The world of Amazon book club reviews has changed, and authors need to pay attention. We’ve seen firsthand the impact of Amazon’s recent crackdown on review practices. In the months of October – November 2024 12 members of our own network have had their review privileges revoked by Amazon. In these cases, we confirmed that these individuals were using multiple book review club services simultaneously, leading to an unnatural surge in reviews for their books, which triggered their accounts to get flagged. None of our members who solely use GetBooksReviewed.com as their only book review club have been affected by this new crackdown.
This is not an isolated incident. Major players in the self-publishing industry have reported similar experiences to us during meetings about potentially recommending our service as a better alternative for their members. Their members, who used competing review clubs, faced account bans and book removals from Amazon on a massive scale.
How Does Amazon’s Crackdown Play Out?
While Amazon keeps the specifics of its review monitoring system under wraps, we’ve observed some patterns that suggest how their crackdown unfolds:
- Automated Flagging: Amazon appears to use automated systems to flag accounts exhibiting suspicious review activity. This may include:
- Excessive Review Frequency: As a reviewer leaving an unusually high number of reviews in a short period, often more than could realistically be read in that short of a time period.
- Abnormal Review Volume: As an Author receiving a disproportionate number of reviews compared to similar books released around the same time.
- Review-to-Purchase Ratio: As an Author receiving a high number of reviews compared to actual Kindle or paperback sales can trigger red flags. A healthy balance shows more genuine reader engagement.
- Unverified Review Imbalance: While unverified reviews are legitimate, an unusually high proportion compared to verified purchase reviews can seem suspicious. Aim for a natural mix that reflects typical book review patterns.
- Quiet Period & Mass Bans: After the initial flagging, there seems to be a period of inactivity lasting several months. Then, suddenly, we see waves of account bans or review privileges revoked within a short window of 1-2 weeks. This suggests that human reviewers may be involved in a final review process before taking action.
This pattern highlights the importance of organic and authentic review practices. By focusing on genuine feedback and avoiding any behavior that could trigger Amazon’s algorithms, authors can minimize their risk and contribute to a healthier review ecosystem.
Why is this Happening?
Amazon is on a mission to eliminate fake and incentivized reviews. For example, they’ve launched a series of lawsuits targeting companies that sell reviews or guarantee specific ratings. This crackdown is aimed at ensuring that all reviews on their platform are genuine and trustworthy.
The Unintended Consequences
While Amazon’s efforts to combat fake reviews are commendable, this crackdown has also impacted legitimate book review clubs like GetBooksReviewed.com. The reality is that the stringent terms they have added specifically for book review clubs like ours have limited our ability to provide insights and act as moderators.
Here’s how these changes affect our platform and your experience:
- Reduced Transparency: Previously, we could show authors each individual review they received, allowing them to see the quality and star rating given by each member. Amazon now prohibits this level of individual review monitoring, limiting transparency for authors in our network.
- Elimination of Direct Moderation: We used to act as moderators, requesting members to correct inaccuracies or reconsider reviews that seemed off-topic. This helped us identify those who weren’t genuinely engaging with the books and we could quickly act to request that they remove or correct their reviews. Amazon has removed this ability, forcing us to adopt a completely hands-off approach to individual reviews. While we can still offer guidance on best practices, we can no longer directly address specific review concerns.
This shift, while understandable from Amazon’s perspective, has some drawbacks:
- Limited Author Insight: Authors have less insight into the specific feedback they receive, potentially hindering their ability to understand reader perspectives fully.
- Reduced Quality Control: While we still monitor reviews internally, the lack of direct moderation for individual reviews makes it more challenging to address unhelpful or irrelevant reviews.
Ultimately, these changes place the onus on authors to report any review issues directly to Amazon. While we remain committed to helping facilitate quality reviews, these new limitations require a shift in how we operate and how authors interact with our platform.
Our Solution
At Get Books Reviewed, we’ve adapted our practices to ensure full compliance with Amazon’s evolving community guidelines. Here’s what we’re doing:
- Strict Screening Before Accepting Books: We are ramping up our screening process to exclude potential “bad actors” before they can do any damage. We’ve noticed a strong correlation between the quality of a book and the quality of reviews a member leaves for other books. Additionally, books that are of lower quality (spelling errors, poor grammar, low quality images, etc.) will not do well in our network as our members will be honest and give them bad reviews, so it’s best they are stopped before they get a bad review for their low quality book and before they can leave unthoughtful low quality reviews for other members in our network.
- Prioritizing Impartiality: We encourage our members to leave honest and unbiased reviews, regardless of their rating.
- Providing Review Training: We offer guidance on writing thoughtful and constructive reviews, whether positive or negative.
- Monitoring for Fake Reviews: We actively identify and remove any members who engage in suspicious activity. We require each member to write an honest review based on their experience of reading the whole book. Members can leave positive or negative reviews, but they must be real reviews. While we are no longer able to address any specific review given on behalf of an Author we can still ban reviewers who are leaving fake reviews. We even have new legal avenues to consider using against fakers/scammers that may try to take advantage of our network thanks to the new FTC ruling on leaving fake reviews.
The Silver Lining
While these changes may seem daunting, they ultimately create a more transparent and trustworthy review environment for everyone who has a great book and is willing to write honest reviews for others. By ensuring our membership only has members who are willing to give genuine feedback and adhere to the highest ethical practices, we can all contribute to a better experience for readers and authors alike which meets the goal of all of Amazon’s new community guidelines.
Join the Movement Towards Authentic Reviews
Get Books Reviewed is committed to providing a safe and compliant platform for authors to connect and share feedback. We believe in the power of authentic reviews to help authors grow and help readers discover their next favorite book.
Want more info? Check out our technical article on Decoding Amazon’s Review Guidelines for Book Review Clubs.
Join GetBooksReviewed.com today for a free 20-day trial and rest assured that you’re being fully compliant with Amazon’s new terms and policies.