Amazon’s Rules for Customer Reviews (Part 2)
Last week I explained the rules I recently discovered that Amazon has for customer reviews. This week I’m going to share what I learned about legitimate ways to get around those restrictions.
1. Second-hand friends
Even though your “close friends,” family members, and fellow authors you have a “personal relationship” with aren’t supposed to post customer reviews, you can ask people you know to encourage people they know to do it.
2. Social media
When you’re promoting your book on social media, you can ask your Facebook friends and Twitter followers to post reviews. After all, not all of those people qualify for “close friend” status.
3. Customer Reviews are different from Editorial Reviews
An “editorial review” is described as “a more formal evaluation of a book, usually written by an editor or expert within a genre, but can also be written by family and friends.” The author can add editorial reviews through his or her Author Page.
4. Amazon has a Customer Discussions feature … if you can find it.
Amazon’s page of rules for customer reviews states, “Your family and friends are welcome to share their enthusiasm for your book through our Customer Discussions feature.” It took me quite a while to figure out where that was, even after reading Amazon’s directions. So I have to wonder if other people are even aware of it. (I’ll be posting more details about this feature in my next blog.)
I don’t know. Maybe everyone else knows all about this stuff. Or could be these things are fairly new, and I’ve just been too busy editing, teaching at writers’ conferences, and putting together my Fiction Lover’s Devotionals to hear about it.
If you’re a reader, I’d love your feedback on this.
- Have you ever posted a Customer Review on Amazon for a book you’ve read? Was it positive or negative? How many stars did you give? What prompted you to write that review?
- Do you ever make your decision about whether to purchase a book based on Customer Reviews?
- Do you read the Editorial Reviews of a book you’re considering? Have you ever decided whether or not to buy a book based on what you read there?
I’m really looking forward to hearing your responses!
And “tune in again next week” for more details on that Customer Discussions feature.