Hi folks,
Many, if not most of the folks who visit
my blog are writers or avid readers. Therefore, I think you are the best
possible audience to let know what recently happened to me.
As you know, it takes a lot to create a
book. In my case, I average about a year for each book. Since writing is my
only job, that’s a year without pay. Then, once the book is done, I have to
find an agent, and/or find a publisher. Once a publisher is found, that’s not
the end of it. Now there are edits to perform. All of this takes time and work.
My next novel, for example, took a little over a year to write and I actually
sold it seven months ago. It’s scheduled to launch in November. A long time
from when I wrote the first words.
There are a lot of things arrayed
against the publishing of a book and a lot of time to wait on a paycheck if it
overcomes all the obstacles. Up until now, it’s just been part of the deal.
Nobody likes it, but we all accept it.
And now, one more obstacle has been
thrown into the mix. And this is a big one.
As you know, unless you’re a brand-name
author, any publicity you get for your work is hard won. Mostly, publicity for
your work consists of reviews for it. And, virtually the only place reviews can
be placed and seen is on Amazon. Authors have little to no control over the
reviews they get. Folks buy and read your book and then post their opinions of
it on Amazon. Hopefully, their reading experience was positive and so is the
review they write and post. Not always. And, we have no control over that.
Over many years, I’ve received many
reviews for the books I’ve written. Thankfully, the vast majority of them have
been positive. Very few negative ones. And, they’ve helped tremendously with
sales.
Imagine how I felt when about a week
ago, I decided to check the number of reviews I had for my books. I knew a
couple were getting close to those “magic” numbers that trigger Amazon’s
algorithms and once achieved, leads to them including your titles in various
promotions. I’m not sure what those numbers are, but someone told me that 50
reviews was one of them. A couple of my books were approaching this number.
One that had been close was my novel,
THE GENUINE, IMITATION, PLASTIC KIDNAPPING. I hadn’t checked in several weeks
but the last time I had it was at 48 or 49 or thereabouts. When I clicked on
the title, I received a severe shock. A bunch of reviews that had been on it
for months and sometimes years, had disappeared. They only showed 23 reviews!
After telling several writer friends and notifying the publisher, I was hugely
disappointed in their responses. A couple of friends said things like, “I’ve
heard of them doing that,” and offering their condolences, and the publisher
saying the same things, but no one offered to help me figure out what had happened
or what my recourse could be.
It took some digging and trying to
figure out Amazon’s maze to reach an actual person, but I finally did. I sent
an email and a couple of days later, received this:
|
|
|
|
|
This time, I went through their maze of
responses and finally got a real person to talk to. Oh… also, by this time,
reviews for another book of mine, BOMB!, had vanished close to 40 reviews or
more and there were only 11 left! Here’s the exchange I had next.
Hi Les Edgerton, Ada here.
A
10:44 AM
Hi Ada,Reviews have disappeared from my books on sale
with Amazon. Last week, over 30 reviews disappeared from a novel and this week
about the same just disappeared from another novel. I responded to the first
instance and got an email saying that there were four reasons this happens, but
it didn't tell me which of the reasons applied to mine, nor was I given any
info on what I could do to remedy the situation. Now, it's happened again. I
don't have a clue why this is happening.
10:45 AM
Ada | Customer Service
Oh no!
Sorry to hear that.
Let me check it for you.
A
10:47 AM
Yep. I've been a loyal customer of Amazon's for many
years--have purchased many, many books myself as well as sold my own books.
This is disturbing as I've never had any problem in the least with y'all.
10:48 AM
Ada | Customer Service
i don't have a direct contact to the department that
handle this kind of issue at this moment,is it okay if I sent an email to
them?they'll just get back to you after 24hours.
A
10:52 AM
That would be great, Ada. I just don't understand
this at all. Now I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop... wondering which book
is next on someone's hit list. Reviews help drive my sales and are very
important to me. Thank you for any help you can give me--I appreciate it.
10:54 AM
Ada | Customer Service
i already send an email to them
they will just get back to you after 24 hours
A
10:56 AM
Bye and have a good day. I appreciate your
help.
Ada | Customer Service
Thank you for contacting Amazon.
Have a great day!
Take care and God bless.
A
10:57 AM
I got a reply from them and they didn’t
actually lie—I received it after 24 hours… to be accurate, after 72 hours, and
it was the same message they’d sent the first time, this time signed by a guy
named Justin H. Up to this point I had been polite and restrained, but this was
too much. Here’s what I sent Justin (or whatever his or her real name was):
Justin W
This is totally unacceptable.
This is out and out censorship. Someone is systematically removing dozens of
reviews from my books and I have no recourse to see who or why they were
removed? This flies in the face of everything that is American and is more akin
to something done in a repressive country like Russia, Cuba, North Korea or
China.
Of your four "reasons"
I cannot think of a single review I have ever received that would apply to any
of those criteria.
i have spent literally thousands
and thousands of dollars on Amazon books and other products. This is simply
venal and evil.
Les Edgerton
I don’t know what to do. I guess I’m
hoping that enough of you will forward this to friends and make it go viral and
maybe Mr. Bezos will see it and realize the kind of censorship his minions are
performing. Probably not. If you think this can’t happen to you, think again.
Someone in a cubicle or working from his mom’s basement seems to have control
over you and your livelihood.
Or maybe thousands of you will rise up
and flood Amazon with millions of reviews for my books. Yeah…
I’ve just never felt this helpless. I
depend on your wonderful reviews to help sell my books and to have some halfwit
just take them down for one of their “reasons” arbitrarily because his mommy
forgot to put the jelly on his PB&J sandwich or wash his tidy whities on
time just makes me want to meet this dude in a dark alley and “talk” to him. I
can face my accuser in a court of law, but I can’t face the unknown moron who
is messing with my livelihood on Amazon. It’s clear they have us writers by the
short hairs and care nothing about our rights. This is a cautionary tale—this
is what monopolies like they’ve become often do.
If anyone has any idea of any recourse I
might have, please let me know. I’m just sick. This is symptomatic of many
other things happening to our country and our rights.
Blue skies,
Les
Posts
4 comments:
Hi Les. Sometimes (quite often) the missing reviews reappear. Just signaling the problem may be enough. Give it a few days. JJ
Thanks, JJ. From your mouth to God's ear! This is just inexcusable. This affects my livelihood, my reputation as a writer, etc. I cannot understand why more writers aren't upset over this kind of thing. We work hard to write books that people will enjoy and want to review and Amazon just does what they want. It's just plain irresponsible. And, when something affects my livelihood, I want to "talk" to the person responsible, up close and personal.
One thing you said is disturbing: {Sometimes (quite often... Quite often? So this happens a lot? That's very disturbing.
Thank you for your support!
Post a Comment