All my Amazon reviews have disappeared!

[Brian G Turner]

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.

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.

 

[crystal haven]

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.

 

[Brian G Turner]

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

 

[awesomesauce]

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.

 

[Serendipity]

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?

 

[Abernovo]

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.

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.

 

[Juliana]

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.

 

[Montero]

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.

 

[Guillermo Stitch]

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?

 

[HareBrain]

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.

 

[Guillermo Stitch]

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.

 

[HareBrain]

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.

 

[Vertigo]

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.

 

[Guillermo Stitch]

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.

 

[HareBrain]

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

 

[Jo Zebedee]

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!

 

[Brian G Turner]

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.

 

[Brian G Turner]

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.

Thank you for your understanding.

Warmest regards,


Review Moderator

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.