Amazon removing reviews

[mr ploppy]

http://tobecomeawriter.com/indie-aut...oving-reviews/

Anyone noticed anything like this happening?

[teh603]

I don't have anything there, but I also don't see why Amazon would take issue with paid reviews. After all, that's the whole point of being one, to get paid for giving good reviews. A critic, on the other hand, is paid to be honest.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by teh603

I don't have anything there, but I also don't see why Amazon would take issue with paid reviews. After all, that's the whole point of being one, to get paid for giving good reviews.

Um, because they aren't reviews, they are advertisements?
If someone has been paid to say nice things about something, regardless of what they actually think about it, that isn't a review.

[StoryEnthusiast]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

If someone has been paid to say nice things about something, regardless of what they actually think about it, that isn't a review.

Very much agreed. Then it has no value to potential purchasers.

[VydorScope]

I noticed that one of my books that had 30 reviews, only has 29 now... but I do not know what review was removed or why. I have never paid anyone to review my stuff.

Across all my books only lost 1 review so I guess thats good.

[owly]

What should be removed are 1-2 star reviews that are given because of delivery problems. Just because a book arrived 2 days late it shouldn't be given one star.

[DarkScribe]

The Amazon review system is being heavily gamed. I have posted about it before, on Amazon as well as other places. There is an organisation called "Freelancer com" that among other things, allows people to request and receive paid reviews at the rate of fifty for fifty dollars. An individual who specialises in doing this will have (and advertise the fact) fifty different Amazon accounts and boilerplate review scripts. It is commonplace on Freelancer for people to hire other people to do this. It is about time Amazon did something about it - their review system is a joke.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by DarkScribe

The Amazon review system is being heavily gamed. I have posted about it before, on Amazon as well as other places. There is an organisation called "Freelancer com" that among other things, allows people to request and receive paid reviews at the rate of fifty for fifty dollars. An individual who specialises in doing this will have (and advertise the fact) fifty different Amazon accounts and boilerplate review scripts. It is commonplace on Freelancer for people to hire other people to do this. It is about time Amazon did something about it - their review system is a joke.

Perhaps they are doing something about it, and that is what is happening now?

[kennyc]

I've not directly seen it happen, but I read a few discussions of it.

[Xanthe]

Just a hypothesis:

If a publisher is paying 50 people to write a favorable review about the newest Grisham novel, they write the review, post it and then move on.

If an indie author is getting friends and relatives to write a favorable review and post it, they are more likely to check back and give "unhelpful" votes to reviews that are more critical of the work.

For those of us who are higher up in the Amazon rankings, a bunch of negative votes can noticeably affect our position in the rankings. It's happening to me right now because someone is gaming one of the products I reviewed and is making sure that any reviews of less than five stars are getting multiple negative votes. I've already contacted Amazon about that.

Perhaps something like that was happening with particular indie author reviews, someone complained, and Amazon was able to isolate the reviewer who was trying to vote down other reviews in order to make theirs more favorable. The lower number of reviews for an indie author would make the reviews easier to police and easier to figure out who is trying to play the system.

[DarkScribe]

When you look at the reviewing history of some reviewers things click into place. Some write nothing but five star reviews for widely disparate genres. Jump from a cookbook to a thriller to a how to book. All the reviews being one of several in the reviewer's arsenal, and all written at around the same time. I initially bought some books based on a high number of rave reviews only to find them so poorly written that I couldn't finish them. Some of the "highlighted" success stories in Indie publishing seem to have quite a lot of this type of review. They are distinctly polarised, either all five star raves, or one star rubbishing and little in between.

On the last couple of Freelancer com jobs I noted that the person requesting the job insists on the reviewer downloading a copy for each review in order to have the "verified purchase" box ticked. To this end they state that they will offer the book free for an initial period, then increase the price. Others offer to reimburse the reviewer for each purchase as a part of the payment for the job.

It seems that Amazon is actually doing something about it, some of the reviewers are complaining of accounts being frozen.

[DarkScribe]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

Just a hypothesis:

If a publisher is paying 50 people to write a favorable review about the newest Grisham novel, they write the review, post it and then move on.

If an indie author is getting friends and relatives to write a favorable review and post it, they are more likely to check back and give "unhelpful" votes to reviews that are more critical of the work.

For those of us who are higher up in the Amazon rankings, a bunch of negative votes can noticeably affect our position in the rankings. It's happening to me right now because someone is gaming one of the products I reviewed and is making sure that any reviews of less than five stars are getting multiple negative votes. I've already contacted Amazon about that.

Perhaps something like that was happening with particular indie author reviews, someone complained, and Amazon was able to isolate the reviewer who was trying to vote down other reviews in order to make theirs more favorable. The lower number of reviews for an indie author would make the reviews easier to police and easier to figure out who is trying to play the system.

I seldom give high rated reviews as I don't often find Indie authors who I feel have earned one. I will give very scathing one star reviews when I look at something that is well reviewed and find it to be rubbish.

[Harper Kingsley]

Hopefully they're not removing reviews just because someone doesn't have whatever as a verified purchase I changed to a new Amazon account and my first one has all my previous purchases on it, though I'll sometimes see something I bought and give it a review now.

The whole buying reviews thing or begging reviews from people that didn't read the book does smack of cheating the system to me. It's the same as those "book tweeting" services that keep hounding me; like anyone really believes the 5-star reviews of a bot :head shake:

[ApK]

In the article in the link in the OP, the author quotes part of the Amazon policy:

"Reviews written for any form of compensation other than a free copy of the product are outside of our guidelines. This includes reviews that are a part of a paid publicity package."

And then asks:

"But what if someone got the book from a library or borrowed it from a friend? "

Am I the only one who sees that as a non sequitur?
What does borrowing a book have to do with being paid for a review?

Makes me suspicious of the author's claims. Anyone have any actual records of reviews that were there but are now removed so we can actually see the kind of thing that's gone missing? (if..ahem...anything actually has....)

[DarkScribe]

Originally Posted by ApK

In the article in the link in the OP, the author quotes part of the Amazon policy:

"Reviews written for any form of compensation other than a free copy of the product are outside of our guidelines. This includes reviews that are a part of a paid publicity package."

And then asks:

"But what if someone got the book from a library or borrowed it from a friend? "

Am I the only one who sees that as a non sequitur?
What does borrowing a book have to do with being paid for a review?

Makes me suspicious of the author's claims. Anyone have any actual records of reviews that were there but are now removed so we can actually see the kind of thing that's gone missing? (if..ahem...anything actually has....)

I think that the OP was referring to the "verified purchase" criterion. Someone who hadn't purchased from Amazon but still wanted to review the book.