Reviewing Ethics: Deleted Reviews

By Iola Goulton

My reviews have been deleted! What can I do?

Reviews can be deleted in two ways, by Amazon, or by the reviewer. Amazon can—and will—delete reviews which fall outside their reviewing guidelines in some way:

• Paid reviews
• Reviews written by someone with a financial interest in the book
• ARC reviews where the free book has not been disclosed
• Reviews where the author has gifted the book to the reviewer and this hasn’t been disclosed

A review may also be deleted if it includes specific words (e.g. ‘nazi’) which Amazon does not permit to be used on the site. This might be difficult to avoid if you were reviewing a book about, say, politics in Germany in the 1930’s. In some cases these reviews will be deleted automatically, in others they will be deleted if enough customers Report Abuse on the review.

Amazon will edit but not delete reviews where the review links to an external website, or where the reviewer has linked to their own book (which is seen as promotional, and therefore against the Reviewing Guidelines).

Review deleted without reason

If you believe a review has been deleted without reason, you can contact Amazon and ask them to review their decision. This usually results in a standard email saying the review was deleted because it was against the Reviewing Guidelines.

The other way reviews can get deleted is if the reviewer deletes them (e.g. because they are closing their Amazon account).

I didn’t mean reviews I wrote. I meant reviews on my book.

There’s nothing you can do about reviews written by other people. They are not your reviews, so you can’t ask Amazon why they have been deleted. If you remember the reviewer name and have their contact details (e.g. if it’s a review you solicited), you could ask the reviewer to ask Amazon, but they’ll probably just get the standard email (and may be threatened with having their review privileges revoked if they keep asking).

However, you can take some proactive steps to ensure reviews of your book aren’t removed by Amazon:

• Don’t review your own book
• Don’t ask/allow family members to review your book
• Don’t ask/allow editors or your publisher to review your book
• Don’t gift your book to potential reviewers through Amazon. Post them a hard copy, or email the pdf or mobi file
• If you do give a copy to a reviewer, ask that they include an appropriate disclosure statement (e.g. “Thanks to the author for providing a free copy of this book for review purposes”).
• Ensure reviewers don’t use their review of your book as a platform for promoting their own book, either in their reviewer name, through links, or by mentioning their own book in the review.

This is the final post in a series on reviewing and reviewing ethics.

We’ve looked at a range of topics:

• What makes a good book review
• Reviewing and influencing
• Blog tours
• The dilemma facing author/reviewers
• The etiquette of responding to book reviews
• The ethics of online reviewing
• The sins of online reviewing
• The rules of online reviewing

And we’ve debated whether authors should review (and where), and looked at copyright on reviews. I could write a book!

What is the most useful thing you’ve learned from this series? Is there anything else you’d like to know about reviews and online reviewing?


By Iola Goulton. I am a freelance editor specialising in Christian fiction, and you can find out more about my services at my website (www.christianediting.co.nz), or follow me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christianediting), Twitter (@IolaGoulton) or Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/iolasreads).

I love reading, and read and review around 150 Christian books each year on my blog (www.christianreads.blogspot.com). I'm a Top 25 Reviewer at Christian Book, in the Top 1% of reviewers at Goodreads, and have an Amazon Reviewer Rank that floats around 2000.

Reviewing Ethics: Can I Copy My Reviews?

By Iola Goulton

Can I copy my reviews?

Yes. When you post a review online, you give that website (e.g. Amazon) a non-exclusive licence to use your review, but you retain the copyright to the review. Here’s the exact wording from Amazon:

If you do post content or submit material, and unless we indicate otherwise, you grant Amazon a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, and display such content throughout the world in any media. You grant Amazon and sublicensees the right to use the name that you submit in connection with such content, if they choose.

This legalese essentially confirms that you retain copyright to your reviews, but give Amazon permission to use your reviews, for example, to cross-post a review from Amazon US to international Amazon sites, which have fewer reviews. This can lead to the situation where my review is featured twice on an Amazon UK book page.

You can also post your review on as many other websites as you like, as long as their terms are similar to Amazon’s. You shouldn’t post reviews to any website that claims ownership of your copyright.

Some people read these Conditions of Use as meaning Amazon owns the copyright on your review:

Copyright
All content included in or made available through any Amazon Service, such as text, graphics, logos, button icons, images, audio clips, digital downloads, and data compilations is the property of Amazon or its content suppliers and protected by United States and international copyright laws.

This is incorrect. The statement must be read in full: “Amazon or its content suppliers”. By writing a review on Amazon, you become a content supplier in the same way as an author or publisher is a content supplier (if this wasn’t the case, no one would sell books though Amazon. No publisher is going to allow a retailer to claim copyright).

But I didn’t mean reviews I wrote. I meant reviews on my book.

This is often what authors mean when they ask if they can copy ‘their’ reviews. The answer is straightforward:

No.

You can’t copy reviews of your book, because they are not ‘your’ reviews. They belong to the reviewer. They are the intellectual property of the reviewer, in the same way as your book is your intellectual property.

You might argue that their review is only 300 words, while your book is 80,000 words, and surely it’s ok to copy 300 words? No. What’s important isn’t how many words are copied, but what proportion those words comprise of the full work. Copying a 300-word review is copying 100% of the entire work. The reviewer quoting 300 words out of your 80,000-word novel is 0.4% of the entire work—which is allowable under the doctrine of Fair Use.

You can’t copy a review in its entirety without the permission of the reviewer. Ever. You can’t copy a critical review to your blog and refute it point-by-point. In doing this, not only have you breached the reviewer’s copyright, you have made yourself look petty.

You can’t copy passages from the review without permission or attribution. Ever. Not to use the review to brag on your Facebook page, and certainly not to criticise the reviewer in your next edition of the book.

So what can I do?

What you can do is name the reviewer, copy the first line or two of the review, then link back to the full review on the reviewer’s own website, or on Amazon. As a reviewer, I’d like you to link to my blog site to improve my traffic and possibly get another subscriber. As an author, you might be better linking to Amazon, so if the reader is impressed they can purchase your book immediately. For example:

"Falling for the Farmer is just perfect" - click here to read a new five-star review on Amazon! 

Besides, linking looks more professional. It shows an unknown person wrote the glowing review, and that you haven’t just quoted your mother, sister or BFF (or made the review up yourself).

Do you have any questions about copying reviews? Next week will be the final post in this series on the ethics of online book reviewing, and we'll be looking at what you can do if a review is deleted from Amazon. 


By Iola Goulton
I am a freelance editor specialising in Christian fiction, and you can find out more about my services at my website (www.christianediting.co.nz), or follow me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christianediting), Twitter (@IolaGoulton) or Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/iolasreads).

I love reading, and read and review around 150 Christian books each year on my blog (www.christianreads.blogspot.com). I'm a Top 25 Reviewer at Christian Book, in the Top 1% of reviewers at Goodreads, and have an Amazon Reviewer Rank that floats around 2000.


 

Reviewing Ethics: Where can Authors Review?

By Iola Goulton

Last week we asked whether authors should review books (I trust I persuaded you). This week we are going to look at where authors can post their reviews online.

Commercial sites

Commercial sites are any sites which sell books directly. These include Amazon, ChristianBook, Koorong, DeeperShopping, Book Depository, and Smashwords.

As discussed previously, authors are permitted to review on Amazon, but need to be careful they are within the Reviewing Guidelines. This means not writing any review which could be seen as promotional, either to promote your own books or those of a colleague (e.g. from the same publisher), or to denigrate books in the same category which could be seen as competing.

It also means:

• Review under your author name, not a pseudonym
• Don’t include the word ‘Author’ in your Amazon reviewer name
• Don’t include ‘Author of …’ or refer to your own books in your reviews

If you choose to review on Amazon, review a wide range of titles. Don’t only review books by friends or authors from your publisher, as that will look like a reviewing circle.

Some authors do choose to review under a pseudonym. If you do, you need to act as a regular customer, not an author. This means:

• Review everything under the same pseudonym
• If you copy reviews across sites (e.g. reviewing on Amazon and Goodreads), use the same pseudonym across all those sites
• Never mention your own books in reviews or discussions
• Never comment on reviews of your books. This catches a lot of authors out.
• Always remain within the reviewing guidelines. Your real name might not be visible to customers, but the retailer has your real name and address.

Overall, I think it’s easier to use your own name.

Reader Sites

Reader sites don’t sell books directly (although they might link to retail sites, and they might earn an affiliate commission from those links). Reader sites include Goodreads, Library Thing, Shelfari, Riffle, BookLikes. Note that Goodreads and Shelfari are both owned by Amazon.

Reader sites are a more problematic than retail sites for author/reviewers. If you’ve been using a site like Goodreads for a while (months, if not years), and are a member of different discussion groups, then it might appear strange to change the way you use the site simply because you are now a published author. So continue using the site as you have done—although you may decide not to review any books you rate below a certain level.

If you are a published author and you’ve never used Goodreads, I suggest you set up an author page, perhaps link your blog, and then sign out. Do nothing. Observe for a period (perhaps months) before deciding if this is a community you want to be part of. Goodreads is a complex site with its own culture, and a lot of author-vs.-reviewer angst could have been prevented if authors made the effort to get to know the site and its users before jumping in.

If you decide to participate in the Goodreads community, participate as a reader. Don’t mention your books, or the fact you are an author. If people are interested, they will view your profile, see you are an author, and may be interested enough to try one of your books.

I think the major thing to know about Goodreads is that members use the rating system in a variety of ways. One star often means “I don’t want to read this book”. They might not like the cover. They might not like the blurb. They might object to the way the author behaves online. They might not like Christian fiction (in which case, it might be an example of Christian persecution, which calls to mind Paul’s pesky injunction from Romans 12:14, to bless those who persecute you).

I understand this behaviour annoys authors, who see it dragging down their average rating. But Goodreads is for readers, and since Goodreads banned shelf names that were about the author not the book (after certain authors complained about “abusive” shelf names, like “badly behaved author” or “reviews own books”). Many Goodreaders now one-star such books.

Personal Website or Blog

This is your personal space, so review away. Host blog tours. Endorse. Influence. Interview authors. Guest post on other blogs. Gush about everyone and everything. Blog readers want to connect with the author, so give them the opportunity to connect with as many of your author friends as you want.

The advantage of reviewing on your personal blog is that you don’t need to use any kind of rating system. When I see authors complaining online about reviews, it’s usually the star rating that first caught their attention. They forget the ratings are subjective: one star on Goodreads means “I didn’t like it”.

I didn’t like Tess of the d’Urbervilles or Vanity Fair, but they are classics, and I’m not about to question their contribution to our literary culture.

My only proviso with promoting other authors through your blog is that readers will judge your writing based on the writing of those authors you choose to endorse and influence. If you write Christian romance, you probably don’t want to be endorsing an author who specialises in erotica. If you review a book with obvious writing or editing issues, and don’t mention them in your review, I’m going to think you didn’t notice them—which makes me wonder about the quality of your own writing.

That's the end of this series of posts. I'll be back in a few weeks with two final posts to finish my series on reviewing, and will be looking at copyright, and how to get reviews deleted.

Do you have any other reviewing questions?

By Iola Goulton. I am a freelance editor specialising in Christian fiction, and you can find out more about my services at my website (www.christianediting.co.nz), or follow me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christianediting), Twitter (@IolaGoulton) or Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/iolasreads).

I love reading, and read and review around 150 Christian books each year on my blog (www.christianreads.blogspot.com). I'm a Top 25 Reviewer at Christian Book, in the Top 1% of reviewers at Goodreads, and have an Amazon Reviewer Rank that floats around 2000.

Reviewing Ethics: Should Authors Review?

By Iola Goulton

Over the last two weeks, I've been looking at the ethics of reviewing on Amazon and other websites, and the rules of Amazon reviewing (Amazon call them 'Reviewing Guidelines', but make no mistake: they are rules, and there are consequences for breaking them).

This week I'm addressing a question many authors ask: should authors review? 

Should authors read?

Yes.

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

- Stephen King, On Writing

Should authors review?

Yes.

Well-written reviews influence sales, so writing reviews blesses authors you enjoy reading, and influences others to try their work.

Do authors have to review?

No.

Reviewing a book is only one way of blessing the author. There are other ways, tangible and intangible. Pray for them. Buy their books. Recommend their books to friends. Comment on their blog posts. Follow their blog. Sign up for their email list. Like them on Facebook and Amazon. Follow and Fan them on Goodreads. Like their reviews on Goodreads. Tweet their new release. Tweet helpful reviews.

Should authors review everything they read?

No.

You don’t have to review everything you read, and you don’t have to publish your reviews on commercial sites. Most websites have a clear set of reviewing guidelines, and authors need to bear these in mind when deciding what to review—and what not to review. We discussed the Amazon Reviewing Guidelines last week.

I believe that as Christians, we absolutely need to adhere to the rules of each website. In fact, I believe we should hold ourselves to higher standards, not just to abstain from unethical behaviour, but to abstain from the appearance of unethical behaviour.

For example, I’m a book reviewer and a freelance editor. While I have an obligation to review books I obtain from book blogger programmes (e.g. NetGalley, BookLookBloggers, BloggingforBooks, Litfuse Publicity), I can’t review any book by clients on a commercial site such as Amazon.

I can (and do) review books I’ve edited, on both my reviewing blog and my editing website. I will participate in blog tours or conduct author interviews if requested. These are clearly promotional reviews: I have a financial relationship with these authors, and ensure I disclose that. I also promote my clients on my editing website, by including their new releases in my Newsletter (sign up here if you’re interested), and including their books on my Projects page.

I do review books I’ve worked on at www.Koorong.com.au (where they are featured), as Koorong don’t (currently) have any issue with authors or publishers reviewing. Goodreads also permit authors and others associated with the book to review. However, just because something is permitted doesn’t make it advisable. I use Goodreads as a record of books I’ve read, as the site is meant to be a way for readers to connect, not a site for authors (or editors) to use as a vehicle for promotion.

The Author Dilemma

The big author dilemma for authors is do you review everything, or do you only review titles you can recommend and endorse? While this is something you will ultimately have to decide for yourself, here are some thoughts which might help:

• Amazon don't allow authors to review books by authors they have a personal relationship with (although they don't define "personal relationship". A critique partner or beta reader certainly sounds like a personal relationship to me, but what about a Facebook friend or a Twitter follower?)
• If people recognise you as an author, you are effectively an influencer for that title
• Many reviewers, both reader/reviewers and author/reviewers, take the position they will only review books they can recommend with a four-star or five-star rating. There’s nothing wrong with this as long as you don’t give every book five stars whether you like it or not (and whether it’s any good or not).
• Some authors, especially indie authors (although hopefully none in the Christian market), react badly to low-star reviews. If they find you are also an author, they will retaliate by giving you a scathing review.

I suspect that as soon as you become a published author (and possibly before) you move from the ranks of reader/reviewers like me, who can review based on whatever criteria we chose, to an author/reviewer, who will be scrutinised more carefully.

What do you think? What are your personal reviewing 'rules'?


By Iola Goulton. I am a freelance editor specialising in Christian fiction, and you can find out more about my services at my website (www.christianediting.co.nz), or follow me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christianediting), Twitter (@IolaGoulton) or Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/iolasreads).

I love reading, and read and review around 150 Christian books each year on my blog (www.christianreads.blogspot.com). I'm a Top 25 Reviewer at Christian Book, in the Top 1% of reviewers at Goodreads, and have an Amazon Reviewer Rank that floats around 2000.

Reviewing Ethics: Online Book Reviews (Part Two)

By Iola Goulton

Last week we introduced the Amazon Reviewing Guidelines and the concept of “promotional content”. Promotional content is explained in more detail on the FAQ page, where Amazon give some examples of reviews they don’t allow. This week we are going to go through those examples in more detail:

A product manufacturer posts a review of their own product, posing as an unbiased shopper

As discussed previously, this is a sock puppet review. Amazon doesn’t permit reviews of any product you have a financial interest in, which includes books you’ve written, edited or published. Not under your own name, and especially not under a fake name.

A shopper, unhappy with her purchase, posts multiple negative reviews for the same product

This is an example of multiple sock puppet reviews. Amazon only allows reviewers to review each product once (so you can’t review the hardcover and the Kindle edition of the same book), so anyone posting multiple reviews must be using sock puppet accounts or circumventing the system in some other way. It is possible. It isn’t permitted.

A customer posts a review in exchange for $5

This specifically refers to reviews from ffiver.com, but $1 or $1000, the amount of the payment isn’t the point. Amazon do not permit paid reviews in the Customer Reviews section, as customers expect these reviews to be from impartial customers. If you have paid for a review (e.g. from Kirkus Indie), you can quote it in the Editorial Reviews section of the book page.

A customer posts a review of a game, in exchange for bonus in-game credits

In-game credits have a financial value, so this concept is a variation on a paid review. There isn’t really an equivalent for books, but I have seen some authors offer a prize or a free short story in exchange for a four-star or five-star review.

One famous Christian author using a variation on this is Karen Kingsbury, who has offered a free cruise-for-two to the reader whose review most “touches her heart”. As one reviewer says, that’s not going to be a one-star review, is it?

Author Kristen Lamb says:

I’d love to offer reviewers sweet prizes for reviewing my book, but it’s just too … what’s the term? Creepy. … It’s a fine line that can get writers in ethical trouble.

A fine line, indeed, and one with consequences. When Amazon found a puzzle company were sending Amazon gift vouchers to people who had reviewed their games on Amazon, they deleted all reviews for the games in question, and also deleted the entire reviewing history of some reviewers. Amazon saw the gift cards as compensation. Amazon's Selling Policies clearly state that sellers cannot offer a refund in exchange for a review:

"you may not provide compensation for a review other than a free copy of the product. If you offer a free product, it must be clear that you are soliciting an unbiased review. The free product must be provided in advance; no refunds are permitted after the review is written. Product review solicitations that ask for only positive reviews or that offer compensation are prohibited. You may not ask buyers to remove negative reviews."

A family member of the product creator posts a five-star customer review to help boost sales

Amazon prohibits reviews from people with a financial interest in the product, which would include family members like a spouse or dependent children.

My advice for people reviewing books by friends or family members is to be up-front about it. Start the review with “I’m the author’s mother (sister, favourite cousin)” or similar, so readers know to expect glowing praise.

This is one instance where I make an exception to my “Authors should never comment on reviews” rule. If Mum, sister or favourite cousin has written a glowing review and you can’t get them to delete it, add a comment to the review acknowledging the relationship and thanking them for their wonderful, albeit biased, review.

Don’t pretend to be an impartial customer. Someone might get suspicious that you and the author share an unusual surname—the review will be downvoted, reported for abuse, and possibly removed because then it looks as though it’s there to boost sales. That is the key phrase: “to boost sales”. If your friend or family member is reviewing as a way of encouraging you, they should have no problem acknowledging the relationship in the review.

A shopper posts a review of the product, after being promised a refund in exchange

This is another variation on a paid review, and is also against the Selling Policies. If Amazon find a reviewer receiving a ‘gift’ from an author (e.g. a 99 cent gift card) after the reviewer has reviewed a book by that author (such as a 99 cent Kindle book), they can and will delete the review. I’ve seen it “recommended” that authors “thank” their reviewers by gifting a $1.00 gift card for a 99 cent book. Amazon might be wise to this idea, or they might not be. I don’t know. But really? It’s a deliberate effort to circumvent the Amazon guidelines, and I have trouble believing that suggestion came from a Christian. But it did.

Amazon frowns on gifting Kindle copies of books to reviewers, as the reviewer can then either on-gift the gift or refuse the gift and use the credit towards any other Amazon purchase. You are better to either send the reviewer a copy of the book directly (as a mobi, prc or pdf file), or gift a copy through Smashwords.

A seller posts negative reviews on his competitor's product

This concerns authors, as it gives rise to the myth that authors shouldn’t review. Authors can review, but should be extremely careful about posting critical reviews of books in the same genre, as such reviews can be seen to fall foul of this guideline. For this reason, many authors chose not to review in the genre in which they write, or to only write positive (four-star or five-star reviews).

An artist posts a positive review on a peer's album in exchange for receiving a positive review from them

I have seen review swaps offered on Facebook and Goodreads. Authors mean well, but review swaps are explicitly prohibited by Amazon, and are frowned upon by readers—because we don’t trust the reviews. Think about it:

We agree to swap books and honestly review each other’s books. I read yours and hate it. It’s not just that the main character is too stupid to live, it’s that it’s supposed to be a romance but they don’t meet until Chapter 38, and it’s full of spelling mistakes (the heroin lives in Sidney, New South Whales, and wheres a high-wasted dress). Do I:

a) review honestly, knowing the other author is going to be reviewing my book and might take this as an excuse to drag me and my book through the mud; or
b) lie.

That’s not a decision you want to make. So stay away from review swaps and reviewing circles (where several authors agree to review each other’s books).

This doesn't stop authors supporting fellow authors in other ways. Authors endorse books all the time. They post reviews and recommendations of author friend’s books on their blogs. The problem is these influencing reviews often read more like an endorsement, and therefore might be better placed in the Editorial Reviews section of the Amazon page.

To summarise, please don’t try and come up with a creative way to get around the rules. It’s not ethical. It's not honest. At the most basic level, if you are trying to use Amazon reviews to promote your book, it’s likely you are going to fall foul of Amazon’s Reviewing Guidelines or the Selling Policies, and you need to think again.


By Iola Goulton. I am a freelance editor specialising in Christian fiction, and you can find out more about my services at my website (www.christianediting.co.nz), or follow me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christianediting), Twitter (@IolaGoulton) or Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/iolasreads).

I love reading, and read and review around 150 Christian books each year on my blog (www.christianreads.blogspot.com). I'm a Top 25 Reviewer at Christian Book, in the Top 1% of reviewers at Goodreads, and have an Amazon Reviewer Rank that floats around 2000.

Reviewing Ethics: Online Book Reviews (Part One)

By Iola Goulton

What is permitted? And what isn’t? 

There is a lot of confusion regarding what is permitted in terms of online reviewing, not helped by the fact that each site has their own rules, and some enforce them more than others. Today I’m going to take you through the Amazon Reviewing Guidelines. I’ve chosen Amazon because as well as being the site I know best, it’s the biggest online retailer, it has the most reviewers (over 20 million), and the most product reviews.

Amazon has clear Reviewing Guidelines, and will take action to remove reviews that contravene the guidelines. Amazon gets a lot of attention regarding “fake” reviews (which exist in greater numbers than most people realise) and “bully” reviewers (who are far less common than the media implies).

The vast majority of the issues I've seen arise in these forums and in review conflicts have, at the very least, been started by authors acting unprofessionally in some way.

- self-published author Rick Gualtieri

Behaviour like “I called his place of volunteer work and made it evident that I was in possession of the email addresses of his friends and extended family members”.

Amazon go into more detail about what’s not allowed than what is allowed. This includes:

Objectionable material

No swearing, calling people names, using inappropriate language (like calling someone an idiot or a nazi), and no promotion of illegal conduct (I once saw a forum discussion where someone was looking for novels featuring incest. The discussion was promptly deleted).

Inappropriate content

The big one here is links to external websites (including your own). Amazon won’t delete a review with external links, but it will delete the link and replace it with […].

Off-topic information

Information on price, packaging or shipping aren’t relevant to customer reviews, as Amazon has other forums for offering feedback on sellers or packaging.

Promotional content

No:

• Advertisements, promotional material or repeated posts that make the same point excessively
• Sentiments by or on behalf of a person or company with a financial interest in the product or a directly competing product (including reviews by publishers, manufacturers, or third-party merchants selling the product)
• Reviews written for any form of compensation other than a free copy of the product. This includes reviews that are a part of a paid publicity package

So:

No spam.

No shills.

No sock puppets.

No paid reviews.

If you find reviews which include information like this, you can Report Abuse.

What is Report Abuse?

If you look at the bottom of any Amazon review (except one you’ve written), you will see “Was this review helpful?”, and Yes and No buttons. If you believe a review contravenes Amazon Reviewing Guidelines in some way, click “No”. Amazon will then say “If this review is inappropriate, please let us know”.

Click on the link (“please let us know”), and you will be given the option to say why the review is inappropriate. It’s best if you mention a specific reason that is against the guidelines (e.g. the review is self-promotion, the review is written by the author/editor, the review is about price or delivery and not about the product, spiteful remarks about the author).

This feature can be used by anyone, author or reader. If, as an author, you believe the review is against Amazon’s Reviewing Guidelines or Conditions of Use (often called the Terms of Service, or TOS), this is the responsible and ethical way to report it, rather than leaving a comment on the review. Note that Amazon do not remove reviews simply because they are critical—they must contravene the Reviewing Guidelines in some way.

It usually takes several reports from different people before a review is removed (although I don’t know exactly how many). However, sometimes the response is extremely fast: yesterday I reported a review for soliciting helpful votes (which is against the Reviewing Guidelines), and the review had been edited by Amazon within half an hour to remove the promotional content. 

Of course, the big question is: What is promotional content? We will look at that in more detail next week.

Meanwhile, are you aware of the Amazon Reviewing Guidelines? What do you think is promotional content? 


By Iola Goulton. I am a freelance editor specialising in Christian fiction, and you can find out more about my services at my website (www.christianediting.co.nz), or follow me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christianediting), Twitter (@IolaGoulton) or Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/iolasreads).

I love reading, and read and review around 150 Christian books each year on my blog (www.christianreads.blogspot.com). I'm a Top 25 Reviewer at Christian Book, in the Top 1% of reviewers at Goodreads, and have an Amazon Reviewer Rank that floats around 2000.

Reviewing Ethics: Four Sins of Online Reviewing (Part Two)

By Iola Goulton

Last week I looked at the first two big problems with online reviews: spam and shills. This week I introduce sock puppets and stupid.

Sock Puppet

A sock puppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception … The term now includes other misleading uses of online identities, such as those created to praise, defend or support a person or organization. A significant difference between the use of a pseudonym^[3] and the creation of a sock puppet is that the sock puppet poses as an independent third-party.

Many Amazon reviewers (including authors) use pseudonyms. Technically, Iola is a pseudonym—I don’t get an Amazon ‘Real Name’ badge because Iola isn’t the name on my credit card. Other reviewers use pseudonyms for reasons ranging from protecting their personal privacy, not wanting other people to know what they are buying (if you had issues with infertility or an addiction to pornography, would you want everyone working that out based on your Amazon reviews?).

I don’t see anything wrong with using a reviewing pseudonym as a way of protecting what is left of online privacy. I don’t want my identity outed and my family threatened by some disgruntled author (this is known as being doxxed). Amazon has my full name, address and credit card number, and would release this to the relevant authorities if required. No one else needs to know.

Sure, some Amazon users don’t behave well online. Some of them use pseudonyms. Others use their real names. Some are called “Amazon Customer”, perhaps because they chose that name—but often because their Amazon user name was deemed to be against Reviewing Guidelines (e.g. it included their book title: “Joe Bloggs, Author of Whatever”).

There’s nothing wrong with using a pseudonym, as long as the intent isn’t to deceive. If you’re calling yourself Amazon Customer to disguise the fact you’ve just reviewed your sister’s book (which you edited), or when you call yourself A Reader to review your own book … well, that’s a problem. It’s a sock puppet account. It’s dishonest, it’s against Amazon Reviewing Guidelines, and it’s against FTC guidelines.

The best (worst?) example of Amazon sock puppetry is the author who created over 350 fake identities to give his book five-star reviews. The sock puppet reviews are long gone, but references remain in the remaining reviews, and in the 4,300-post discussion in the Kindle Book Forum.

One commenter sums up this behaviour well:

“This makes all indie authors look like idiots, and he's duped innocent readers with this tactic.”

 Using a sock puppet account isn’t clever or funny. It’s dishonest, and wrong.

Stupid

Some bad author behaviour can only be described as stupid.

For example, one author was caught reviewing her own book. When confronted on Amazon, she said she didn’t write the review. It was from a friend in Australia, and the author posted it under her own account because her friend couldn’t: they don’t have the internet in Australia.

Yes, the author really said that. The review is gone now (surprise!).

Do read the Terms and Conditions

I often find author-reviewers claiming they don’t know the rules of Amazon (the rules will be the subject of my next posts, starting in June).

I don’t understand this. My father always taught me never to sign a contract until I’d read the terms and conditions, and while I admit I don’t always follow this advice when I sign up to a website (e.g. Facebook), I would never sign something involving money without reading the terms and conditions first. Yet so many self-published authors appear ignorant of Amazon's reviewing guidelines, conditions of use, and selling policies.

Not knowing the terms and conditions of a website you are using to sell your product is, in my opinion, stupid.

Don’t Criticise a Review

I understand some reviews can be harsh, but please keep your meltdown private. Call a friend, go to the gym, bake a cake. Don’t respond online.

Criticising a rating, review or reviewer through a blog post or Facebook page isn’t clever. Too often, fans see this as an excuse for a witch hunt, and fan behaviour (like telling a reviewer to stick their hand in a blender) makes the author look bad. You can’t control the behaviour of your fans (or family), so don’t give them any ammunition.

Don’t draw attention to the review through writer loops either—many reviewers are members of these loops. They will see your response, and mentally cross you off the list of authors they review. Remember: nothing is private on the internet.

Criticising reviews is especially stupid in the romance genre, as romance readers have long memories, and still haven’t forgiven Anne Rice or Deborah Anne MacGillivray for their anti-reviewer antics (from ten and five years ago respectively, although Anne Rice is currently pontificating about reviewers using pseudonyms. Yes, Anne Rice, who writes under a pseudonym).

PS: Blaming the offending remarks on your husband or significant other isn’t an excuse.

Don’t Respond to Reviews

If the reviewer who has just given you a one-star review isn’t smart enough to understand the point you were trying to make in your 80,000-word book, is a 200-word comment really going to change their mind?

No.

Don’t even try. Savvy readers will ignore the review. If the point is valid … well, responding will make someone look stupid, and it won’t be the reviewer.

Amazon doesn’t have an official policy regarding authors commenting on reviews. Some marketing “experts” recommend authors comment on low-star reviews, rationalising the reviewer will appreciate the interaction and can be persuaded to raise the star rating. This may well be true—but I’ve never seen it happen.

What most often happens is the reviewer never even sees the response. But other people see it, comment … and it always ends up with the author looking bad. Even the nicest comment can look condescending to the wrong person. It’s not worth the risk.

Finally…

So there you have some of the background to why some people think reviewers don’t like authors. But it’s not true.

Authors, we want to love your books. And you. Make it easy for us by spending your time writing the most amazing books ever.

Don’t spend time dreaming up creative ways to get around the rules and guidelines of online reviewing. Please. Because every time an author does something that’s ethically suspect (or out-and-out cheating), it adds to the list of things readers and reviewers consider unacceptable.

We’ll discuss this in my next series of posts. 

By Iola Goulton. I am a freelance editor specialising in Christian fiction, and you can find out more about my services at my website (www.christianediting.co.nz), or follow me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christianediting), Twitter (@IolaGoulton) or Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/iolasreads).

I love reading, and read and review around 150 Christian books each year on my blog (www.christianreads.blogspot.com). I'm a Top 25 Reviewer at Christian Book, in the Top 1% of reviewers at Goodreads, and have an Amazon Reviewer Rank that floats around 2000.

Reviewing Ethics: Four Sins of Online Reviewing (Part One)

By Iola Goulton

Over the next two posts we are going to look at four of the big problems with online reviews: spam, shills, sock puppets and stupid.

Spam

Spam is unsolicited electronic advertising, named for the Monty Python sketch. It usually refers to email messages, but can also include comments on blogs, websites, social media sites or any other electronic format.



There is a fine line between spam and legitimate self-promotion—and no clear definition of which is which. For every Twitter guru saying no more than 20% of tweets should be self-promoting, another says the opposite.

Is all self-promotion bad?

No.

But make sure you are promoting in the right place. Amazon don’t permit self-promotion except in the Meet Our Authors discussion forum (an area most readers never visit). MOA was created in May 2012, in response to complaints that the discussion forums were being overrun by spamming authors. This decision by Amazon has led to accusations of bullying in the customer discussions.

Here’s how.

Newbie authors come into the discussion forums and promote their self-published Kindle book. One or more customers will politely inform the newbie that self-promotion isn’t permitted outside MOA, and the author should delete their post. Some authors apologise, delete and leave (or stay and join the conversation).

But some authors say it’s their ‘right’ to post in the discussions. That’s what their friend/publisher/PR guru told them. After seeing a few posts like this every day for months, many readers abandoned the Amazon discussions.

Others stayed, but lost patience with the newbie authors—which did lead to some less-than-polite exchanges. No, that wasn’t fair on the new authors who were posting in genuine ignorance of the rules. But it is understandable. There are pages of dead discussions:

Author 1: Buy my book!
Reader: Please don’t promote your book in this forum. It’s against Amazon Terms of Service. You can promote in the Meet Our Authors forum – the link is at the bottom of the page.

Author 2: Read my book! It’s free today!
Reader: Please don’t promote your book in this forum. It’s against Amazon Terms of Service. You can promote in the Meet Our Authors forum.

Author 3: Buy my book!
Reader: Please don’t promote your book in this forum. It’s against Amazon Terms of Service.

Author 4: Read my book! It’s free today!
Reader: Don’t promote your book in this forum. It’s against Amazon Terms of Service.

Author 5: Buy my book!
Reader: Don’t promote your book here. It’s against Amazon Terms of Service.

and so on, until …

Author 54: Buy my book!
Reader: I hate spam. Go away.

You can see why the readers got a little annoyed. And why an author might respond negatively to that—because they don’t understand the history (although, if they’d read Amazon’s terms of service, they might not have been so ignorant).

Please note: that final response is not an example of online bullying. It’s not polite, but neither is it repeated or hostile. Equally, a single critical review does not constitute bullying.

Most online groups have their own rules about self-promotion, which range from never to always depending on the group. If you don’t know the rules of a particular site, lurk until you work them out (lurking is reading the posts without commenting). Many authors would have benefited by reading and understanding the Amazon rules before posting.

The only places you get to promote on Amazon (or many other sites, including Goodreads) is your author page and your book pages. So make sure they shine.

Shill

A shill is a person who publicly helps a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or organization … Shill can also be used pejoratively to describe a critic who appears either all-too-eager to heap glowing praise upon mediocre offerings

With over 20 million customer accounts, it’s fair to say that there are thousands of shill accounts on Amazon, created to pump up the ratings of Product A, to hide critical reviews of Product A, or to denigrate Products B and C to entice customers to purchase Product A.

One example of this can be seen in the Top Reviewer forums, where users are finding their critical reviews hidden by a voting campaign they assume is organised by the product manufacturer.

One famous shill is Harriet Klausner, who has published close to 30,000 book reviews on Amazon.com, the vast majority of which are five-star reviews. She’s slowing down a little: in 2013 she reviewed a mere 3.1 books per day, compared with a high of 7.8 books per day in 2008.

There’s nothing wrong with writing lots of reviews, except that Harriet doesn’t buy the books. She receives them free of charge, as physical review copies. FTC guidelines state reviewers must disclose when they have received a free product—something Harriet never does.  This makes Harriet a shill, as she’s not disclosing her relationship with the publisher.

If you’re wondering what Harriet does with her free books, her son sells them online at half.com. The mystery is why publishers continue to send Harriet review copies. I can only assume they like the five-star ratings.

While Harriet is breaching both the rules of Amazon and the FTC guidelines by not disclosing her free books, there is no evidence she’s getting paid for her reviews.

Other reviewers are.

Amazon clearly state that paid reviews are not permitted in the Customer Reviews section (although authors are free to quote from paid reviews in the Editorial Reviews section of the book page).  Here’s an example I came across one day while browsing a Facebook page for Christian authors (not Australasian Christian Writers!):

This

author/reviewer will write an “honest” review of your book for just $5. As a bonus (which sheds a planet-sized shadow over his understanding of the word “honest”), he also offers guaranteed five-star reviews.

Like all good ffiver reviewers, he will purchase a copy of your book to ensure you get the AVP Badge.

Next week we will look at sock puppets … and stupid.

By Iola Goulton. I am a freelance editor specialising in Christian fiction, and you can find out more about my services at my website (www.christianediting.co.nz), or follow me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christianediting), Twitter (@IolaGoulton) or Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/iolasreads).

I love reading, and read and review around 150 Christian books each year on my blog (www.christianreads.blogspot.com). I'm a Top 25 Reviewer at Christian Book, in the Top 1% of reviewers at Goodreads, and have an Amazon Reviewer Rank that floats around 2000.

The Ethics of Online Book Reviewing

By Iola Goulton

It’s no secret that there are fake reviews on Amazon. Indie author John Locke has admitted to buying reviews, ‘entrepreneur’ Todd Rutherford admits to selling them, a Gartner study shows 10%-15% of online reviews are fake, and studies show consumers have difficulty identifying fake reviews (many people don’t even know it’s a problem).

 

Some authors are prepared to let ethics fall by the wayside in the quest for the almighty dollar. I’d love to say that Christians are immune to unethical or dishonest behaviour, but I’ve seen this isn’t the case.

Author Etiquette

Narelle Atkins recently posted on author etiquette, particularly in regard to online interaction with readers. It was apparent the ‘rules’ are slightly different depending on where you are posting:

•  Retail sites (e.g. Amazon): don’t interact with reviewers
• Reader sites (e.g. Goodreads): you can thank reviewers, but don’t criticise reviews
• Reader blogs (e.g. AusJenny or Iola’s Christian Reads): it’s nice to receive a comment from the author on a review, and I think readers like the interaction. I agree with Narelle that authors should absolutely visit and comment if they have requested the review or been interviewed. That small courtesy certainly leaves me more responsive to hosting the author again.
• Social Networks (e.g. Facebook or Twitter): it’s fine to like or retweet positive comments or reviews, but best not to mention critical reviews.

In all cases, monitor the review site for a while before you comment, as this will help you understand the unwritten rules. For something like Facebook pages or Goodreads groups, be aware that different groups and authors have different views on author comments and author marketing. Lurk (read without commenting) until you are certain your post or comment is appropriate for the group. Read the welcome messages or check the group files to see if they have etiquette guidelines. For example, Australasian Christian Writers Facebook Group has etiquette guidelines for self-promotion.

Contacting Reviewers

One author asked if it was all right to contact a reviewer privately to ask about something that was puzzling in the review. I think this is perfectly acceptable when you know the reviewer in real life or online (e.g. when you’ve approached the reviewer to offer a copy of the book to review).

It’s less clear-cut when the review is part of a blog tour organised by a promotional company, through NetGalley, or simply a review that appears on Amazon. In this case, I think you look at the content of the blog and judge for yourself. Of course, it’s only an option if the reviewer makes their email address available on their blog (e.g. through the contact page). If you can’t find their contact details easily, that probably means they don’t want to be contacted.

If you have no relationship or existing connection with the reviewer, please be aware that the reviewer may not appreciate being contacted and queried about the review. Reviewers aren’t your beta-reader. You shouldn’t be using reviews as a way of receiving specific writing craft feedback. That is the role of your editor and critique group.

Common Questions

Over the next few months I’m going to address some of the common questions authors have regarding online reviews:

• Should authors review?
• What can authors review?
• What do Amazon and other reviewing sites permit? What don’t they allow?
• Can I copy my reviews?
• What can I do if my reviews are deleted?
• How can I get honest reviews of my books?
• Why do some readers and reviewers write mean-spirited reviews that can hurt authors?

I’m going to start with the final question, because I think it’s important to understand some of the recent history in online reviewing.

It’s not that readers and reviewers are mean to authors. It’s more that reviewers have seen so much dishonest and unethical behaviour online that they react to it—and sometimes over-react. You can help reader-author relations by displaying good author etiquette.

Don’t be part of the problem; become part of the solution.

Join me next week for a post on some of the background to online reviewing. Meanwhile, leave a comment and let me know what questions you’d like answered regarding author ethics. 

By Iola Goulton. I am a freelance editor specialising in Christian fiction, and you can find out more about my services at my website (www.christianediting.co.nz), or follow me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christianediting), Twitter (@IolaGoulton) or Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/iolasreads).

I love reading, and read and review around 150 Christian books each year on my blog (www.christianreads.blogspot.com). I'm a Top 25 Reviewer at Christian Book, in the Top 1% of reviewers at Goodreads, and have an Amazon Reviewer Rank that floats around 2000.