Amazon pen name could expose authors to retaliation

I only post reviews on my blog, not on Amazon, but a recent blog post by Kristen Lamb has me reconsidering whether I should write reviews at all. She makes a pretty convincing argument against authors writing reviews. Still, thanks for the heads up.

I suppose if you really wanted to post reviews you could always set up separate Amazon accounts using different email addresses, but that sounds like more trouble than it's worth, and I think it's against Amazon's Terms of Service. If they catch you you could wind up with both accounts suspended, which means no more selling through them.

Angry Guy said:

I’ve discovered an issue with amazon that could expose authors to retaliatory action. This might be old news to everyone else, but it’s new to me.

Amazon allows you to specify a pen name when doing reviews—something to replace “Amazon Customer”. Great idea, preserves anonymity. However, if you have an Amazon author page, and if you post responses to comments on your Amazon author page, guess which name they show up under? That’s right, the same pen name. Now someone for whose book you might have posted a less-than-stellar review has a way to trace it back to you. Retaliatory one-star reviews from friends and family, cyber-stalking across goodreads, facebook, and anywhere else you have a presence, are all real possibilities.

I’m probably overreacting, but if it can happen, it probably will. To someone. I’ve deleted all my book reviews and reported the issue to Amazon. I won’t be posting any book reviews until it’s fixed.

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I sort of recall that Amazon discourages authors from leaving reviews for other books. Because some folks use that to leave bad reviews for folks they view as competition.

And, quite frankly, whether you are simply trying to be honest or not, it doesn't look good for you as an author to leave reviews for other books. (General you.) Whether (perhaps especially if) you're leaving them anonymously or not.

Is the issue, though, leaving reviews in general or leaving bad reviews?

And if that's the case, can't an author leave a positive review for books they liked?

Lhowling said:

Is the issue, though, leaving reviews in general or leaving bad reviews?

And if that's the case, can't an author leave a positive review for books they liked?

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The thing is, to be taken seriously as a reviewer you need to be able to be blunt if a book didn't do it for you or if it was really bad. If you don't care about building a reputation as a reviewer only leaving positive feedback seems okay to me.

Lhowling said:

Is the issue, though, leaving reviews in general or leaving bad reviews?

And if that's the case, can't an author leave a positive review for books they liked?

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Well, the problem there is if you ever leave a positive review for an author you know or who is published by your publisher or who left a good review for you... it can look very incestuous. (And there was that case a while back where an author had been posting reviews under a pseudonym, trashing "competitors" and leaving positive reviews for his OWN books. It got very ugly once people figured it out.)

KokkieH said:

I only post reviews on my blog, not on Amazon, but a recent blog post by Kristen Lamb has me reconsidering whether I should write reviews at all. She makes a pretty convincing argument against authors writing reviews. Still, thanks for the heads up.

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She recommends sending a personal e-mail to the author outlining problems, rather than leaving a negative review? I really don't think that's good advice.

I leave honest reviews of the books I read (on Goodreads, not Amazon, but under my author name) and as far as I know there's never been an issue. But the one time I e-mailed an author to let her know I'd mentioned her book in a blog post, even though the post really wasn't negative about her book, it turned into a huge deal. Now, I think that may have had more to do with the author's emotional stability than with my actions, but still... I learned my lesson.

(And I think that, had my blog post actually BEEN negative, she would have had a good point. Authors with thin skins can more-or-less avoid their reviews; they can't avoid their inboxes.)

Captcha said:

She recommends sending a personal e-mail to the author outlining problems, rather than leaving a negative review? I really don't think that's good advice.

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God, no. That is the stupidest advice I've ever heard on this issue. That's recipe for disaster.

I don't leave reviews on Amazon anymore. I do on my blog or on Goodreads. I won't bother with really poor reviews, but I will for books I'd consider three to five star rank. I also really don't care how *authors* might take my review - I'm not doing it for them.

Yeah, I write reviews on Goodreads and crosspost to my blog. I do it for readers, so they can decide if the book sounds like their cup of tea. I don't review on Amazon.

When Amazon started cracking down on writers leaving reviews in their own genre (to thwart trolls) my response was:



I've been reading science fiction and fantasy for nearly four decades. You'd think I'd be able to sort out professional admiration from professional jealousy. I regularly find cogent reviews of SFF books from other SFF writers in webcasts, industry blogs, private blogs, and magazines.

On Amazon, Facebook, and Goodreads, trolls are usually heavy-handed and obvious. The only real problem I've seen comes from thin-skinned authors who have emotional meltdowns over reviews. Negative reviews of my work haven't bothered me for long: by the time I was published, I'd already developed a rhino-hide from critiques in the surprisingly cut-throat world of commercial art.

But as always, your mileage may vary. If a writer is worried about bring outed or pressured, maybe they shouldn't review.

KokkieH said:

I only post reviews on my blog, not on Amazon, but a recent blog post by Kristen Lamb has me reconsidering whether I should write reviews at all. She makes a pretty convincing argument against authors writing reviews. Still, thanks for the heads up.

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Why would anyone listen to an author whose only books are "guides to social media" for other authors?

KokkieH said:

I only post reviews on my blog, not on Amazon, but a recent blog post by Kristen Lamb has me reconsidering whether I should write reviews at all. She makes a pretty convincing argument against authors writing reviews. Still, thanks for the heads up.

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It's a good argument yes, but against writing BAD reviews. I post reviews, but only of books I love and wish to share with others.

Filigree said:

When Amazon started cracking down on writers leaving reviews in their own genre (to thwart trolls) my response was:



I've been reading science fiction and fantasy for nearly four decades. You'd think I'd be able to sort out professional admiration from professional jealousy. [...]

On Amazon, Facebook, and Goodreads, trolls are usually heavy-handed and obvious.

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I disagree. Someone who leaves nasty negative reviews of their competition is not going to be heavy-handed or obvious. I mean, we're talking about writers here. Bullshitting a bad review is not hard.

Amadan said:

Why would anyone listen to an author whose only books are "guides to social media" for other authors?

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... Because someone doesn't need to publish a novel in order to have an opinion about reviews.

I'm not saying she's right. I mean, I disagree with her too. But let's not play "how published are you."

KTC said:

It's a good argument yes, but against writing BAD reviews. I post reviews, but only of books I love and wish to share with others.

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Me too, buddy. I feel really frustrated by low-quality books, and the only way to deal with that is to make the good ones more popular.

ViridianChick said:

... Because someone doesn't need to publish a novel in order to have an opinion about reviews.

I'm not saying she's right. I mean, I disagree with her too. But let's not play "how published are you."

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Of course you don't need to have published a novel to have an opinion about reviews, but if someone is marketing advice books, I expect some evidence of professional experience in the field of advice she's offering.

Also, I assume people who only ever post positive reviews are part of the Culture of Squee.

Amadan said:

Also, I assume people who only ever post positive reviews are part of the Culture of Squee.

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Instead of assuming, you could have a respectful discussion with those people about why they make that choice. Some reviewers have been harassed for writing negative reviews, and I don't blame them for backing out.

And instead of complaining about how Kristen Lamb is not an authority on social media (I agree, she's not, no one is), you could explain why and how you disagree.

Food for thought.

Oh, we've had those discussions before. The great Review Debates return periodically.

ViridianChick said:

Instead of assuming, you could have a respectful discussion with those people about why they make that choice. Some reviewers have been harassed for writing negative reviews, and I don't blame them for backing out.

And instead of complaining about how Kristen Lamb is not an authority on social media (I agree, she's not, no one is), you could explain why and how you disagree.

Food for thought.

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I think the point is that she's writing books specifically targeting authors and how to work social media, but her qualifications as an author are writing books telling authors how to work social media. (Unlike, say, Wendig. Who writes fiction, and then writes non-fiction about his experience writing fiction and how he promotes it.)

It doesn't necessarily mean she doesn't know what she's talking about, but it's a common ploy - write books on how to write instead of writing books about... well anything else. Newbie writers eat that stuff up, but rarely find anything they couldn't have gotten for free elsewhere. And sometimes they find downright hurtful advice because the one giving it hasn't actually tried it. (Due to, yanno, only writing a book about how to promote a book on Twitter or whatnot.)

Amadan said:

Oh, we've had those discussions before. The great Review Debates return periodically.

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Ah. Sorry. It's just that when two people upthread say "I do [x]" and you reply with "I assume everyone who does [x] is apart of Squee Culture," I assume you're looking for either a discussion for a fight. Since you're not looking for a discussion, I'm happy to move along.

Aggy B. said:

I think the point is that she's writing books specifically targeting authors and how to work social media, but her qualifications as an author are writing books telling authors how to work social media. (Unlike, say, Wendig. Who writes fiction, and then writes non-fiction about his experience writing fiction and how he promotes it.)

It doesn't necessarily mean she doesn't know what she's talking about, but it's a common ploy - write books on how to write instead of writing books about... well anything else. Newbie writers eat that stuff up, but rarely find anything they couldn't have gotten for free elsewhere. And sometimes they find downright hurtful advice because the one giving it hasn't actually tried it. (Due to, yanno, only writing a book about how to promote a book on Twitter or whatnot.)

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Oh, absolutely. I think this has moved off-target a little, though. I'm not advocating her books or her advice, and I'm certainly not trying to present her as some sort of guru.

The choice to write reviews is a personal one, and her opinion is worth no more or no less than any of ours.

ViridianChick said:

The choice to write reviews is a personal one, and her opinion is worth no more or no less than any of ours.

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Well, not necessarily. If someone here has a better-established authority on the subject than she does, then I think their opinion potentially could be worth more than hers or (the rest of) ours -- with one caveat.

Credentials count for squat compared to content. This hypothetical person's statements must prove to have more substance and/or merit than hers before being considered more worthy.

I think it's more accurate to say that her right to voice her opinion is just as valid as all of ours. Everyone has a right to speak.

However, the worth of their opinion is then judged by what they have said. I don't think the dissenters up-thread were saying she should not speak, only that they saw no reason to consider her opinion to have much weight. That's valid, too. If someone makes a claim, the burden of proof is on them, and a person who has no obvious authority on the subject -- for that reason -- has a heavier burden of proof to shoulder. They must establish their credibility as well as make their argument.

@jjdebenedictis: that's true. All good points.

ViridianChick said:

Instead of assuming, you could have a respectful discussion with those people about why they make that choice. Some reviewers have been harassed for writing negative reviews, and I don't blame them for backing out.

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Also, some people are simply more likely to review things that they enjoy, or they tend to stick to things that they expect they'll enjoy, increasing their chances of liking what they read.

Personally, unless something really makes an impression on me, I don't really feel inspired to review it or talk about it much.

To preface this rant: I am not 'spoiling for a fight', nor am I singling out any authors in particular.

In my case, I've been disappointed so badly so many times by books that I simply won't employ further brainpower to review awful books. I have no obligation to review anything. I have no obligation to engage with my peers in uninvited critique sessions, or mentor more inexperienced authors. If I do either, I ask before jumping in, and it's because I find them interesting and worth the effort.

I adore vicious snarky reviews (How It Should Have Ended, Cinema Sins, Ben Croshaw's Zero Punctuation webcast, for example.) But those are a lot of work for their producers. They're on YouTube, a format that can financially reward prolific and well-regarded content producers. I run a dinky blog that maybe twenty people read per day, and I've turned down corporate sponsorships because their goals were not quite mine.

I have more productive uses of my time. I'm not willing to give the writers of disappointing books even the *chance* of getting a sympathy vote because bitchy Filigree tore into the poor widdle author. Better I say nothing, and hope their work falls into deserved obscurity.

The last really vicious review I gave a SFF novel was seven or eight years ago; I consider it fully merited, and if I ever met the author at a con I'd tell her that HER BOOK put me off the entire genre of 'shapeshifter romance' for years. Hell, I started writing in 1987, after reading the then-worst fantasy novel I'd ever read. (Not so funny coincidence: both books are from the same publisher, and both authors have been repeat published since I encountered them. Sigh.)

The legal and harassment aspect comes into it, too. Most of the time, flouncing authors threatening libel suits come to naught, but I've first-hand experience of the time and aggravation caused by truly persistent idiots. Filigree's Rule came out of that experience: some authors deserve some publishers, and I won't get in their way.

The reverse holds true as well. I will happily review (generally on my blog, crossposted to FB and GR) more-thoughtful reviews of books, art, and movies that really impressed me. They're not squee reviews, either, because I will include areas where they failed, too.

KokkieH said:

The thing is, to be taken seriously as a reviewer you need to be able to be blunt if a book didn't do it for you or if it was really bad. If you don't care about building a reputation as a reviewer only leaving positive feedback seems okay to me.

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Or you can ignore the book. Readers usually know whether they like the book early on. If so, why waste your life reading a bad book?

I've never been comfortable with writers writing reviews in the same genre they write, anyway. It smacks of conflict of interest.

But, for that matter, I think reviews are the biggest bunch of nonsense out there, regardless of who writes them. Who cares what any reviewer has to say. It matters not one bit.

The only reviews I've ever cared about are those my reading friends give me in the form of, "You HAVE to read this book."

This has always been what sells books best.

And writers would, I think, be better off using available time to write more books, not judging books others have written.