# Fake Amazon Reviews



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 27, 2012)

Edit: I thought this initial post was eaten by the Internet gods when my mobile app crashed. It is posted in similar fashion under the Chit Chat forum. Apologies.

I've been reading some interesting articles on promotion tactics of some authors in the form of post fake reviews. I know there are quite a lot of self-published authors here on MS so I am curious what the general consensus is on this topic.

This is not limited to self-published authors, posting fabricated reviews for their own works. Apparently some traditional publishing houses have gone so fat as to hire teams to fake favorable reviews of their own client's work and disparaging reviews of what they consider to be the competition.

My own personal view is that as long as a book is actually read, and a review is given honestly, I don't take issue to friends or authors reviewing each other's works. Some of the examples stated in the articles were obvious fakes though. They claimed things like "better than Tolkein" when the work looked and read amateurish, and all of the reviews were by accounts that never reviewed any other books at all. In my view, that is misleading the consumer & bad for all authors, especially self-published.

Thoughts?

Some links:

http://www.bestfantasybooks.com/blog/tag/amazon-fake-reviews/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/technology/finding-fake-reviews-online.html?_r=1

http://newsblaze.com/story/20090802171258jude.nb/topstory.html


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## Frog (Jul 27, 2012)

1.  I do not know of any way to stop it without shutting down the review system entirely.

2.  Friends and colleagues giving an honest review does not constitute a "fake review."  In fact, if another author puts his or her seal on a book, that author is really hanging herself out there.  Author A endorses a book by Author B, and it turns out Author B sucks, then I don't know that I want to read anything by Author A, either.

3.  Hiring a promotional team to call an amateur book "Better than Tolkien" isn't really all that surprising.  I don't particularly like it, because it tends to water down the positive reviews of those authors that earn them.  I just don't know that there's much to be done about it.


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## Penpilot (Jul 27, 2012)

To me sample size and quality of arguments matters in reviews. I usually read a few good reviews, a few bad ones, and a few in the middle when possible. I try to gauge how thoughtful reviews are and add weight to those who sound sincere.

Call me a cynic but I auto assume all first reviews are by the author's best friend and/or mother. But in the end, you can't hide from the truth. Once a person reads a book or even a sample they'll know if its bad or not and tell anyone who'll listen. There's nothing like being tricked into purchasing a book by a review to add incentive for someone to write a bad review to balance out the fake positive one.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 27, 2012)

Frog said:
			
		

> Friends and colleagues giving an honest review does not constitute a "fake review."
> 
> Hiring a promotional team to call an amateur book "Better than Tolkien" isn't really all that surprising.



I agree with the first point. Like I said, as long as the work is actually read & reviewed with some honesty.

The "better than Tolkein" reviews are more the realm of a single author & a shill account. The marketing teams hired to post reviews are not so obvious in their falseness.


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## Frog (Jul 27, 2012)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> The "better than Tolkein" reviews are more the realm of a single author & a shill account. The marketing teams hired to post reviews are not so obvious in their falseness.



I don't know, some of those hacks can be really terrible.  Regardless, though, I think my point stands.  They suck, but what can you do?


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## Zophos (Jul 27, 2012)

That's why I generally start with the one star reviews and work my way up.

It's fairly evident that many of the 5-star reviews are shills. Honestly, who would take the time to write a 500 word essay on how great a book was, even if it was a very good book?

I don't put a great deal of credence into 1-stars that are that long either, because I've seen quite a few reviews that were pretty clear hack jobs by rivals or accomplices of rivals. The reason I start with those is it's pretty easy to pick out the hack jobs and get to the ones that have actual reasons the book was poorly written.  If I hated a book I sure as **** wouldn't waste 500 words on it.


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## TWErvin2 (Jul 27, 2012)

There will always be people who try to game the system (any system, really). A lot of readers sort of expect it, like at Amazon, and pretty much know what to look for: only that book reviewed by that reviewer ever, generic or unrealistic statements, reviews posted the same day the novel was released coupled with not listed as 'purchased', among other things. 

The first review of Blood Sword sort of demonstrates this.  It starts: "_I'm somewhat surprised that I'm the first to write a review of this excellent book since it's several months' after its release. Perhaps it's because it slipped out into publication with little fanfare. The author really needs to get with it and learn the rules of independent publishing...namely, any release needs to include having 10-20 glowing reviews posted from shills so that the book can make the "most popular" filters of the Amazon website. Well I'm going to post what I hope is a glowing review, but I'm no shill..._"

While I ask for folks to who read my works to review them, it rarely happens. For me, it's just the way it is. I don't hound people. For me, even family and close friends, even ones that really enjoyed the read, don't _far_ more often than they do. A lot of reviews for Flank Hawk and Blood Sword, I have no clue who the people are.

I do post reviews, not of everything I read. If it's an author published by a small house or self-published, if I can't give it at least a decent review, I just don't post a review. Maybe that's wrong on my part. But what I do post is honest.

I believe that readers who do pay attention to reviews to as part of their decision making with respect to what they're going to read have become aware and wary enough to identify/sift out the 'fake' reviews. Certainly they'll leave a bad taste, so having them can come back to bite an author. At least that's the way I see it.

I just posted a review today for one of the works of a writer here on Amazon after reading the story. It was an honest review. I enjoyed the story and I hope the review helps him attract additional readers, not only to that story but to other ones he's published.

But really, there's not much that can be done about 'fake' reviews. I do occasionally see a reviewer post a low rating and mock the high rating reviews. Not so sure if that's the best thing to do.

In any case, they're out there, and readers just have to be aware. Amazon, I suspect, has calculated into their algorithms, routines that lessen the positive impact of likely fake reviews with respect to various rankings. In addition, the look inside feature is something many readers use, and I believe can discount the impact (positive) of 'fake' reviews.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 27, 2012)

I noticed that Amazon now requires the reviewer actually purchasing the product & instituted a 48 hour wait period after purchasing before a review can be posted.

At least shills will have to fork over 30% of the list price to Amazon to post a review I guess.


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## Frog (Jul 27, 2012)

Zophos said:


> If I hated a book I sure as **** wouldn't waste 500 words on it.



I wish I could say I was that Zen.  When I find a really bad book I will, on occasion, unleash the fury.  I view it as something of a public service to warn people away from those books whose very existence makes the world a stupider place.


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## TWErvin2 (Jul 27, 2012)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I noticed that Amazon now requires the reviewer actually purchasing the product & instituted a 48 hour wait period after purchasing before a review can be posted.
> 
> At least shills will have to fork over 30% of the list price to Amazon to post a review I guess.



I am not so sure that's accurate.

There is something that identifies if a reviewer has purchased a copy of the work, but purchasing via Amazon is not necessary to post a review. Even if you have an account, it is necessary that you've actually purcased something on Amazon, I believe. But I just downloaded on my Kindle and read a short story today, and posted a review about twenty minutes later.

Now, Amazon can and does track if a reader has read a novel on the Kindle. They can even track what pages they stopped on, and how long they stay on a page. There have been several articles published, discussing this. I did a blog post on it, based on a report by NPR (E-books: Are You, the Content, and Your Actual Reading being Tracked?) Maybe this was a factor in the 48 hour window. Maybe it's because I've posted a number of reviews over the years. I'm not really sure.


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## Steerpike (Jul 27, 2012)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I noticed that Amazon now requires the reviewer actually purchasing the product & instituted a 48 hour wait period after purchasing before a review can be posted.
> 
> At least shills will have to fork over 30% of the list price to Amazon to post a review I guess.



I think you can review so long as you have an account and have purchased anything at all from Amazon.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 27, 2012)

Hmmm... Well maybe they should allow reviews only from someone who actually purchased the book.


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## Steerpike (Jul 27, 2012)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Hmmm... Well maybe they should allow reviews only from someone who actually purchased the book.



Well, the only problem with that is that people give away copies of books to reviewers and bloggers for the specific purpose of reviewing them. Also, there are many books people may have read but not purchased through Amazon. I don't know that there is a good way to limit reviews to people who actually read the book without being overly-restrictive in the other direction.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 27, 2012)

Just read this....

On Amazon, when customers open a new account, they're required to make a purchase and then wait two days before posting a review. This limits the reviews to the number of credit cards the reviewer holds, and cuts down on fraud. Some sites don't bother to set limits and do minimal monitoring; on those sites, anything goes.

Any truth to that limitation?


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## Steerpike (Jul 27, 2012)

@T.Allen.Smith - That doesn't make sense to me. Limits the number of reviews to the number of credit cards a person has? I only have one credit card on file with them and have posted more than one review. Some reviewers on that site have posted hundreds of reviews. So as far as I know that is not an actual limitation.


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## Christopher Wright (Jul 27, 2012)

My personal policy is if I find out an author has been involved in fabricating (or sock puppeting) reviews, I will not read that author. While I consider myself a self-publishing supervillain, I'm not petty. You have to beat the good guys because you're awesome, not because you cheated.

I'm going for Magneto-level villainy here.

Anyway, there are reviews on Amazon where the identity of the reviewer is a confirmed buyer of the work, and reviews where the identity is not. So you're not required to buy the book to review it, but you do have to have an Amazon account.


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## Steerpike (Jul 27, 2012)

Yes. I just went to Amazon, logged in, and clicked the button to write a review of a work I did not purchase from them. It gave me the web form to write the review, no problem.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 27, 2012)

Christopher Wright said:
			
		

> My personal policy is if I find out an author has been involved in fabricating (or sock puppeting) reviews, I will not read that author.



That seems like a solid policy.....





@Steerpike - I took the credit card bit to mean that you can't post more than one review per a specific product or book. Since you need to purchase thru a cc to open an account, they could restrict multiple reviews for a single product.

If you had 7 credit cards, you could have 7 accounts & leave 7 fakes reviews for a book, but only one per account for that same book.

Have you tried doing 2 reviews for the same book?


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## Steerpike (Jul 27, 2012)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> @Steerpike - I took the credit card bit to mean that you can't post more than one review per a specific product or book. Since you need to purchase thru a cc to open an account, they could restrict multiple reviews for a single product.
> 
> If you had 7 credit cards, you could have 7 accounts & leave 7 fakes reviews for a book, but only one per account for that same book.



I see. Yes, that's a more sensible interpretation 

That is probably accurate. I wonder if you need a different email address for each account as well?


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 27, 2012)

Steerpike said:
			
		

> I see. Yes, that's a more sensible interpretation
> 
> That is probably accurate. I wonder if you need a different email address for each account as well?



More than likely that is the case. Email addresses usually are required to be unique for online vendors to avoid multiple accounts.... That being said, I haven't tried this with Amazon but their required sign-in ID is an email address.


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## BWFoster78 (Jul 27, 2012)

To me, the purpose of a review is to find out whether or not I will like the book.  In order to do that, there has to be some substance.

If a reviewer says: this book is great!  5 Stars!!!  That doesn't help me in the least, and I skip over it.

If the review says: This is what the book is about, this is what the author did right, and this is what the author did wrong.  I will pay attention to it.  

I guess the shill reviews are more about getting quantity than anything else, right?  In that case, it doesn't really bother me that much.


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## Philip Overby (Jul 28, 2012)

I never buy a book if it has all 5 star reviews from Amazon.  Never.  Especially if the book only has 2 or 3 reviews.  A good example of a book I'd buy would be this one:

Customer Reviews
4.3 out of 5 stars
(2,563)
4.3 out of 5 stars

5 star
1,754

4 star
362

3 star
131

2 star
134

1 star
182

This is an extreme example of course, but this particular book has loads of 5 star reviews, but has enough of the others to balance it out.  That means the book has been read my a multitude of people and I need to decide which side of the fence I'm on.  (The book in question is A Game of Thrones, by the way).

This poses a conundrum with small press or self-published books.  I very rarely buy a small press or self-published book unless it's someone I know or if I've heard enough good things from people I trust.  Meaning I would never buy one of these books sight unseen just browsing about Amazon.  If someone I know wrote it or I've heard a lot of good things word of mouth, then yes, I'll buy a small press or self-published book.  I just don't trust random people in small numbers.  Random people in bigger numbers?  Sure.  Bottom line is that I rather spend 9.99 on a book that I know I'll more than likely love than 1.99 on a book that only has 5 star shill reviews.


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## Steerpike (Jul 28, 2012)

I tend to ignore reviews and base my decision on the sample.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 28, 2012)

Phil the Drill said:
			
		

> This poses a conundrum with small press or self-published books.  I very rarely buy a small press or self-published book unless it's someone I know or if I've heard enough good things from people I trust.  Meaning I would never buy one of these books sight unseen just browsing about Amazon.  If someone I know wrote it or I've heard a lot of good things word of mouth, then yes, I'll buy a small press or self-published book.  I just don't trust random people in small numbers.  Random people in bigger numbers?  Sure.  Bottom line is that I rather spend 9.99 on a book that I know I'll more than likely love than 1.99 on a book that only has 5 star shill reviews.



I tend to be the same Phil & this is exactly why I believe that posting these shill reviews hurt self-pubbers more than anyone. When reviews are dishonest in nature, people tend to avoid that entire group in order to protect themselves.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 28, 2012)

Steerpike said:
			
		

> I tend to ignore reviews and base my decision on the sample.



A great feature indeed... I use it for anything I think about reading. That's one of the beautiful features of an e-book.


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## BWFoster78 (Jul 28, 2012)

> Bottom line is that I rather spend 9.99 on a book that I know I'll more than likely love than 1.99 on a book that only has 5 star shill reviews.



Why would anyone buy a book based solely on reviews anyway?  It's so easy now to download the sample chapters.

If the synopsis and reviews pique your interest, read a chapter.  If the writing sounds good, buy it.



> I tend to ignore reviews and base my decision on the sample



Exactly.

If I'm on the fence, I'll try to find a review that gives the pluses and minuses, but I'll never buy anything based on just reviews.


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## Philip Overby (Jul 28, 2012)

I thought we were just talking about reviews.  In that case, reviews do influence me some, but I must have like 80 samples on my Kindle now.  Most will never be bought.  But downloading that sample could be influenced by reviews.  Even if it's free, I don't want books that I'm not going to read clogging up my Kindle.

This is the order I go in:

1.  Recommendation by an author I like or someone I trust
2.  Look at reviews
3.  If they look good, I download a sample
4.  If I like the sample, I buy it


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## The Dark One (Aug 3, 2012)

Can't see the point of shill reviews. I've never bought a book on the basis of a review except for reviews in major media.

I was once put in the embarrassing position (when my first novel came out in 2010) of having to go onto a forum and fess up that a handful of my friends had decided it would be a really good idea to go onto that forum and start raving about my book. It was pretty obvious when three or four new forumites who've never posted before all start raving about something. Regulars soon twigged and started making jokes about it. My publisher (FFS) rang me and said I'd better get on and start the damage control.

A related story - and I wonder whether anyone has had a similar experience - there is a particular review site (I won't name) where you can submit your book for review. I sent my new book to them and after the initial 40 days (or whatever it was) I received an email saying that none of their reviewers had wanted to read it, so it was being taken down. I could, however, opt for one of their guaranteed reviews for approx $40. Possibly against my better judgment I paid the $40 - mainly because my publisher was not terribly proactive in the review and marketing dept and I craved professional feedback.

Two weeks later I got the review notice and was delighted to get 5 stars and their special big thumbs up...but when I read the review, I was gobsmacked. The reviewer, while raving about the book, did not engage with any of the book's major themes and made several factual errors. Immediately I thought, this is just a money making exercise. I'll bet no-one gets a free review and they just prey on the poor saps stupid enough (like me) to fork out the $40. Then they read every tenth page and cobble together something that vaguely resembles a review and give it 5 stars. I read through a number of their reviews, for interest sake, and didn't find a single one that wasn't 5 stars.

So I had a bit of a laugh at my own stupidity and vowed never to make that mistake again.

Any similar tales of woe?


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Aug 3, 2012)

The Dark One said:


> Can't see the point of shill reviews. I've never bought a book on the basis of a review except for reviews in major media.



You haven't, but there exist plenty of people who look over the general reviews for something and say "Hm, lots of 4- and 5- star reviews... and this is subject matter I like... okay, it's probably worth a read," and then buy it.

I've bought other things (not fiction) based on user reviews alone. Mostly computer products at Newegg. I would likely do the same thing with books on Amazon if I didn't already have a colossal backlog of things to read. (But then, I'm talking about things with dozens of reviews, not one or two.)


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## Steerpike (Aug 3, 2012)

I'll buy stuff at Newegg based on reviews, particularly if there are a great number of positive reviews. I figure the reviews aren't likely to be from the mom of the person who put the ASUS motherboard together in China. With books, it seems more likely that friends and family are involved.


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## Amanita (Aug 3, 2012)

I think doing this is kind of pathetic. And if it's too obvious, it'll do more harm than good as The Dark One mentioned above. 
Most of the time, I read the reviews on side like Amazon after having read the book because I'm curious about other people's opinions and how they see the stuff. (Usually, I don't find anyone who wants to do this, at least for books other than Harry Potter.) Most of the time, I'm picking out reviews with less than five stars because I want to read about things people disliked as well.
If I do read the reviews before buying, I'm specifically searching them for infos on stuff I like or hate no matter what they think about it. 

Other potential readers probably go about this differently but I really doubt that many will buy a book because there are generic reviews telling them how great it's supposed to be.


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## Penpilot (Aug 3, 2012)

Amanita said:


> Most of the time, I read the reviews on side like Amazon after having read the book because I'm curious about other people's opinions and how they see the stuff.



I read reviews for movies and books after the fact too for exactly the same reasons. I think it's a good exercise in comparing your personal tastes with others and seeing where disagreements are. I won't buy a book based only on a review, but on occasion, after seeing the cover, I'll pick something up based on general feel of the blurb, reviews, and my personal likes. I used it as an exercise in spot the BS.


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## robertbevan (Aug 4, 2012)

The Dark One said:


> Can't see the point of shill reviews. I've never bought a book on the basis of a review except for reviews in major media.
> 
> I was once put in the embarrassing position (when my first novel came out in 2010) of having to go onto a forum and fess up that a handful of my friends had decided it would be a really good idea to go onto that forum and start raving about my book. It was pretty obvious when three or four new forumites who've never posted before all start raving about something. Regulars soon twigged and started making jokes about it. My publisher (FFS) rang me and said I'd better get on and start the damage control.
> 
> ...





this is the most honest and entertaining thing i've read all day. thanks so much for sharing this.


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## gavintonks (Aug 4, 2012)

Their are warehouse of people in India paid to surf the net for information and /or paid to post information they get US$0.50 for 10 posts so it is huge income for traffic generators


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## Devor (Aug 8, 2012)

Frog said:


> 1.  I do not know of any way to stop it without shutting down the review system entirely.



Yelp does reviews with fewer of these kinds of problems.  All of your reviews are logged and saved, but they don't appear until you're qualified.  The qualifications system is "buried," and you won't know how to become qualified until you've been active for a while and it happens.

At least, that's how it was the last I looked.

((edit))  Not to confuse anyone, you review businesses on Yelp, rather than books.  I only meant that a better reviewing system can be done.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Aug 8, 2012)

Gonna check that out....


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## ALB2012 (Aug 11, 2012)

I have seen a few dodgy 5 star posts but then again I have seen some evil 1 star ones. I tend to draw my own conclusions. I don't often review on Amazon now.

I gave a 3 star review to a book via GR recently, the story was excellent but the editing was awful, the author actually switched character names in the whole of a chapter and their were lots of silly typos. However I saw it had a 5 star review of which I was sceptical, but maybe the reviewer isn't as picky as me. I don't mind if friends leave me a review so long as it is genuine. I would never pay for a review though. i think that is rather underhand.

Excuse typos today. I have Carpal Tunnel syndrome and trying to type wearing wrist splints.


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## gavintonks (Aug 12, 2012)

there are over 1 million slush pile stories out there with many wealthy people with a firm belief thy are the author we are all waiting for. However they are prepared to pay between US$ and anything to US$8 000.00 to get some sort of leg up in the food chain [you notice leg up, not help to be better writers] so their is a vast array of - for a small fee we will x many thousands who say I do x help to get your story, noticed, published on-line etc etc etc


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## Endymion (Aug 12, 2012)

It's pretty low, isn't it? Aragorn wouldn't do that...


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