Reader's Guide To
An Amazon Kindle Review
Even Amazon Loves

You love the book. You spend time writing an Amazon Kindle review. But will Amazon accept it?

That depends on how you write it.

Some people have had trouble with their reviews being removed from Amazon. Why Amazon does what it does is hard to figure out at times, but here are some things you can do which might help prevent that from happening.

Simple steps to keep your Amazon Kindle review from being removed

DO:

Write your own review.

I've seen people copy and paste other people's reviews. I've seen people write the same words in multiple places, or copy what I put in the description.

Amazon doesn't like that.

A review is a place for you to write what YOU thought and felt about this particular book.

This is not the time to use a template, or an "Amazon review script." Remember, if someone is publishing a script, thousands of others are using it too. You could be accused of copying if you use these.

Now, I offer suggestions in my article about writing a review. But these are meant to give you ideas, not for you to copy word for word.

Include where you got the book.

If you bought your Kindle ebook from Amazon, you can skip this, because believe me, they know.

But if you got it free from me, or bought it somewhere else, you need to tell Amazon that.

Why? In the US, Amazon can be fined $250,000 per case of fraudulent testimonials (where the person had some financial incentive - like got it free - and didn't say so). So they WILL remove your book review if it's not clear where you got the book from.

This leads to:
   

DON'T:

Don't link us together on social media.

I've been online since the mid-1990's, but I have tried my best to keep my personal and business lives separate by making separate accounts on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Why? Because Amazon will assume that if we know each other, I twisted your arm to make you give me a good review.

All authors are not as careful as I am, so the best thing for all reviewers to do is unlink your Amazon and Goodreads pages (Goodreads is owned by Amazon) from social media, so you don't accidentally make perceived connections with authors you don't intend to.

It's probably even better to use a different email address for your social media accounts from the one you use for Amazon and Goodreads, just to be sure.

And while I would love to be your BFF, as an author I discourage reviewers from friending me on my personal social media pages. Because it's not worth getting your reviews removed - or worse, your account - because Amazon thinks you're posting fake reviews.

Don't include spoilers or attack anyone.

If you put spoilers in your Amazon Kindle review, or make negative personal remarks about the author, their friends or family, the author or other readers will flag the review and it may be removed.

What are "spoilers"?

The word "spoiler" means any information which is only found in the book. It spoils the book for others to know things like:

• who dies
• who's really alive that we thought was dead
• major exciting things we learn in this book
  
• what happens to a major character
• the ending (duh!)

This is not a book report or a synopsis. This is a book review. It is not cute, or funny, or clever to put spoilers in a book review.

If you put spoilers in an Amazon Kindle review, you will not only make other readers angry with you, you could cost the author sales. Reviews with spoilers are often flagged by other readers for Amazon to remove.

So please do not put spoilers in your reviews.

Reviewing the book vs critiquing the author

An Amazon Kindle review is meant to help other readers see what real people think and feel about the book. Comments about the way the author wrote the book are fine. For example, if the book has a lot of typos, or parts of the book don't make sense, or there was a plot hole.

But when you begin attacking the author (or their friends, family, etc) in a personal manner, this is considered abusive. An abusive review is grounds for Amazon to remove the review.

For example:

• Making links between the subject matter and the author's personal life (they wrote a novel about stealing, so they must be a thief)
• Lewd comments about the author
  
• Speculation about the author's personal life, friends, workplace, or family (their boss must be horrible for them to write a story about a terrible boss like this)
  
• Implying that the author is fantasizing about the topic, particularly difficult topics such as domestic violence, child abuse, or sexual assault
  

Unless an author is writing a memoir, or on some other non-fiction topic, what they are writing should be assumed to not be real in any way unless the author publicly says so. Authors get their ideas and story lines from many different places, including news reports, historical accounts, and hours of research.

Don't make personal comments about an author. It's unnecessary, and shows much more about the way your mind works than it does about the author.

Don't "review" a DNF (Did Not Finish)

If you didn't finish the book, there's no reason to review it. How can you possibly give a review of something you haven't read?

The only exception to this are books which have horrible formatting, or serious and repeated typos and grammatical errors which come past the "Look Inside" section. This is something which should have been caught by Amazon, and you're letting other readers know.

Unless there is something so bad about the book that it's unreadable, avoid giving a DNF Amazon Kindle review. They aren't helpful to other readers, and are more likely to be flagged as inappropriate.

These suggestions should help you have a successful Amazon Kindle review! If you have any other suggestions, please let me know. I want as many reviews to stay on Amazon as I can get!

Patty

This blog post is partially underwritten by my Patrons.

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• digital versions of all my books and stories - even ones not yet published - at no extra cost
• massive discounts on merchandise
• behind the scenes stuff
• character discussions
• and so much more.

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