• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Amazon Review Throttling

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
So, I heard from one of our readers that Amazon's started sharply limiting the length of book reviews for Kindle copies, while physical copies remain unchanged. In a five-minute search I couldn't dig anything up, but it might help explain why we've had ratings but no reviews for several months. Can anyone confirm?
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
Why would amazon care if text is written. Doesnt cost them anything. But… maybe.

Many companies put their thumb on reviews for reasons favorable to them. It would not be the first time amazon was accused.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
I haven't got a clue. And not sure why it would slow down reviews. And I doubt most reviewers would spend too many words on a review to hit a limit.
 
I don't see a specific limit, besides a minimum length of 20 characters.

I did recently see a post in a ARC Facebook group that Amazon is acting up against people posting reviews for books they got for free. Which they do by throwing out posts that contain words like free, ARC, review, etc. Knowing Amazon, their bots probably became trigger happy and they swung too far the other way, throwing out anything that remotely looks like the user knows the author or something like that.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
Still don't know if the reviews are being throttled. Now that I see the importance of reviews, I try to review everything I read on both Amazon and Goodreads, but...if I am inclined to rate it low, I might just not review it.

Amazon seems to hold a lot of my reviews with little rhyme or reason. One goes right through, and another gets held for a week or more.

I think they don't like if I do more than 3 a day. But...they don't seem to mind if I put up a fourth.

Its funny, they send me emails saying Thanks and keep up the good work, and then they throw some of them in limbo like they are not legit.

I do wish Goodreads was more accessible to authors... I have a few friends there, but most of the groups have no life. A good place to talk about reading, but not a good place to promote, I find.


I will say, some of those reviews on Goodreads are...trying to win the approval of the crowds (for lack of a better way to say it). Some go to great lengths to get attention with them, using graphics, and a lot of witty expressions. Some tend to be quite long. I dont see the same on Amazon. Perhaps that is what amazon does not want.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
My personal policy:

One review at a time. I don't pick another book for review until the day after the review for the first book was posted. Partly, this has to do with my eye issues.

That said, about a fifth of the reviews I have submitted so far were delayed for up to a week before being posted,

Two or three reviews of my books have vanished from Amazon for unknown reasons. As best I could tell, none of the reviews I posted were deleted.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
Heh...I've been grabbing them as soon as I posted the review. They wont let me have two at a time, but I have been quick at it.

Im gonna try one of the reading rounds on goodreads, if they let me in. We'll see.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
Heh...I've been grabbing them as soon as I posted the review. They won't let me have two at a time, but I have been quick at it.

I'm gonna try one of the reading rounds on Goodreads, if they let me in. We'll see.
Last I checked, there is a Reading Round on Goodreads with a few open spots. I doubt you'll have any review conflicts.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
I just dont really want a general crowd. If the list includes everything from books on how to do your taxes to erotica, I dont want some dude who has no interest in fantasy to draw my book in the random selection. That's not what I want.

But....its not like its getting reviews otherwise. We'll see how it goes.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
I just don't really want a general crowd. If the list includes everything from books on how to do your taxes to erotica, I don't want some dude who has no interest in fantasy to draw my book in the random selection. That's not what I want.

But.... it's not like it's getting reviews otherwise. We'll see how it goes.
Looks like you are in your first Goodreads Group. Most of the titles seem to be fantasy of sorts. I reviewed at least one for Authentic.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
Could have gotten a twofer for that one.

I think somehow we moved from the authentic thread to this one. Imma continue in that.
 
Top