My Take on New Amazon Review Policy

Amazon is trying—once again—to keep reviewers honest (meaning to keep them more credible, more trustworthy) and (possibly) to boost book sales on Amazon. But let’s give them credit for the more altruistic goal, huh?

In the note I received directly from them they say,

“Shoppers consistently tell us that they value reviews from other shoppers who they know have purchased the product on Amazon. As a result, we are introducing a policy change around customer reviews. Customers can now only submit a limited number of non-Amazon Verified Purchase reviews each week. The count is calculated each week from Sunday at 12:00am UTC through Saturday 11:59pm UTC. Your ability to submit Amazon Verified Purchase reviews will not be impacted. This policy also does not apply to Vine reviews or reviews on digital and physical books, music, and video.”

This is how readers can identify an Amazon Verified Purchase review: 

•  There will be an Amazon Verified Purchase badge near the review. They hope that helps assure readers that the review represents a “typical customer experience with that product.” It may, but there is no guarantee of that. On the other hand, it may make it easier for readers to identify authors with an agenda who try to undermine their competition with bad reviews. Yes, this cn happen.

•They also say “ Reviews that are not marked “Amazon Verified Purchase” are valuable as well, but we either can’t confirm that the product was purchased at Amazon or the customer did not pay a price available to most Amazon shoppers."

For more details, please see our Amazon’s guidelines  at https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201929730.

So, you see, as an author who reviews, it is highly unlikely that you will review that many products or books within a short period of time. As an author who wants to get as many reviews as possible, it his highly unlikely that the readers you ask to review your book will have exceeded that maximum either!

And, if you want to increase the number of reviews on your amazon buy page (and you should!), my new How To Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically: The ins and outs of using free reviews to build and sustain a writing career will help you with that process. I promise you it will! You’ll find all kinds of ways to make your reviews work harder for you, too. 

MORE ABOUT THE BLOGGER

 Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. She is also a marketing consultant, editor, and author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers including the award-winning second editions of The Frugal Book Promoter and The Frugal Editor. Her latest is in the series is How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically. Learn more on her Amazon profile page, http://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile. Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers is one of her booklets--perfect for inexpensive gift giving--and The Great First Impression Book Proposal, another booklet, helps writers who want to be traditionally published. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including one she encourages authors to read because it will help them convince retailers to host their workshops, presentations, and signings. It is A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. In addition to this blog, she helps writers extend the exposure of their favorite reviews at TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com. She also blogs at all things editing--grammar, formatting and more--at The Frugal, Smart,and Tuned-In Editor (http://TheFrugalEditor.blogspot.com)