>your Amazon account matches elements of other Amazon accounts reviewing the same product.
That sure is a hard sentence to understand. I don't know if that's corporate speak or just dumb.

I'll be interested in the latest info on this since I plan to send out about 200 ARCs to my newsletter subscribers.

>for naught.
It's worse than that. The warning about a shutdown and an explicit refusal to listen to reason ("we may not reply to further emails about this issue") is scary.

 

This exact same thing happened to a friend of mine who sent out close to 100 ARCs. They initially removed most of the reviews, but subsequently reinstated about half of them. Some speculation was that since it's the same group of people who have reviewed her previous books, it looks like review manipulation - but that's just speculation. No one really knows.

 

An author started a thread in a Facebook group saying that she sent out ARCs to her launch team who posted their reviews on Amazon - only to have several removed. When the author contacted Amazon, they said, "We are unable to post your customer review to the Amazon website because our data shows that your Amazon account matches elements of other Amazon accounts reviewing the same product."

Two days later, she received a warning she'd manipulated reviews and that her account could be shutdown. When contacted again, Amazon's reply was "Thank you for taking the time to contact us in response to the policy warning. Our investigations have shown that your account is related to the accounts of customers who have reviewed your book." They then told her again that any further violation will result in her account being shutdown and that "We cannot share any further information about this warning and we may not reply to further emails about this issue."

Another author added that a few reviews were removed from one of her books because Amazon told here they were linked to fans, even though she didn't gift a copy of the book.

The Customer Review Guidelines still state that "Book authors and publishers may continue to provide free or discounted copies of their books to readers, as long as the author or publisher does not require a review in exchange or attempt to influence the review."

Some people speculated that Amazon was connecting authors to people (fans and readers) on their Facebook pages or other social media, even if they aren't friends or family, and considering reviews from them as being forbidden.

Has anyone else encountered this issue? I was getting ready to put together a new ARC team, but now I'm afraid all those reviews will be for naught.

According to what you posted, they didn't remove ALL ARC reviews, so they aren't targeting ARCs. From what you posted, the corporate speak suggests the reviewers must share the same info-like IP address or maybe the author has them in her (shipping) address book so they are related.

Without any specific information, we can only guess. But as long as they aren't terminating all ARCs for Indies, then there's no need to panic.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if they started doing this to most authors.  They're always trying to find ways to make it harder for us as far as reviews but don't even care when trolls 1 and 2 star books for no reason or launch attacks against authors.

 

Could you post the ARC reviews on your web site (and/or Facebook page) and link from your Amazon page and book?

 

According to what you posted, they didn't remove ALL ARC reviews, so they aren't targeting ARCs.

One of the things Amazon reportedly has done in the past is assume that anyone you're connected with on social media is biased and potentially a friend or relative of yours... which is ridiculous, since readers who like your books are apt to follow you online.

Maybe these deletions are a variation on that.

 

According to what you posted, they didn't remove ALL ARC reviews, so they aren't targeting ARCs. From what you posted, the corporate speak suggests the reviewers must share the same info-like IP address or maybe the author has them in her (shipping) address book so they are related.

Without any specific information, we can only guess. But as long as they aren't terminating all ARCs for Indies, then there's no need to panic.

My thinking would be along these lines. It sounds like from the email that she's gotten "too close" to those reviewers.

Have they reviewed all her other books? Has she reviewed theirs? (Are any fellow authors?) Has she sent any of these reviewers anything physical via Amazon in the past that might indicate a "close" friendship? Is she friends with them on Facebook or GoodReads? Are they local to her and might share some of the same IPs, like perhaps some of them frequent the same coffee shop or go to the same university even if they only casually know each other?

Wasn't there a thread last year about how having your fans as friends on GoodReads was getting reviews flagged?

 

One of the things Amazon reportedly has done in the past is assume that anyone you're connected with on social media is biased and potentially a friend or relative of yours... which is ridiculous, since readers who like your books are apt to follow you online.

Maybe these deletions are a variation on that.

No, I think (IIRC) that it was having your fans as friends. So having a GoodReads Author page with followers is fine, but having those followers as friends was bad. Same for Facebook: if they follow your author page, that's fine. If they are your actual FRIEND on your personal page, that's bad. That was the speculation, I think.

 

It looks as if Amazon has removed all reviews by people who did a prior ARC review of one of my books. So, having an "ARC review team" will no longer work. We'll have to find new ARC readers for each new book.

This really sucks, and it's totally against the traditional publishing standard of repeatedly sending out ARCs to the very same people/organizations most likely to review your books.

None of the reviews that were removed from my book were by people I know, people I am FB friends with, or AFAIK, people who have liked my FB author page. Am I now supposed to make my FB author page "un-likeable" to avoid Amazon snooping? Is that possible?

I lost 13 reviews on that one book, and the sad thing is that they were interesting reviews that would have helped readers decide to buy or not.

This feels like an ever-tightening noose.

Did they remove just your ARC team reviews or did they remove ALL reviews by those ARC team members (meaning everything they have ever reviewed)?

 

This really sucks, and it's totally against the traditional publishing standard of repeatedly sending out ARCs to the very same people/organizations most likely to review your books.

My understanding is Amazon is attempting to revert to the traditional publishing standard. Advance Review Copies used to go only to professional journalists, esteemed critics, and professionals in the book's subject area.

 

My understanding is Amazon is attempting to revert to the traditional publishing standard. Advance Review Copies used to go only to professional journalists, esteemed critics, and professionals in the book's subject area.

Some of my readers can't leave reviews anymore, even though they paid for copies. They aren't ARC team members, they are fans.

 

Wow! This sucks! I send out ARCs to about a 100 reviewers/bloggers after each new release. I hope you get this resolved. 

Suggestion...can the reviewers post the review under a different account? (I have about 3 different Amazon accounts.)

 

As for reverting to trad publishing standards, since trad publishing reviewers will not touch indie books, where does that leave us? I don't see the point of squeezing us to death; we generate a ton of revenue for Amazon.

I doubt it will affect revenue or indies particularly, but should increase the quality of reviews overall. Traditionally, ARC reviewers wrote reviews for publications. They never left reviews in customer reviews (have you ever seen Michiko Kakutani from the NYTs Book Review in a customer review section?).

A lot of people here have dropped ARC teams, citing they made no difference in sales.

 

As for reverting to trad publishing standards, since trad publishing reviewers will not touch indie books, where does that leave us? I don't see the point of squeezing us to death; we generate a ton of revenue for Amazon.

While I don't use ARCs (hate them, personally) I agree that Zon's hand in this matter seems a bit unfair. Are we not their bread and butter?

Indie's are 44% of the ebook market share - outclassing all others by 20 and more points. However, Gross Sales $-wise, trad-pubs take it 42 to 25 (2016).

Hmm, if I were Amazon, I'd be looking at Gross Sales $s, too. Sucks to be an indie when Zon wants to throw their weight around.

 

Indies are a blip on Amazon's radar, so they definitely throw their weight around as they like. In this case I kind of like the idea of getting rid of ARCs in favor of organic reviews.

 

In this case I kind of like the idea of getting rid of ARCs in favor of organic reviews.

The courage that took to say here...

 

I doubt it will affect revenue or indies particularly, but should increase the quality of reviews overall.

That's the nub of it, I think. Repeat after me: Amazon only cares about customers. This is meant to improve reviews for their benefit, and anybody else whose interests get caught up is acceptable collateral damage.

Besides, we've been complaining to them about unfair reviews since at least the John Locke fiasco half a decade ago. Now they're trying to fix it. I'm receptive to that, even if the initial efforts seem draconian.

I'm even sympathetic if one of their explicit goals is to eliminate the ARC teams that indies have been working so hard to cultivate. Yes, they've been helpful to many an indy career. Yes, I know you're not explicitly pressuring them to provide a positive review. But don't they, usually? Despite the rule that you can't require a review in exchange for an ARC, don't you cut them from your list if they never leave a review? Does the customer benefit when every new release gets reviewed by a stable of 100 diehard fans--the kind of people you know will read your book and review it within days? Is the primary purpose of your ARCs to benefit the customer? Or is it for the benefit of the author, and a natural outgrowth of exogenous factors like BookBub's review requirements?

I mean suppose we're talking here about repeat reviewers who're typically positive and have some other kind of connection to the author (could be a Facebook fan, Facebook friend, Twitter follower, nearby address or IP--anything a weak AI might find and interpret as a link). Tell me how you can identify which among those reviewers has received some kind of inducement. Tell me how you know which ones are biased out of loyalty to the author, absent any quid pro quo. Tell me which ones are sockpuppets created by the author or a contractor. Tell me how to engineer an algorithmic method to sort all that wheat from the chaff so that only the objective, unbiased reviews remain.

Amazon has every reason to ask those questions and grasp at solutions. Sure, they don't want to do anything to spite us, but neither are they in the business of rewarding us for anti-competitive business practices that don't benefit their customers. If the best solution they can arrive at is to eliminate anything that gives even the appearance of impropriety, then so be it. They'd be well within their rights. We may even come to appreciate it, in time. New authors who lack their own ARC teams would benefit immediately and never feel the loss of a tactic they never employed.

I've got two main thoughts about how to react.

First, do away with the "street team" ARC approach. This would save some time and effort, which could be used elsewhere, and you may still be able to finagle early reviews through other approaches. Maybe it means buying more AMS ads early in your release cycle--all part of Amazon's evil plan, to be sure. The successful writers will find ways to flourish in the new world order. 'Twas ever thus.

Second, if we think this is tied to Facebook, why not do away with Facebook? Do you need it? If you could have your ARC team or Facebook, which would you choose? How else could you use the time that you're currently spending on Facebook?

What's niggling at me is this notion that your account could be shut down for review manipulation if anybody connected to you reviews your books (or simply reviews more than one book!). The communiques from Amazon in this thread haven't clearly been specific to ARCs. I'm inclined to read that as some kind of miscommunication (what are the odds, right?). If that were the policy, what choice would you have besides withdrawing from social media? Gets even hairier if it extends past Facebook.

I'll be interested in seeing how it all plays out.

 

First, do away with the "street team" ARC approach. This would save some time and effort, which could be used elsewhere, and you may still be able to finagle early reviews through other approaches. Maybe it means buying more AMS ads early in your release cycle--all part of Amazon's evil plan, to be sure. The successful writers will find ways to flourish in the new world order. 'Twas ever thus.

Wow, another courageous poster on kboards.

Honestly, I figured there was no point in posting my exact same sentiments here.

 

Wow, another courageous poster on kboards.

Honestly, I figured there was no point in posting my exact same sentiments here.

I don't even think they're ineffective, necessarily--I'll let people with numbers and case studies speak to that. More than anything, I think we tend to do a bad job of assessing opportunity costs. ARC teams could profitable and still be a waste of your time.

 

Removed due to site owner's change to TOS.

 

Trads certainly do, Rickie. No one argues that. But Amazon seems to be coming down on the indie practice while ignoring the trad practice.

Though I hate ARCs of all forms, I do think it is quite unfair to target indies for this pogrom.

 

Removed due to site owner's change to TOS.

 

The real problem is that Amazon is so opaque with its requirements. Well-meaning indie authors want to comply with the rules. But they have to know what the rules are. I try to steer clear of anything that might even remotely contravene TOS.

I'll agree with that wholeheartedly.

One thing that I suspect complicates things is that KDP Support is probably choked with people who haven't the first earthly idea what's going on in whichever dev group is responsible for fixing the reviews. There could even be multiple bailiwicks on either side, plus additional departments sticking their beaks in. We probably don't have a coherent, universally applied set of rules for this because there isn't one. I hate that, and I wish it wasn't so, but it'd square very neatly with my own experiences in the tech sector.

Amazon probably just doesn't see fixing it as a major priority. The crisis management and communications types they're hiring for KDP may either be meant to resolve the problem or simply smooth it over, if that's cheaper.

 

IMO, the value of reviews is in alerting readers that I'm not publishing p0rn, and specifically giving them a sense of the kind of book I write. Romance is a huge, huge category, and there isn't enough space in a cover or blurb to signal some of the things that reviewers notice and comment on. These are things that I myself never realized until reviewers pointed them out, and they are of use to potential readers.

I want at least a few reviews from the beginning, because organic reviews are hard come by when you're at the prawny stage like me. Am I supposed to make my books free just to get "organic" reviews? I don't think that's right, either.

I totally agree. These days, blurbs are so competitive, marketing-oriented and stylized (for lack of a better word) that they might not really offer much about the story or style to the reader. Quite often I find reviews are the best source of a capsule synopsis of the book, and they'll tell me if the book is dark or funny or whatever. I certainly rely on them as a reader.

But as an author, sometimes I worry that too many ARC reviews turn new readers off. If you have 50 reviews and 49 of them say "I was given this book and this is my honest opinion," it begins to sound facetious. So I can see both sides of this. If my books aren't being covered by a ton of blogs, then ARC readers are the sourdough starter of my readership (so to speak). I'd love to say that I have 500 organic reviews within 48 hours of release, but I don't have that fan base yet.

 

When I started researching self-publishing last fall I reviewed a long thread on ARCs. The discussion centered on their management, tracking their reviews, keeping spreadsheets, etc. The general advice was to cull any ARCs who gave you lower than four-star reviews, and this strategy was generally endorsed by thread participants.

After reading that thread I decided to give ARCs a pass.