Amazon: Threat or Menace?
More like "Apathetic, or just Incompetent?"
Sigh. Oh Amazon. So good at selling books… until you’re not.1
Among Amazon’s MANY idiotic qualities—pushing TradPub over their own indies, for example—is that they’ve gone and lost a slew of reviews.
You see, when my last publisher, Silver Empire, fell, and we republished with Tuscany Bay, we were certain that we could just transfer reviews from the initial publication to the current one.
Why were we certain? Because it had been done before. Silver Empire had transferred all of my reviews from when I self-published to the new releases. Why wouldn’t it work this time?
Amazon tells me the reviews are “lost.”
When they say “lost” it implies “the reviews are irretrievable.”
I suspect it just means “we can’t be bothered to do the work.”
You see, if you dig down on my Amazon profile, and find the older editions of Saint Tommy NYPD, you should still see the old reviews still there. They were at the time of this writing. So… what the Hell?
Now, why care? Why is this important? Because as Nick Cole once told me on my old podcast, you need 100 reviews before Amazon’s algorithms will take you seriously. I’ve heard 50, but I prefer to take no chances.
So reviews are important. If you like my work, you can help me sell more by reviewing. Technically, if you DON’T like the work, you can help me sell more by reviewing.
So, if you have reviewed a Saint Tommy Novel— any of the first 8 novels—please double check and make sure your reviews carried over.
Amazon supposedly carried over the reviews from Hell Spawn and Infernal Affairs, but I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them.
And don’t think this is just an Amazon think. All of these buttons are 100% multi-purpose. I will take reviews anywhere, on any platform. B&N, BookBub, anything and anywhere. Though if you copied and pasted a review to all of the above, I’m not going to complain.
Yes, the title is a reference to the classic Spider-Man comics and the Daily Bugle headline. But as I said in the subtitle, it’s probably more accurate to ask “Apathetic, or just Incompetent?” To which the answer is… yes.
I lost my car keys once. Couldn't deal with the stress so I just bought another car.
Holy crud, Declan... I didn't realise this was a thing for Amazon to go "lose" reviews. I know some of my early reviews magically disappeared, no explanations. Sad.