Amazon Deletes Wrong Reviews, Forbids Authors to Review One Another's Work

[Prestidigitweeze]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/suwcharm...wrong-reviews/

[HarryT]

Given the often-seen "I'll give you a positive review if you give me one" mutual admiration circles that one not infrequently encounters among self-published authors, bravo Amazon. Absolutely the right thing to do.

[ucfgrad93]

I agree with Amazon here. Authors should not be able to give reviews to their competitors.

[jmilica]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Given the often-seen "I'll give you a positive review if you give me one" mutual admiration circles that one not infrequently encounters among self-published authors, bravo Amazon. Absolutely the right thing to do.

RANT:
I have noticed the "i'll give you a good review, you give it to me" pattern not only among self-published authors or on Amazon, but among well known in their field authors as well. If you follow a specific filed - history, history of a certain region, and so on, you might notice that this year some author publishes a book and 2-3 of his colleagues review it favourably in magazines, book covers etc. Then next year one of these "reviewers" publishes a book and gets a very nice review by the author from previous year...and so on...
It's all rather connected and favour based.
Or, the regular author for New Yorker publishes a book and amazingly gets a good review in New Yorker

One of recent examples would be much hyped nonfiction book Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, married to Sunil Khilnani...The book is ok, nothing spectacular, but they made it sound like a miracle. Two awards, including this year National Book Award for nonfiction...I followed it by coincidence - reviews by New Yorker (for which she writes), Khilani's friends, colleagues he reviewed...

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Given the often-seen "I'll give you a positive review if you give me one" mutual admiration circles that one not infrequently encounters among self-published authors, bravo Amazon. Absolutely the right thing to do.

If I have to choose between the validity of a review made by an author and a review made by someone who is paid by the author of the book, I would prefer the one made by an author since at least they are putting their taste in books on the line.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

If I have to choose between the validity of a review made by an author and a review made by someone who is paid by the author of the book, I would prefer the one made by an author since at least they are putting their taste in books on the line.

Paid reviews have ALWAYS been prohibited. I do think it's right that reviews by other authors should also be banned; there's just too great a likelihood of an author either "putting-down" a rival, or promoting a friend.

[elcreative]

Perhaps we can get rid of all reviews... after all, everybody's said to have a book in them which would make us all authors...

Still, it'll be good to reduce the amount of backscratching that takes place...

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Perhaps we can get rid of all reviews... after all, everybody's said to have a book in them which would make us all authors...

Still, it'll be good to reduce the amount of backscratching that takes place...

Interesting and yes, this seems to be what the conclusion might be. I know in the SF field that many authors are also reviewers and vice-versa. Way before amazon and on-line reviews. Such a stance would have more or less eliminated reviews in the entire sf community.

[kennyc]

Sort of diametrically opposes 'Peer Review' as well.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Paid reviews have ALWAYS been prohibited. I do think it's right that reviews by other authors should also be banned; there's just too great a likelihood of an author either "putting-down" a rival, or promoting a friend.

Not according to the article.

The August 2012 piece by the NYT on paid reviews which kicked off the latest furore fingered the collar of Todd Jason Rutherford. His service, GettingBookReviews.com, was used by self-publishing’s ex-posterboy John Locke who bought 300 reviews. But, says Duns, Amazon hasn’t removed all the fake reviews commissioned by Rutherford:

"Locke’s paid-for reviews are all still up on Amazon, except for those written by Rutherford. He confirmed to me that he has removed his own reviews, but hadn’t told Amazon which others are paid, arguing absurdly they are not necessarily fake.

Amazon is taking down the reviews from authors and the reviews from fans, leaving only the paid reviews on the website.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Amazon is taking down the reviews from authors and the reviews from fans, leaving only the paid reviews on the website.

"hadn’t told Amazon which others are paid"

They can't take down the paid reviews if they don't know which ones they are.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

"hadn’t told Amazon which others are paid"

They can't take down the paid reviews if they don't know which ones they are.

If they are going to ban reviews from authors because they might be biased, then why not take down all the reviews from someone who's job is to write reviews for money?

[DiapDealer]

My heart goes out to the real victims, here: the tens (if not hundreds) of readers who were savagely influenced into purchasing books—books they otherwise might have passed over—by disingenuous reviews. Oh the humanity!

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

If they are going to ban reviews from authors because they might be biased, then why not take down all the reviews from someone who's job is to write reviews for money?

And which ones are those?

[crich70]

I think it also accuses the reviewers of being liars. I mean say you and I both write a book a piece and we both like well written fiction in the same genre. But we don't know one another personally. Why can't I give an unbiased review of a book that I bought from you? Just because we both have books available for purchase from Amazon doesn't mean we are indulging in mutual backscratching.Basically they're saying that an author isn't qualified to review a book that they like just because they are an author. That's like saying my Dr isn't qualified to refer me to a specialist (for specific medical care) just because he is a licensed doctor. If he, as a Dr.) isn't qualified to tell me who the best person in the field is to handle my medical problem, then who is? Authors know how to write, they know what a well written piece of writing looks like, so why can't they say so?