Punch-drunk Indie Author Finds Sobriety
In the past few weeks, people have come out from behind their writing desks in veritable droves to share their stories with us. As a result, we are learning more every day about the lack of transparency at Amazon.
We briefly touched on the topic in an article called “The Politics of Privacy” which referenced UK author and prolific book reviewer, Christoph Fischer. He agreed to give us an interview, in which he states that his recent experience with Amazon was a sobering one:
“Almost as soon as I had published my first book and was waiting and hoping for reviews, I understood their importance for indie authors. So I began to review everything that I read (including Stephen King and Armistead Maupin novels). I was a novice to social media and slowly got to know other authors and readers via Goodreads and Facebook author/reader groups. I learned how to use Twitter and my blog to connect with readers.
“I was naïve to connect to all of them, accepting all friendship requests and following everyone back on Twitter. On Twitter and FB, I also found many interesting books and invited authors onto my blog. Little did I know that this would come to haunt me and make me a ‘fraud’ in Amazon’s eyes. They even took my reviews for Maupin’s books down, thinking that I’m friends with him. (I wish!)
“I’d heard of big review purges on Amazon when I first started out reviewing: They were mainly targeted at non-verified purchases and the problem was resolved by adding the phrase, “I was given a copy of this book in exchange for a review.” Many authors had, however, irretrievably lost hundreds of legitimate reviews over this. At the time I believed that Amazon had good reasons to do this, even though it felt odd. Amazon had welcomed me as writer with open arms and I didn’t want that romance come to an end over its reviewing policy. I carefully labelled all of my reviews according to that rule from day one.
“The other, more legitimate target was people writing multiple reviews. One author was rumoured to have written 600+ reviews for her own books by constantly creating new Amazon accounts and again, I naively stood behind this enforcement. I had met said author and deemed her capable of it. She had to be guilty. Amazon and Goodreads used IP addresses to stop this practise. However, what they also did was deleting reviews by husband and wives who shared a computer and a taste in similar books. The stubbornness and brutality that the victims of those purges reported astonished me.
“Since I never lost any reviews I still quietly trusted the system - until it happened to me. I only wish that I was actually friends with Armistead Maupin, whose books I reviewed. I wish Armistead Maupin and 1700 author ‘friends’ had paid me to review their books.
“All anger aside: I completely understand that Amazon needs to do something about fake reviews and can’t discuss its methods in public. But the cold, impersonal and authoritarian style it goes about it, and the lack of common sense, shows a bullying side to the company that has sobered me up."
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Look for the complete interview later today on The Official Prose. Blog at: blog.theprose.com/blog.