# All my Amazon reviews have disappeared!



## Brian G Turner (Jun 11, 2018)

Yep, all the reviews I've ever posted to Amazon have disappeared. I'm not sure why - I noticed last week, and my initial feeling was that it must have been an IT error.

However, _Gathering_ has just lost a review as well, so I wonder if Amazon has a new algorithm for cracking down on "fake" reviews - and it's throwing out the baby with the bathwater?

I don't see how I could possibly have broken Amazon's rules, though perhaps being the first reviewer on a few books might have raised a flag. Either way, I've emailed Amazon support about this and hope to get this resolved.

It does mean, though, that if you're an author here and I reviewed one or more of your books, those will now be missing on Amazon - though my Goodreads reviews don't appear affected (look how fake they are - lol!).

I do have a couple of reviews outstanding - Ellis Knox's _Goblins at the Gates_, and Ray Bradbury's _Farenheit 451_ - but I'll wait to see what happens before posting anything to Amazon or Goodreads.

*UPDATE*: And... they were re-instated! See this post and the one following it for more information/speculation: All my Amazon reviews have disappeared!

*UPDATE 2*: I now suspect the reason my account was flagged was due to a high ratio of self-published books (especially ones with relatively few - if any - reviews) being posted.


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## thaddeus6th (Jun 11, 2018)

I've heard, some years ago, that if chaps leave mutual reviews (so self-published authors, for example, reviewing one another's work) that can lead to all your reviews being tossed out. It's one of the reasons, along with laziness, why I very rarely put anything up on Amazon.

As you say, could just be an IT error.


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 11, 2018)

I don't do mutual reviews, though. Over the years, the total number of chrons authors I've reviewed who have also reviewed me is... 3. 

One of them was you - but you never asked me to read anything by you, let alone review it. I read your _Kingdom Asunder_ (abridged version) because it was free and I wanted to see how other self-published fantasy compared to mine - that is all.


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## thaddeus6th (Jun 11, 2018)

I always said you had exquisite taste and impeccable judgement 

However, it's possible that might be enough to trip the Algorithm of Doom, particularly if they've tweaked said algorithm. Such nonsense afflicts Youtube videos on a host of subjects (put the wrong word in the title and you get the video demonetised. It can be reviewed and overturned by an actual human, but that takes long enough that most of the views [and hence missed income] have already happened).


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## Hugh (Jun 11, 2018)

When I click on your "Gathering" on Amazon.uk there are 24 reviews.

When I look at my profiles on both amazon.uk and amazon.com, my reviews are still there.   

Recently I did find it was impossible to post a review on amazon.uk unless it was a verified purchase.

Almost all my reviews are not "verified purchase" (I use a different email account to order books), but they don't seem to have been cleansed.


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## crystal haven (Jun 11, 2018)

Yep, 24 reviews.


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## awesomesauce (Jun 11, 2018)

Brian G Turner said:


> Yep, all my reviews on Amazon have disappeared. I'm not sure why - I noticed last week, and my initial feeling was that it must have been an IT error.
> 
> However, _Gathering_ has just lost a review as well, so I wonder if Amazon has a new algorithm for cracking down on "fake" reviews - and it's throwing out the baby with the bathwater?
> 
> I don't see how I could possibly have broken Amazon's rules, though perhaps being the first reviewer on a few books might have raised a flag. Either way, I've emailed Amazon support about this and hope to get this



Apparently there's a lot of stuff going on with Amazon right now. They changed some of the review rules, especially for non-verified purchase, and minimum spending levels, and there's stuff going on with them taking away KU reads too.

I'm not up on the details, not a big Amazon reviewer, or a reviewer in general, though I try to throw some love at self published books I enjoy.


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 11, 2018)

Well, I just tried to post my latest reviews to Amazon, but got the following message:



> *Sorry, we are unable to accept your review of this product.*
> 
> Your previous review of this product did not comply with our Customer Reviews Guidelines. Amazon does not permit reviews from customers whose relationship to the product or seller may be perceived as biased.



So it seems as though Amazon prefers it if writers don't review other writers - and especially not someone who leads a community of writers.

I can appreciate Amazon's position on this, but removing every single review I've ever made for every single product from the past 10+ years seems more than a little extreme.

I'm not sure whether to be bemused or indignant - especially as one of the books I tried to post a review for was Ray Bradbury's _Farenheit 451_!


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## HareBrain (Jun 11, 2018)

Brian G Turner said:


> So it seems as though Amazon prefers it if writers don't review other writers - and especially not someone who leads a community of writers.



It seems odd, and heavy-handed, that there should be a blanket ban on reviews. I wonder if they actually detected your link to this community, or if you were just unlucky.


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## Toby Frost (Jun 11, 2018)

They've got rid of a few of mine, too. Can't they find something better to do?


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 11, 2018)

HareBrain said:


> It seems odd, and heavy-handed, that there should be a blanket ban on reviews. I wonder if they actually detected your link to this community, or if you were just unlucky.



Presumably their algorithm looks for connections between people. As I used to send books for the winners of the writing challenges, I have especially wide connections across the chrons community - not just for book reviews.



Toby Frost said:


> They've got rid of a few of mine, too. Can't they find something better to do?



At least it's not just me! Perhaps we should start a club?


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## tinkerdan (Jun 11, 2018)

I've been waiting for this to happen to me.

Apparently I'm small potatoes.


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## Toby Frost (Jun 11, 2018)

We'd better not let Amazon know about the club, though. They'd delete us for that!


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## Jo Zebedee (Jun 11, 2018)

I’ve had this happen with other reviewers - and that’s it. Gone, kaput etc etc. It’s very frustrating but I don’t know of anyone who has managed to successfully challenge it. 

It’s why I now only review on Goodreads.


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## HareBrain (Jun 11, 2018)

Has there been any sign of Goodreads doing this kind of thing? Given it's owned by Amazon, you wonder why not (though of course I'm hoping they don't).

Brian, how many reviews had you posted?


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## Toby Frost (Jun 11, 2018)

Ah - I meant reviews of my books, not reviews that I'd written. (I've not written any.)


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## tinkerdan (Jun 11, 2018)

I suppose at some point goodreads will follow suit; however they seem to move like molasses to amazons water like flow.

I have had Amazon block my reviews at times and the first time was because I mentioned the author's name too many times and with too many words around the name that something or someone was afraid I was defaming the author.

The funniest thing to happen though was when they kept bouncing one for content and I kept reading through it and could find no references to the author or any such attacks and was baffled until I remembered that I had put a quote from the book into the review. When I checked it there was a word in the direct quote that apparently reviewers are not allowed to use and I had to alter the quote so that it was no longer accurate and it finally went through. 

Seems like a double standard there; when they can't allow you to use a word they allow an author to use in the book. But I wouldn't want to argue that and begin supporting censorship of authors works.


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## thaddeus6th (Jun 11, 2018)

I was thinking of putting some of my blog reviews on Amazon, but this has completely put me off. I don't want to lose the reviews I've got, or cause others to get their reviews taken down.

I do remember hearing of this silliness some time ago. Sometimes tech giants can be quite daft.


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## Jo Zebedee (Jun 11, 2018)

Brian- your reviews have value as the sff Chronicles reviews. I know on Inish I have a quote on the cover from it and just attribute it to the Chrons. 

Why not make a virtue of Amazon’s weirdness, and make your reviews exclusive to the Chrons. It drives traffic, and also adds kudos to the writers to say they were reviewed on the site.


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## tinkerdan (Jun 11, 2018)

There are a number of ways for this to happen.


Toby Frost said:


> Ah - I meant reviews of my books, not reviews that I'd written. (I've not written any.)


Some outside of Amazon's control.
Since a reviewer can either edit or delete their review at any time there is a huge area of flexibility.
An author responding to a review(in any way) can prompt such action.
An author getting abusive of the Reviewer can cause the removal.(If the reviewer is a speed-reader they might also be able to get a refund--even(especially)on an e-book.)

And it is possible that if enough people complain about a specific review it can be removed--this can go either way when someone is defending the author, or someone suspects it's a sock-puppet.


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 11, 2018)

HareBrain said:


> Brian, how many reviews had you posted?



I'm not sure, but even the product reviews I've posted over the years are gone - everything. And as with the above message, I'm not allowed to post any more.



Jo Zebedee said:


> Why not make a virtue of Amazon’s weirdness, and make your reviews exclusive to the Chrons.



I will be doing that. 

I had wondered if Amazon didn't like the duplication of reviews over Amazon as well as Goodreads, but I'll still put up things here. However, it's noted that I can no longer trust Goodreads.


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## crystal haven (Jun 11, 2018)

I think one review of my book vanished, but I don't think reviews I've made have. I thought originally you were meaning reviews of your own book, Brian.


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 11, 2018)

Oops! Have corrected my opening sentence so as to be more clear.


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## awesomesauce (Jun 11, 2018)

tinkerdan said:


> I suppose at some point goodreads will follow suit; however they seem to move like molasses to amazons water like flow.



I doubt it will happen soon, if ever. They basically bought Goodreads because Goodreads wouldn't give Amazon links prime placement over other retailers. They care about maintaining (at least the appearance of) objective and quality reviews on Amazon, but I don't think they give a crap about the reviews on Goodreads as long as the purchase links are funneling people to Amazon.


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## Serendipity (Jun 11, 2018)

I rarely put a review on Amazon, which is probably why I've never triggered their reviewers' ban. But it does leave me wondering... 

If the genuine regular-ish reviewers such as Brian are banned, this leaves more of the other reviewers like me who tend to review books by the more famous authors. Would this then not reinforce the proportion of reviews for these more famous authors in disproportion to the up and coming authors?

Or in other words, could Amazon be creating bias to the more famous authors, thus making the divide between the few wage-earning authors and the wannabe authors?

Or am talking just here?


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## Abernovo (Jun 11, 2018)

Hugh said:


> Almost all my reviews are not "verified purchase" (I use a different email account to order books), but they don't seem to have been cleansed.





Jo Zebedee said:


> It’s why I now only review on Goodreads.


I had a problem in the past, and wasn't able to post a review. As I don't buy books from Amazon, if I can help it, I have few verified purchases I can review. So, like Jo, I mainly review on Goodreads.

I'll probably still review there, but cross-post here, where appropriate.

Query for @Brian G Turner: would you ever consider a non-sff review board? Nothing massive--the focus of these forums are (and should remain) sff--but similar to the Literary Fiction board in Books and Literature (not that I review 'literary' fiction). Sorry if I derailed there.


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## Juliana (Jun 13, 2018)

I think mine are all there. BUT we have two accounts; a household account under my husband's email, which is where I (sometimes) post reviews from (I don't post a lot on Amazon, sorry!), and my author account under my own email. I don't review from that one, ever.


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## Montero (Jun 20, 2018)

I have the vague memory from a couple of years back that Amazon banned authors from reviewing other authors after a few went around dissing their direct competitors books.
Other than that there is also LibraryThing - and on there you can also recommend books - set up a "hey if you liked x you will like y" - looks for a "because" as well and puts your user name on it. You can link a book to two or three others.


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## Guillermo Stitch (Jun 21, 2018)

I'm in the process of publishing my first book and publication day (July 1st) will bring with it the task of contacting everyone who has left a review on Goodreads and asking them to post on Amazon as well. I'm urging them all, as tastefully as I'm able, to buy a copy but of course many won't and that's fair enough. Those that do, presumably, will have their reviews waved through as "verified purchase". Or is even that naive of me?

The Amazon terms do make me nervous. I wonder how many of the reviewers will have their review turned down on the basis of some such algorithm. I only have about 17 reviews to work with at the moment, although more have been agreed, and I'm keen to get at least 10 over on to Amazon pretty much straight away, so that I can start at least considering book promoter options with minimum rating threshholds. 

Does anyone have any experience with this specific process and how it went for them?


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## HareBrain (Jun 21, 2018)

Guillermo Stitch said:


> Those that do, presumably, will have their reviews waved through as "verified purchase". Or is even that naive of me?



If they've bought it from Amazon before leaving a review, it will be a verified purchase, surely? Why wouldn't it?

I'm not sure what you fear regarding their systems in your case. Is it that contacting your readers on Goodreads will be noticed by Amazon's algorithms and the reviews rejected as being by connected parties? I really don't think they're that sophisticated.


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## Guillermo Stitch (Jun 21, 2018)

HareBrain said:


> If they've bought it from Amazon before leaving a review, it will be a verified purchase, surely? Why wouldn't it?
> 
> I'm not sure what you fear regarding their systems in your case. Is it that contacting your readers on Goodreads will be noticed by Amazon's algorithms and the reviews rejected as being by connected parties? I really don't think they're that sophisticated.



I don't know really. I think I may just be afflicted with a general anxiety about the whole process. For example, two of them have the same surname as me. All of them are solicited reviews, although all have been solicited honestly. I suppose I'm just braced to have "the man" step on my neck and ruin all my considerable efforts.

Pessimism runs in the family. In the country, actually.


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## HareBrain (Jun 21, 2018)

I have Amazon reviews from Goodreads friends, and also a few mutual ones (though honest, I hope, both ways). Brian's is the only one that's been removed. So while it's not guaranteed, I think you should be safe.


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## Vertigo (Jun 21, 2018)

Guillermo Stitch said:


> I'm in the process of publishing my first book and publication day (July 1st) will bring with it the task of contacting everyone who has left a review on Goodreads and asking them to post on Amazon as well. I'm urging them all, as tastefully as I'm able, to buy a copy but of course many won't and that's fair enough. Those that do, presumably, will have their reviews waved through as "verified purchase". Or is even that naive of me?
> 
> The Amazon terms do make me nervous. I wonder how many of the reviewers will have their review turned down on the basis of some such algorithm. I only have about 17 reviews to work with at the moment, although more have been agreed, and I'm keen to get at least 10 over on to Amazon pretty much straight away, so that I can start at least considering book promoter options with minimum rating threshholds.
> 
> Does anyone have any experience with this specific process and how it went for them?


I don't know the full situation here but are these reviews from people you have already been in contact with? If not I would be very hesitant about asking such a thing; if any author contacted me asking me to copy a review from goodreads to amazon I would be very unimpressed; I might, for example, have ideological reason for not posting my reviews on Amazon. Just a thought.


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## Guillermo Stitch (Jun 21, 2018)

Vertigo said:


> I don't know the full situation here but are these reviews from people you have already been in contact with? If not I would be very hesitant about asking such a thing; if any author contacted me asking me to copy a review from goodreads to amazon I would be very unimpressed; I might, for example, have ideological reason for not posting my reviews on Amazon. Just a thought.



No, they are largely people who received a copy of my book and agreed to review with the understanding that the review would be posted in multiple locations, the most common combination being their own bookblog, Goodreads and Amazon. 

The Amazon reviews can't be posted under a book that hasn't gone live there, for example under a book that is only available for preorder. Therefore these people will be getting a reminder from me on the 1st to do something they have already kindly agreed to do. None of that is the issue. 

Amazon own Goodreads, so it would be interesting, to say the least, to listen to the arguments for any ideological objections, but I note your point.


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## HareBrain (Jun 25, 2018)

Brian, I see your review of TGP is back (the UK one, at least). Have they restored them all?


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## Jo Zebedee (Jun 25, 2018)

They're back, Brian! At least, mine seem to be. Which brings me back, once more, to a maddening 49 reviews on Inish Carraig. The day I reach 50 I'm going to screenshot it before Amazon take them all away again!


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 25, 2018)

Cheers for the heads up - my stats say 60 are back up, with 158 likes, going back to 2007. However, it looks like quite a number are missing, especially recent ones.

What's interesting is that my review for _The Ironsmith_ by Nicholas Guild is showing as posted on December 2017.

That's interesting because that date directly tallies _only _with my Goodreads date for the book - which is wrong.

I actually reviewed it back in December 2015, but Goodreads appeared to have a database crash at the end of 2017, in which book review dates became mixed up.

TL;DR: It looks as though Amazon may have tried to sync my Goodreads reviews, but the process crashed - taking my reviews down with it.

Possibly because of the Goodreads dates being wrong.

I originally suspected an IT error, and it looks more like one now - in which case, I'd expect my other reviews on Amazon to slowly re-appear.


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 25, 2018)

Actually, no - I've just received an email from Amazon titled: _A Message from Amazon Review Moderation_



> Hello,
> 
> We have reviewed this situation and have restored your reviews & reviewing privileges to our site. We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.
> 
> ...



So my account was indeed flagged - then cleared - but I still find it odd that _The Ironsmith_ review on Amazon has the same incorrect date as on Goodreads.


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