Fake Reviews - They're Everywhere

So, most of us have always suspected that many of the reviews in places like Amazon are fake, but now it's finally making the headlines. The NY Times showcases a fake review factory and how reviews are bought and paid for. And now Forbes discusses just how prevelent they are at Amazon and how much harm they do.

 

This is why I don't read Amazon reviews. It's one of the reasons why I don't post my reviews on Amazon. My advice - find a few good reviewers you trust and stick with them.

 

Thoughts?

Goodbye Amazon

Well, Amazon has finally driven me to end my relationship with them as a customer and affiliate. I’ve been a customer pretty much since the beginning and spent thousands of my hard-earned dollars at their store. The pricing and convenience simply can’t be passed up. However I’ve never been pleased with how they have become something of the Wal-Mart of the book world that helps drive the smaller guys out of business, I don’t support their eBook practice of loading up the books with DRM and having proprietary format for the eBooks and eReader, I was unhappy to learn that if you buy an eBook from Amazon that they can take it back from you whenever they want, no explanation needed, and I was very unhappy when a supposed computer glitch lead to all GLBT and related books being dropped out of their search engine and rankings. But that was all just annoyances that didn’t cause me to end my relationship with them. The latest fiasco happened when Amazon went nuclear and de-listed all of Macmillan’s books in what should have been a behind-the-scenes negotiation. Not only was this a very hard-ball and ultimately childish tactic, but it hurt authors who have no control over the situation and showed a complete disregard for their customers – apparently power is what really matters to Amazon. This was the last straw.

Below are a few links that sum up this latest fiasco – Amazon ultimately has caved in, but while I was writing this post, they still hadn’t followed through by actually putting links back up to Macmillan’s books – childish and dishonest now.

• SF Signal – a good summary with links to many reactions (a bit out of date now)
• Tobias Buckell – a good summary on the economics
• Charles Stross – a debatable take on the issue
• Andrew Wheeler – a couple of good posts on the subject
• Washington Post
• NY Times
• Macmillan CEO response
• Amazon gives in (poorly)

And the Best:

• John Scalzi sums it all up
• Scott Westerfeld sums it all up
• Suvudu "Nobody blogs like a pissed off science fiction writer."

So, I am no longer going to include Amazon links to the books I talk about here. For now, old links will remain, but I’ll slowly take the time to go back and remove them in older posts as well. Instead I will link to these books through the affiliate programs of Powell’s Books, The Book Depository, and Indiebound. For some disclosure – in the 4 years of this blog I have only received about $50 in referral revenue (all from Amazon.com) and that all immediately turned around to buy books. I don’t expect to make money and that’s never been the goal of this blog, but I do want to help facilitate getting books into the hands of book lovers, so I do the links. And if along the way I can get a little extra cash to feed my addiction then great. So, if you appreciate what I do hear, click on the occasional link and help feed my addiction.

Amazon = Idjits

To get caught up check out these various discussions. Basically all Macmillan books have been taken off of Amazon.com (these include titles from the popular SFF publisher Tor). There are apparently some hard-ball negotiations over ebook pricing going between Amazon and Macmillan on both sides and it appears that Amazon went nuclear on this. After the whole fiasco where they dropped GLBT-related books from their search engines and deleted 1984 from people’s Kindle without bothering to tell them about it, I’m getting pretty fed up with Amazon. I’ll be waiting to see what details emerge, but I’ll likely be removing all Amazon links from this blog and taking my book-buying business elsewhere.

EDIT: And the story from John Sargent, the CEO of Macmillan Books (Amazon isn't looking any better)

Kindle Blogs

Amazon now lets people publish their blogs on Kindle so that Kindle users can subscribe for a fee. A few of the SFF blogs I follow (such as SF Signal and Grasping for the Wind – who has a good write-up about it) have set it up. The blog owner gets 30% of the proceeds with the rest to Kindle – I believe the fee is on the order of a couple of bucks a month, so proceeds are very modest unless a blog has a large number of subscribers.

So, what are your thoughts on this? Should I set up Neth Space for this service – would any of you actually subscribe? I can’t ever see me making much money, so it wouldn’t be about the money but about giving my readers more ways to easily read this blog.

But, I’m not really a fan of the Kindle. Not only am I just not ready to embrace e-readers yet, but the Kindle uses proprietary format and Kindle e-books can’t be read by other e-readers (such as Sony). As long as this is the case, I won’t consider purchasing one myself – but should I allow this stance to keep me from publishing my blog for Kindle. If no one out there would subscribe anyway, then it doesn’t matter, but if there people interested, I’ll consider it. So, let me know your thoughts – would you pay money to read this blog on a Kindle when it’s free here? Do people believe that this is a good additional form of blog promotion for getting new readers? How many of my regular readers actually own a Kindle? I’m guessing a fairly low percentage that probably works out to numbers that can be counted on my hands and feet.

IndieBound

I'm a big supporter of independent bookstores - at least in theory. In practice, I shop a lot at places like Amazon and Barns & Noble and I have Amazon affiliate links all over this webpage. Well, now I'm going to at least try and move a bit more toward actual support of independent bookstores - I have joined up with IndieBound and their affiliate program. So, I'll start throwing up IndieBound links next to the Amazon links - I encourage you all to use this organization to help you buy books from independent sources and please let me know how things work out. If customer service just isn't there, I'll end my involvement, but I hope that the promise is realized.

Amazon Reviews: Fake? But of Course!

I'm not the best at keeping pace with all the new blogs that pop up and do good stuff, but occasionally I stumble upon a few gems. Searching around today, I found this interesting article that examines just how fake Amazon reviews are (via Only the Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy). Of course it's completely self-serving, from my perspective it's preaching to the choir, and one of the examples used is someone who is well-known for abuses of the Amazon reviewing system - but it's still a good article.

Amazon's Amazing(ly bad) Response

Via the wonder that is Twitter, I was lead to the Seattlepi.com and Amazon's response to Amazon's Amazing(ly bad) Ranking Policy :

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles – in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon's main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

As has been discussed over and over again, this doesn't explain many of the facts - like author's being informed by Amazon of a change in policy. And what I don't see is an apology of any sorts. So, I'm still waiting - I'm less likely to cut off all the Amazon links around here, but at the same time I'm a bit more inclined to look elsewhere for the future. I guessed that this would go away, but if Amazon responds in this way, they are just asking for it to fester for some time.

Amazon’s Amazing(ly bad) Ranking Policy

While I was enjoying a relatively quite Easter weekend, the intranets were on fire with hatred over Amazon’s apparent new sales ranking policy. Basically, the policy is to censor ‘adult’ oriented fiction – the kicker is that it appears to be defined in a way to include anything sympathetic to GLBT characters, anything that addressed homophobia, many feminist books, and whole bunch of others. It’s early and people are (rightly) upset. Here are some links to catch you up:

• A good summary of the whole thing
• Another good summary at Suvudu
• #AmazonFail on Twitter
• The LA Times weighs in
• Literary Escapism has a good summary with lots of links
• Angry Black Woman is angry
• Charlie Stross
• SF Feminist is angry too

I’m sure I could go on and on with links, but those are a few of the interesting links I’ve found this morning. As for me, I’m waiting for a while to see how things shake out. If this turns out to be true and Amazon doesn’t do a complete about face with heartfelt apologies, then I’ll have to act. I’ll take down all my Amazon links and spend loads of time going through and deleting the hundreds of Amazon Associate links on this blog. I just can’t support an organization that has this sort of policy – it’s wrong in so many ways.

Of course I’m not sure what I’ll replace things with, but Cheryl Morgan points to Indiebound which may have an answer.

EDIT: Cheryl Morgan points to an update from the Wall Street Journal and a statement from GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation). Whether or not you believe Amazon's statements that it was all a mistake, it does appear that they are going to make the situation right. I'm relieved and I suspect that this will be forgotten before too long.

Harry Potter and the Independent Bookseller

Are you one of the literal millions of people who is anxiously awaiting the final installment of the Harry Potter series? Are you going to line up for release party, pre-order on-line or otherwise by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? If you are, I appeal to you to consider buying this book from your local independent bookseller.

If you live in any mid-size or larger city, you’ve probably got an independent bookstore in your area. In all likelihood, that independent store is not doing so well. The big chains like Barnes & Noble and Borders will push out many of these little guys, but the endless sources of books on the internet, led by Amazon.com, are the real killers.

You will almost certainly pay more for HP at an independent store – maybe even the full list price of $34.99. If you go to Amazon, you’ll find it for much cheaper – as of writing this, the pre-order is heavily discounted to $18.89. This is a heck of bargain that can’t be ignored – especially since just one other book should earn you free shipping.

But let’s face it – Amazon won’t be hurt if you don’t buy from them. Your local independent store is likely putting a lot of hope (and investment) into taking advantage of HP phenomenon. Help them out.

A local store here in Arizona has an interesting idea to help draw in the buyers – yes, they are charging the full list price, but for each pre-purchased book they are donating $7 to one of four local charities. This has a ring to it that makes me feel good inside and I will almost certainly buy my copy there. Of course they are also having the obligatory midnight release part – this seems a bit strange, but let’s face it – it’s a party for the release of a book and how great is that.

Join me in helping out the underdog – the independent seller during all the hype and hoopla surrounding Harry Potter. The big guys won’t miss the business, and the little ones just might kiss you in gratitude.


Disclaimer: If you’re curious, I don’t work for a book seller or anything – I just feel strongly about support for independents in a world of corporate domination. I don’t have anything against Amazon – in fact, I’ve linked it liberally in this blog as part of the associates program (someday I hope to get enough referrals to earn myself enough for a book or two, which means that it’s not as if it’s a lucrative program for me and so far I haven’t seen a so much as a dime).

Amazon Pricing

I saw this LA Times article via SF Signal. The excerpt copied below sets the stage:

Imagine this: You go to a bookstore, browse, choose a couple of volumes. But you don't want to carry the books around. So you ask the clerk to hold the tomes until Saturday, when you'll come back to buy them.When you return, the bookseller hands you the items but advises you that he's raised the prices. "I knew you were hot to buy them," the clerk says, "so I figured I could make a few extra bucks."

That's what it feels like online bookseller Amazon.com Inc. has been doing to me.

I find this a bit disturbing, but not terribly surprising. Caveat Emptor!