It appears Amazon has expanded the ethical guidelines for book reviews. Now it’s official: authors can’t review their own books. And someone who works for you — or has a financial interest in your book — can’t post a review, either.
This long expose in the Cincinnati Beacon treads some familiar ground, but contains some interesting nuggets:
Ever read a book review on Amazon.com that was so rah-rah and uncritical that you wondered if the reviewer might have connections to the author or publisher? That’s what happened to us recently. A few mouse clicks later, we found ourselves asking serious questions about scores of five-star book reviews posted by one Amazon user and her connections to a prominent national PR company in Clearwater, Florida.
And here’s specifically what Amazon has outlawed (more details here):
Promotional content:
- Advertisements, promotional material or repeated posts that make the same point excessively
- Sentiments by or on behalf of a person or company with a financial interest in the product or a directly competing product (including reviews by authors, artists, publishers, manufacturers, or third-party merchants selling the product)
Reviews written for any form of compensation other than a free copy of the product
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3 Comments
Perhaps I’m being too concrete, but it doesn’t really specify that relatives cannot post their opinion. I assume that if the relative sees no financial gain (how many of us share our meager royalties/profits with our relatives!) that their opinions would still qualify. Am I missing something here?
(1) I don’t see how this is enforceable. All a prohibited person needs to do is create an alternative online identity, make a token purchase from Amazon to activate the account (can be done with a purchased debit card) and post away.
(2) Reading the guidelines, it appears that, strictly speaking, they apply only to reviews. That would make responses to reviews, as well as forum posts, fair game for authors, publishers, agents, family etc. to post under their own identities.
Just a thought,
-Steve
Reading the guidelines, it appears that, strictly speaking, they apply only to reviews. That would make responses to reviews, as well as forum posts, fair game for authors, publishers, agents, family etc. to post under their own identities.