Amazon Has Banned ARC Reviews, and Forgot to Tell Anyone
Companies like Amazon often have two sets of policies. The first type are the official policies that can be found on the T&C pages (such as the $50 minimum purchase before you can post reviews), but Amazon also has other non-official policies that have not been spelled out or announced and instead have to be discovered and complied with in a process akin to navigating a minefield (and just as stressful).
Amazon’s new policy on advanced reader copies (ARC) books definitely falls into the latter category.
Update: This problem has reportedly been fixed. Amazon hasn’t responded to my queries, but a couple sources have told me that these reviews are no longer being blocked.
You won’t find this policy mentioned on Amazon’s site, but numerous authors are reporting on KBoards, Facebook, and elsewhere that Amazon is no longer letting people post un-verified book reviews before a book launches.
Edit: I misunderstood the reports; this is after a book launches, not before.
If you buy the book from Amazon, you can post the review, but if you get a free copy from the author, publisher, or NetGalley (like many reviewers do) you will instead see this message when you try to post the review:
Sorry, we are unable to accept your review of this product.
This product currently has limitations on submitting reviews. This may be because we detected unusual reviewing behavior on this product, or to maintain the best possible shopping experience. For more information, see the Customer Review Guidelines.
I have seen dozens of reports from authors who say that this message has appeared on traditionally published books and independently published books alike.
While free review copies is still allowed under Amazon’s official policies, clearly they have been banned under some unofficial policy that Amazon has not told anyone about.
The most likely reason for the non-announcement is that Amazon has let its bots decide which early reviews are legit. These are the same bots that cannot tell the difference between a paid review and a legit review. These bots are also responsible for punishing innocent authors for supposedly fraudulent activity in Kindle Unlimited.
As in those earlier cases, Amazon customer service has not been able to adequately explain why the policy has changed. This is because the Amazon employees talking to customers and authors are not the same employees running the bots.
How could they be, when no one is actually running the bots?
Update: This problem has reportedly been fixed. Amazon hasn’t responded to my queries, but a couple sources have told me that these reviews are no longer being blocked.
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