Amazon Foo

[ysabetwordsmith]

Amazon is now, apparently, deleting reviews by authors and even deleting books reviewed by authors.  So if you want to make trouble for another author, you can review their books on Amazon.  That's, um, special.

Comments

[lynnoconnacht]

o_O (I feel like either I'm misinterpreting what's actually going on or Amazon's policies here just make no sense to me...)

(In other Amazon-related news, have you heard about this petition? I don't recall you mentioning it, so I thought I'd pass it on. ^-^)

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I had not heard of that petition, and have signed it now. Thanks for the tip! That's just one of many ways that large corporations use to cheat people of money owed to them, so the corporation can just pocket it.

Re: Thank you!

[lynnoconnacht]

I hadn't even thought that it might've been deliberate! (That's... even more depressing...)

[krait]

Thanks for the petition link! Signed. :D

[msstacy13.livejournal.com]

As you know, Bob,
I was recently proven wrong about the Supreme Court's First Sale Doctrine case,
so maybe I'll be proven wrong again.
I'll risk it.
As yet, none of my reviews of other books have been removed,
nor have reviews of my books by other authors been removed.

Apparently, this censorship only applies to "sweetheart" reviews,
by authors sharing a publisher.
I could be wrong.
Anyone? Anyone?

[zeeth_kyrah]

I haven't done any research except reading the linked post, and it says this is happening even without a shared publisher.

[msstacy13.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

If so, that may narrow the focus, but does not remove the problem. Consider that a vast majority of books are published by a very small number of publishers, so that many-many authors would be in the same category.

Also, a big part of the problem is Amazon's refusal to communicate. That's not restricted to this complaint; it's a broad company policy that appears in almost every incident. When something goes wrong, individuals are usually out of luck; the company will not respond with any meaningful information about what happened, why, or how to fix it. That is always a bad thing.

Re: Well...

[msstacy13.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

What? Like writers don't read?

That's all ****** up!

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Matter of fact the reviews I rely on most are by someone who is herself an author...

I encourage anyone who does creative stuff to make their stuff available outside of Amazon, because I won't do business with them. Not to say they can't make it available on Amazon *too*, I just won't buy it there. Much prefer buying cash (or card) on the barrelhead... 'specially if it's physical media, that way I can get it signed too :)

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

What if you leave a review, THEN get a book published, thus becoming an author??

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Presumably they'll delete your reviews. It's a very bad call in an age when more and more people are becoming writers now that the publishing bottleneck is breaking up.