Authors worry relentlessly about ‘paying for reviews.’ What are the concerns, and are they founded? What are the differences between the services offered online? Cate Baum, resident Amazon mythbuster steps in to calm your concerns.
When should I pay for a book review?
MYTH: NEVER! OR YOU AND YOUR BOOK WILL BURN!!
TRUTH: You should pay for a professional book review when you need a respected opinion to use as copy for promotional purposes. This is exactly what any author, from Stephen King to JK Rowling does when they hire a publicist. You then own the copy and can use it as you please to promote your book including on the cover of your book, on your website, on a tearsheet, or any other promotional material you send out.
It is not illegal or underhanded, and it is known as a professional or Editorial book review, and often has a star rating. These reviews are written by a reviewer who works full-time in this profession, and the review is produced from an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy), PDF, or galley.
They are also used on the Editorial Reviews section of Amazon book pages, accessed via Author Central, Amazon’s specially provided service for adding these reviews and other information about an author and their books. So even Amazon has endorsed this sort of review.
What is a Paid Book Review?
MYTH: Any time you part with cash for a review of your book.
TRUTH: When you hear about Paid Reviews, what people are actually talking about is a very small percentage of services on sites such as Fiverr and Upwork, where an author can pay a freelancer to leave a review for their book. The reason this is frowned upon is that some services only leave five-star reviews. This is not allowed on Amazon, according to their Community Standards.
All Customer Reviews must be honest and unbiased, and Amazon’s view is that paying someone to leave a review means they cannot be honest and unbiased.
It’s worth mentioning that a Paid Review is also ‘paid’ if you buy tokens and use these to swap reviews or ask for reviews from other authors or your peers on a forum or group.
What is NOT a Paid Book Review?
MYTH: Every time you pay for a service that provides reviews.
TRUTH: Mailer promo services are not “Paid Review Services.” Let’s say it again. MAILER PROMO SERVICES ARE NOT PAID REVIEW SERVICES!!!! These include BookBub and our service at SPR.
These services are okay because we are providing a service to promote to our mailing list of readers, who have ‘qualified,’ i.e. they told us when they signed up that they review on Amazon or Goodreads, and like certain genres.
We do not speak to the people on the list about their reviews. We simply send them an email with books in it and say, “These books are out now on Amazon, at a discounted price.” A percentage of readers then buy and review the book. This is why we can’t give a specific number of reviews on our services, only a range, because we cannot force anyone to buy and review the book.
This promotion method is basically the same as targeted ads on websites, and is considered a legitimate way of advertising your book.
How can I tell the difference between Paid Review Services and Mailer Services?
It’s very simple. If the service offers a specific number of UNVERIFIED reviews (the book is not purchased before it is reviewed on Amazon,) then you are looking at a paid review service. If the service offers VERIFIED reviews (i.e. the book is purchased and reviewed on Amazon) and has a range of reviews as its outcome, that is likely a mailer service, and you can use it.
Often, paid review services are advertised on Freelancer, Upwork, and Fiverr, and reviewers will not be US/UK, i.e. English native speakers. This is another way of checking the review service is not a Paid Review service.
What is a Shill/Fake Reviewer?
Lately, there have been some pretty derogatory newsletters floating about calling certain veteran Vine Voice reviewers “shills” or “fake reviewers.”
Vine Voices are invited to review books by Amazon, and are highly-valued members of Amazon’s review community. They are real people who also often belong to mailer lists outside of Amazon, and they review many books every week for fun (not many books per day, as exaggerated for effect in the latest round-robins). Just for clarity, it’s fairly normal for me as a book-reading professional to read five books a week, cover to cover, so this is not as impossible as it may seem.
Contrary to popular gossip, Vine Voices are not paid for their work, but they do get the perk of first-reads for releases. So these reviewers are not fakes, nor shills. They are simply hobbyists who like to stack up reviews.
A fake reviewer would be created by a bot or by a person who creates a fake account using a cloned credit card, and the review is made up quickly, without care. The account would have no real history on Amazon, and these accounts are often deleted by Amazon within hours. They are useless and don’t really help get reviews as they are reported and deleted fairly quickly, so these sorts of methods are fading away by those who try to use them. So the fake reviewer is a bit of a boogeyman in this day and age.
Sometimes, genuine reviewers always leave five-star reviews. The debate here is whether a genuine reviewer should be leaving five stars every time, and does that make them fake?
The answer, in my opinion, is that as the community rule is that there can be no interference from the product owner, and reviews have to be the reviewer’s own opinion; if they choose to always leave five stars, they have that right – as long as their review is well-written, honest, unique, and critiques the book.
What is a Genuine Review?
Any Amazon review that has been written by someone who read the book and then left their opinion, which is an honest, unbiased, and unique piece of copy they wrote themselves. It doesn’t matter what star rating they leave.
What is A Fake Review?
Often on forums, you see people calling out ‘fake Amazon reviews.’ But fake reviews are actually very specific, and have certain very recognizable facets:
- An overly positive review, usually written by a friend, colleague, family member, or another author, to puff up the book’s rating – unfortunately, these ‘goodwill’ reviews do more harm than good.
- An overly positive review posted by an author who then has an overly positive review posted by the author of that book on their own page, i.e. review swaps (NOT ALLOWED)
- A review on a separate account but on the same IP/household/office internet connection
- A cluster of reviews on separate accounts that appear suddenly and come from the same geographical location, such as the same area of a town or an institution
- Reviews that are posted directly after buying the book (Kindle only) before the book has been read
- A review written poorly by a bot or cut-and-pasted from other book pages, i.e. not unique to that book
If a review has these characteristics, it’s likely that it will be flagged for removal.
Will my account be removed if I get fake reviews?
MYTH: Your account will be removed by Amazon if you pay for reviews and you’re doomed!
TRUTH: They will likely suspend your account and write to you. You will have to comply with whatever they want you to do to re-publish the account. This may be simply telling them you were not aware you had broken the rules or sharing the service provider details.
However, it’s easy to avoid fake reviews by following the advice in this article.
I bought fake reviews by accident. What to do?
- Ask the service you used to remove the reviews immediately. I doubt you’ll get a refund, but clean that account!
- Report the reviews to Amazon for removal by clicking under the review to Report if they refuse to/can’t remove them
- If you have no other reviews, consider deleting the book page and re-publishing your book afresh
- Follow my top tips below
What are the top tips for getting Amazon Reviews for my book?
- Don’t scrimp. Cheaper services are likely using the sinister methods not allowed on Amazon
- Use well-known services with testimonials that only employ methods that are allowed by Amazon, such as mailing promos and book tours
- Remember fake reviewers are rare in the new age of Amazon’s reporting and checking system and will be deleted pretty quickly
- Never pay an individual freelancer for an Amazon review via an escrow system such as Freelancer, and that is a ‘paid’ review
- Fake reviews are not arbitrary boogeymen, but actually have a set of characteristics that are easy to identify and avoid
- Never ask a friend or family member to leave a review of your book – frustrating, but not allowed on Amazon
- Use other promotion methods such as getting good-quality copy via an Editorial review, taking out ads, and doing book tours and interviews that will drive organic traffic to your book
- Ensure your keywords and categories are well-chosen to keep your book visible on Amazon
And finally, RELAX! Most of what you read is clickbait, and often the most outrageous stories recycle when actually they are years out of date and don’t apply anymore. As long as I have been working in this industry, nigh on twenty years, ten hours a day, the same outrage specters like to pass through the corridors of our industry every now and again as hobbyists declare themselves experts and write about their learning curves.
As with all ghosts, it’s best to ignore them, knowing that while the publishing industry is a cutthroat one, it’s far less so than some would have you believe.
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I am more concerned with vexatious vindictive and groundless reviews by idiots who disagree with some of your content. Amazon refuses to investigate such complaints and undermines the same authors it is supposedly promoting.