Several years ago Amazon discovered a few authors who had posted, or paid people to post, fake reviews about their books. Glowing reviews, meant to entice readers to buy said books.
Amazon ruled it dishonest and did a thorough house cleaning. Thousands upon thousands of fake reviews disappeared practically overnight.
Great! Without all that clutter honest people, like me, have a chance of getting our books noticed.
Or so I thought. Until I realized Amazon had never heard the saying about not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
‘Cause it didn’t take long for the raids to begin. Amazon special forces, probably dressed all in black, swoop in overnight, dig through my reviews, and snatch away any they deem not ‘honest’ enough.
They repeat this process every few months and have been doing this for years. I’ve lost count of how many reviews have been seized and destroyed. It’s a lot. The number of my books’ reviews that have mysteriously disappeared far outweigh those that have survived.
I’m a small player in the publishing world. My books are published by a boutique publisher with a small marketing budget, which means that I buy books to send to potential reviewers with the request that they write an honest review.
Sigh.
As a business model, it simply doesn’t make sense.
Why would Amazon want to make it difficult to sell books on their site?
Amazon is too big for its britches! That’s what I say.