**This post originally appeared on dvmulligan.com on 4/25/15**
In The Sane Person's Guide to Self-Publishing, I offered a few bits of advice about getting reviews, which can be summarized including the following: 1. It's okay to pay for reviews as long as the reviewer is honest, 2. Encourage friends to post reviews. When I offered that advice, I knew that Amazon had cracked down on bogus reviews, particularly paid reviews from people who had never even read the books they were reviewing, but I was not familiar with all the precise "rules" Amazon has established for reviews. In this post, further advice for interpreting and navigating those rules.
Earlier this week, a colleague who is considering self-publishing told me he had reviewed The Sane Person's Guide and that he found it very helpful. I was happy that I had been able to help him and thrilled that he was posting a review, as reviews are key to discoverability.
It's been days and the review has not yet appeared on Amazon. When you post a review, Amazon states that it can take up to 48-hours to appear, but it's been longer than that. What gives?
My sometimes immature mind at first went to the sort of conspiracy theories that all teenagers thrive on: Maybe Amazon was delaying reviews to my book to punish it for saying things critical of Amazon and for not being part of Kindle Select. Of course I have the sense to overcome this paranoia if for no other reason than my book is such small potatoes that I can't imagine they've even noticed it exists.
In search of a more reasonable explanation, I turned to the Kindle Direct Publishing Community forums and searched for any recent posts on reviews. Someone else posted a similar situation in early April. I checked out the replies to his post and saw several people insisting that if Amazon can trace you personally to the reviewer, they'll take the review down or reject it. This struck me as even more paranoid that my own conspiracy theory.
I found another similar query about reviews, and more similar responses, and I started to get annoyed at the way internet forums are full of nonsense, so I went seeking Amazon's actual rules for reviews. Here they are.
A few highlights:
__
In The Sane Person's Guide to Self-Publishing, I offered a few bits of advice about getting reviews, which can be summarized including the following: 1. It's okay to pay for reviews as long as the reviewer is honest, 2. Encourage friends to post reviews. When I offered that advice, I knew that Amazon had cracked down on bogus reviews, particularly paid reviews from people who had never even read the books they were reviewing, but I was not familiar with all the precise "rules" Amazon has established for reviews. In this post, further advice for interpreting and navigating those rules.
Earlier this week, a colleague who is considering self-publishing told me he had reviewed The Sane Person's Guide and that he found it very helpful. I was happy that I had been able to help him and thrilled that he was posting a review, as reviews are key to discoverability.It's been days and the review has not yet appeared on Amazon. When you post a review, Amazon states that it can take up to 48-hours to appear, but it's been longer than that. What gives?
My sometimes immature mind at first went to the sort of conspiracy theories that all teenagers thrive on: Maybe Amazon was delaying reviews to my book to punish it for saying things critical of Amazon and for not being part of Kindle Select. Of course I have the sense to overcome this paranoia if for no other reason than my book is such small potatoes that I can't imagine they've even noticed it exists.
In search of a more reasonable explanation, I turned to the Kindle Direct Publishing Community forums and searched for any recent posts on reviews. Someone else posted a similar situation in early April. I checked out the replies to his post and saw several people insisting that if Amazon can trace you personally to the reviewer, they'll take the review down or reject it. This struck me as even more paranoid that my own conspiracy theory.
I found another similar query about reviews, and more similar responses, and I started to get annoyed at the way internet forums are full of nonsense, so I went seeking Amazon's actual rules for reviews. Here they are.
A few highlights:
- Be specific, be sincere, disclose if you got the product for free
- No reviews from those with a financial stake in the product
- No "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" and no "[s]olicitations for helpful votes"
I agree that those who got the product for free should say so, and it makes sense that anyone with a financial stake doesn't get a say, but paid reviews or solicitations for helpful reviews--we need those. Without those, we indies would be floating down the river without a paddle.
Amazon offers a link to a FAQs page for more information on what's not allowed. You can find it here. On this page they offer specific examples of things that are not allowed, including:
- "A customer posts a review in exchange for $5"
- "A family member of the product creator posts a five-star customer review to help boost sales"
- "An artist posts a positive review on a peer's album in exchange for receiving a positive review from them"
Well, friends, this means that all the advice I gave you about getting early reviews is technically against the rules of the jungle, and since late 2012, as The New York Times reported, Amazon has been enforce its rules with a heavy and uneven hand.
To say that I was troubled to read these rules (Amazon calls them "guidelines") is an understatement. I am a rule follower. I have been one all my life. I follow the speed limit, I don't cut in line, and report every last penny on my taxes. But these rules, which are written with the important goal of ensuring that customer feedback is genuine and informative to prospective buyers, are so flawed, and stack the deck so thoroughly against indie authors that I simply cannot accept them. Here's why:
I. Traditional publishers pay for reviews.
They don't have to pay Kirkus for reviews, but they pay readers on NetGalley, and they definitely foster relationships with high profile reviewers, and those relationships include things like lunches and dinners, paid for by the publisher.
We indies don't have access to magazine and newspaper book reviewers, but we do have access to readers, through Fiverr, where we can pay $5 for a review--even for an HONEST review, and NetGalley, where we can pay to have make our book available to thousands of readers as part of our overall marketing (aka promotional) plan, and blog tours, which I have no interest in paying for, but lots of indies do.
Interestingly, Amazon's guidelines indicate that ANY paid review is off-limits, whether the review is good or bad, but my own experience suggests that they aren't monitoring this very carefully.
For WMD, I have an IndieReader review on Amazon. ALL INDIE READER REVIEWS ARE PAID. Check out their reviewer page here. Nearly 600 reviews. All paid, all still published.
For TLFC, I have a BestChickLit review. While technically I paid not for the review but for the chance to "jump the queue" and get my review quickly, I'd still consider that a paid review; if I hadn't paid, they may never have gotten to my book. They have posted over 400 reviews, and I bet I'm not the only one who jumped the queue.
Bottom line: I stand by my advice. It's okay to pay for HONEST reviews. It's not okay to pay people to post 5-stars reviews for books they haven't read.
II. Without reviews from family and friends, indie discoverability would go way down.
Discoverability is key. More reviews = better discoverability. Unless you can afford NetGalley, you probably will need people who know you IRL to review your book.
The fact is, Indie authors don't have big networks of early readers the way publishers do because we aren't companies, we are people. Books are a personal business. I don't understand why my family and friends should be silenced if they want to tell the world they liked my book.
The idea that family and friends have an indirect financial stake is so laughable it hurts. So few indie authors are making money, and those who are have gotten their books WAY beyond their family and friends, that it seems cruel to remove reviews from those who are just trying to their book out there.
Let's be real: It's not ideal to have only reviews from your mom and your sister and your college roommate. Just like my mom isn't the best job reference I've got--come on, she isn't biased!--she's not the best promoter of my book. But that doesn't mean she should be forbidden from writing a review.
The day I published Watch Me Disappear, my mom sat on my couch and spent about an hour typing her review on her second-generation kindle. Hers was my very first review. She was so proud that I couldn't have stopped her from writing that review if I wanted to. And you know what, that review is still there, on Amazon, for all the world to see.
Both of my books have reviews by family, friends, coworkers, former students, former writing teachers... And many of those reviews are indeed 5-starts, although may are not. Some of those reviews can't think of a critical thing to say, but many of them do tactfully measure praise with criticism. The fact that they know me does not necessarily mean they are lying about liking my book.
Further, traditional publishers use personal connections to sell books. Take a look at the author blurbs on the covers of bestsellers. Traditional publishers get authors within their lists to promote one another with blurbs that are essentially really short reviews. They don't have to publish them as Amazon reader reviews because they are paying for high profile shelf space in bookstores were those blurbs will be extremely visible.
Indie authors don't usually have a bestselling author who can blurb them, and we can't even get our books on the shelves of most bookstores, let alone in high profile places. But we can use our personal connections to get the ball rolling on reviews for our books.
Another troubling problem: Apparently reviews from those with a personal stake are only disallowed when they are positive reviews. Check out the reviews of the book You Deserve Nothing, and you'll see what I mean. Or maybe, since this book was published by a traditional publisher, its reviews aren't being held to the same, no-personal connection standard? I have no clue.
I suppose Amazon would say that your friends and family should feel free to talk up your book on social media and in person and so on, and they should! I hope they will! But do you have any idea how hard it is to get people to click-through from Facebook or Twitter, let alone go home and turn on the computer and go find your book? The impact of good reviews is bigger than just "talking it up."
Bottom line: I stand by my advice. Be a rule breaker. Encourage family and friends to share reviews if they feel comfortable doing so. Encourage them to be specific and honest. Amazon may reject their reviews, but at least you tried. And remember, if all your reviews are from people who share your last name, readers will see that it will hurt our book sales, anyway.
***
If I sound annoyed about all of this, it's because I am. The fact is Amazon is punishing indie authors because their families care while other less-ethical authors are still getting away with paying for bogus reviews all the time. Oh well. In the jungle, it's each author for herself.
To read more about discoverability, I encourage you to check out The Sane Person's Guide to Self-Publishing, and for self-publishing resources, check out this supplementary page.
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