Amazon Reviews (or not)

There’s long been complaints about the Amazon reviews system. Most recently Paul Carr at Tech Crunch addresses the issue after a segment of readers began to mark books as one star solely because the publisher hadn’t yet made a Kindle version available. This decision is completely out of the control of the author, so it does seem sort of dirty to punish the author for the publisher’s policies.

But this isn’t the first case, or first kind of review/rating manipulation to plague amazon. Any writer and author, particularly in the small press can tell you about the author who begs people to give them 5 star review only, encourages their friends and family to rate books they’ve never read, or even make multiple accounts (called “sock puppets) themselves to bump up their own rating. Likewise there are authors who reward fans for posting 5 star reviews, but not 3 or 4 stars. And authors who routinely post 1 star reviews to the books of people they see as competition, or people who they have personal grudges against.

Not to mention the occasional flare up of authors against bad and not so bad reviews and the people who post them (and worse, in this case, is the time Amazon actually banned the reviewer when the author campaigned against her 3 star review to the point where the author posted the reviewer’s home address. Remember, Amazon “fixed” this problem by BANNING THE REVIEWER.)

Over at agent Nathan Bransford’s digital place a discussion is going on on how to fix this. The first idea thrown out is to limit reviews to people who have bought the book from Amazon. This is a valid idea, however, it’s far too punishing, in my opinion.

See, I post almost all my reviews to Amazon, but I buy very little from Amazon. It’s common practice for authors and publishers to give out free copies, print or electronic, before publication, or just after, all to create a “buzz” of consumer interest in the book. Amazon already restricts reviews from being posted before the launch dates (even thought they’ve been known to ship books before the launch date.) And while cutting out people who buy books at competitors would be the exact kind of thing I’d expect from Amazon, it would also reduce Amazon’s usefulness to publishers (which in turn would make Amazon’s temper tantrums and  buy button removals less effective).

So why not a wikipedia style policy, where certain books are “locked” when “digital vandalism” occurs?

Well, if you want to know why not: It’s because amazon thrives on the loading of their ratings by authors and sock puppets, and the controversy of revenge fueled low ratings. It gets people going to Amazon, which is kind enough to suggest books the person might have forgotten about. The hardest part of business is getting people into your business and that’s what this level of community and interaction does for Amazon. It gets people looking, and you can’t sell if nothing’s bringing them in. Authors slant their Amazon reviews in the hopes that those 5 stars bring more sales, and Amazon encourages poor reviewer behavior because it helps put Amazon in a position to be irreplaceable.

So bad behavior will continue to be rewarded, especially the bad behavior of readers penalizing publishers for not having Kindle versions. Because, how can Amazon take over the ebook world if publishers keep resisting?