It’s the
holidays, and I am supposed to be writing something amusing and upbeat. But just yesterday, I made the mistake of belatedly
reading this Fall’s bulletin from The Authors Guild. It left me mulling over a thorny issue. Stick with me on this. I promise not to drone on with the subject
for very long. Besides, beginning next
week, I will be traveling for a couple of months, and I promise to take you
with me via photos. For now, I need your
thoughts on an issue that startled me when I read it. Maybe everyone knows about this, but I didn’t,
until yesterday.
In the Short Takes
column that starts off every AG Bulletin, there is a three-paragraph piece
entitled “Amazon Book Review Policy.” Here
are the first few sentences:
“Amazon has begun blocking users from reviewing books
written by friends and family—with those relationships determined by the
bookseller, based on social media activity.
If you follow an author on Twitter, for example, Amazon will consider
the author to be your friend or family and send you this message if you try to
post a review of the author’s book on its website: ‘We removed your Customer Reviews (sic) because
you know the author personally. Due to
the proprietary nature of our business, we do not provide detailed information
on how we determine that accounts are related.’”
WHAT???? my mind
screamed when I read this much. Every
writer I know, including New York Times and otherwise bestselling ones, spends a
great deal of time on social media in contact with readers. I enjoy much my time doing that. Many of my otherwise unknown Facebook friends
and Twitter and Instagram followers are interesting and amusing
e-conversationalists. The overwhelming
majority of them contacted me, presumably because they have read and enjoyed my
books. The Amazon practice described above could very well preclude them from
commenting on my books on the Amazon site.
Does Amazon have the right to block those people from expressing an
opinion about my books on their website—based on the bookseller’s assumption
that they are not “objective” (whatever that means)?
Stuff I think I ought to say before going further: My books have very few reviews on Amazon;
most of them highly complimentary. I
have never asked anyone to post a review for me. Leighton once wrote me a splendid one. As did one of my college classmates. As did Stan.
The rest are written by strangers to me.
Most important to note, the policy described above seems to
have first emerged last summer. I tried
to find out what’s happening with this Amazon practice right now, but nothing
more current showed up in my Google search.
I am not sure how I feel about counting those Amazon stars
anyway. I have been on or attended panel
discussions where one of the funnier and snarkier topics involved the writers
reporting on the most laughable one-star reviews they have received, many of
which seemed to have come from readers of highly questionable intelligence or
sanity. My answer, by the way, was about
the person on Goodreads who gave City of
Silver one star and as her reason: She read the names of the characters in
the front matter and found out that she did not like their names, so she never
bought the book.
Given the paucity of current information on this Amazon review
practice I decided to see what would happen if I posted a review of a book by a
real friend (Michael Stanley). I wanted also
to see what would happen if I then reviewed a book of a writer of whom I am
just a fan. But my ability to do that is
complicated because I buy on Amazon as Patricia King, but I am friends with
other writers as Annamaria Alfieri. So I
ask those of you who have only one name to help me test the policy. Go on Amazon and write of review of a book by
someone that you don’t really know in person, but whom you are friends with on
Facebook or follow on Twitter. And tell
us what happens. In this way we might
get some insight into the functioning of the Amazon policy.
By the way, Zoe and Caro, just so you know. The Author’s Guild piece noted that this Amazon
policy applies to readers of authors both in the USA and the UK.
Posts
That is outrageous, just one more demerit for Amazon. Everything they have done recently just seems wrong.
ReplyDeleteCould I be barred from writing a review of a book by any blogger on MIE because I read and sometimes comment on the blog even though I do not know any author personally nor do I have any economic gain from a favorable review.
By the way, my late friend, Sebastian Prince, who came here from Italy as a young age, loved City of Silver. He loved mysteries and it was his favorite. He raved about it way before I knew about MIE. He gave me his copy, which I loaned out and never got back.
But for Sebastian, I give the book 5 stars.
Thank you for your support, Kathy. My feeling about Amazon's policy are identical to yours. Amazon took my review of "A Death in the Family," but I think that is because my close friendship with Stan and Michael is masked by our using pseudonyms as authors. Whatever they are trying to achieve, it isn't working. and for authors, it is a crying (literally and LITERALLY) shame.
DeleteThe reason for this Amazon position is, of course, the curse of paid reviews, both complimentary and disparaging. Buying 5-star reviews for yourself or 1-star or 2-star reviews of competitors' books is a disgusting practice that distorts the whole process. I don't know to what extent Amazon is adhering to the process you described, but I do give them kudos for trying to deal with the issue. Their solution may be clumsy and unfair, but at least they are doing something. I suspect they'll keep tweaking their policy.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you, mia cara, for the as-yet unread, unpaid review.
Your Twitter and Facebook friend, Stan
Stan, I don't agree with your "of course." If Amazon's engineers are trying to block sock puppets and black hats, they know less about them than I learned from a casual reading of this blog years ago. Are they really that ignorant AND stupid?
DeleteTo prove that your approval of their methods is misplaced, I give you this news: they took the following review by me of your latest book, A Death in the Family: FIVE STARS: "Wrapped in this page-turner of a mystery is a gripping depiction of father-son relationships, the clash of generations, and the breakdown of a culture when modernity confronts tradition. This book can be read as a fast-paced contemporary police procedural. Or readers can go deeper and find political and cultural commentary on what endangers Africa today. Highly recommended."
Since you are being so snarky with me on this subject, if I had written it just to be nice to you, I might remove it myself. But I won't because I told the truth about the book. If I had less of a compliment to say about a friend's book, I would have said nothing. SO THERE.
Snarky? Certainly wasn't meant to be. My approval of Amazon was that they appear to be doing something about meaningless reviews not that their current solutions were good. I would prefer they do something, albeit imperfect, rather than nothing? And my thanks for the review were sincere. Sigh.
DeleteStan, I guess it's because you and I see eye to eye so much of the time that it surprises me that you approve of Amazon doing ANYTHING, rather than nothing. To me what they have done is useless in solving the problem you cite as their probable motivation. And it is destructive to midlist writers like us, who are using social media to make themselves known to readers. Amazon's policy will do you as much harm as it will me. I would, by my nature, opt on the side of openness. Perhaps you have been stung by black hats. If so, I can see that you would rather have those book discussions more closed. I would say I am lucky that no one has attacked my work on Amazon. Except that the underlying reason no one has done that is certainly that no one much notices it at all. :(
DeleteIt is a bit twisted, isn't it, Annamaria? Most of the kind of fans I have also make a point of seeking me out on Facebook and Twitter, whereas I would have thought paid reviewers, which Stan points to as the ones Amazon are trying to block, would not bother going to such lengths.
ReplyDeleteZoe, twisted doesn't begin to describe Amazon's logic, IF they are really trying to block sock puppets and black hats. But I think Stan is wrong in his assumption. I think all they are doing it to keep friends and relatives from trying to boost the ratings for people they know and want to help. I think their real goal is thereby to raise the credibility of Amazon's rating system. A self-serving goal, NOT a noble one as Stan surmises. If Stan is right, your final point makes Amazon's attempt look foolish. But given their legendary secretiveness (paranoia?), we will never know.
DeleteI know that for quite some time they've been removing reviews by anyone they know is associated with the production of a book (editors, copy-editors, proofreaders, etc), as they're trying to avoid PR fraud in their review system. My review of one of Tim Hallinan's books was removed because I had honestly mentioned that I'd proofread it.
ReplyDeleteLast night (after reading your post) I posted a quick review of Tim's THE HOT COUNTRIES. I'm a "Facebook friend", had posted MANY times on his Blog Cabin 2-5 years ago, as well as mentioned him (like this) on blogs here, as well as commented on some of his "roaming blog posts" on other people's blogs. This morning, I was notified by email that my review had been reviewed and gratefully accepted by Amazon.
So, apparently I haven't crossed whatever threshold their algorithm sets.
EvKa, from what I read in the AG bulletin, this social media connection ban is new as if last summer. It makes perfect sense for them to eliminate publisher staff reviews masquerading as ordinary reader comments. Do they call it "fraud?" Fraud is a crime. Blocking sincere reviews from fans is merely criminal.
DeleteI've just gone and written a review of an author whose work I enjoy and whom I know only from Twitter. I have been sent 2 ARC of her work previously and I've been very honest in my reviews. So let's see if it works...
ReplyDeleteI think this is a step too far - is it designed to drive a wedge between authors and readers on social media?
Marina, please report what happens to your review. It is very useful to know this. Authors like me are advised by all the marketing experts to use social media to promote our work. As I said, I actually enjoy doing that, but it is time consuming. It would be nice to know that the people with whom I interact would be able to use the "word of mouth" technique of recommending books they like on the Amazon site. If Amazon prevents them from doing that, I guess they have the right to do so. It is their website after all. I just don't see how this policy can do them any good and it might do authors like me modicum of harm.
DeleteI rarely write reviews, but when I do it is because I liked the book. If I didn't like it I would not have finished it and, therefore, would not be able to review it. Is Amazon trying to control an entire industry with its business model?
ReplyDeleteJono, I think the answer to your question is a resounding YES. I do believe that Amazon already does, if not control, dominate the publishing industry. Many of the pundits I have read, and organizations such as The Authors' Guild trace the current tumult in the publishing industry to Amazon's policies and dominant position. Like all corporations, Amazon's default position is to go for what will grow their business and their profits. That is the nature of the corporation. We cannot expect them to act for the common good.
DeleteI've had reviews deleted that I wrote, for this very reason, as far back as two years ago. It's one reason I almost never write Amazon reviews. I take significant time and effort writing reviews, and only write them for books I truly love. To have a website decide that I'm not qualified (or allege I'm a liar) just because I was actually prompted to tell the world about a book I liked is silly at best and offensive as well.
ReplyDeleteBut...it's Amazon, so they can and will get away with it.
Thanks for weighing in on this, Susan. I almost never write reviews on Amazon, or anywhere else for that matter. I have always thought that such reviews were questionable for many reason and declined to participate. I tried putting up a review of a friend yesterday to see what would happen. Predictably, it took because both Stan and I write under pseudonyms. Which proves that all anyone has to do to circumvent Amazon's policy is make up a new name, which many people do on Amazon and on social media. Can the management of Amazon be that dumb that they could not have figured this out? Or are they doing this to make show of how objective their site is, even though they know any such claim is a sham? They will never tell, so we will never know.
DeleteHere's an update. A number of friends responded on Facebook, where I shared this post, or by email. These are typical. Dick Belsky a New York journalist, author of mystery/thrillers--most recently Shooting for the Stars, reported that he has had reviews that could have been helpful taken down because of this policy. Kathy Boone Reel, an aspiring writer and wonderful fan of our genre, had not understood why Amazon was turning down reviews from her for books, when she didn't really know the authors. Now she does. ARRGGHHH!!
ReplyDelete