At the very end of September, I was made aware of updated community guidelines from Amazon regarding promotional content and review clubs. We’ve always prioritized maintaining compliance, and these new guidelines require us to make some adjustments to our platform so that we can remain compliant with Amazon’s Community Guidelines. I realize that this community news article is very verbose, but this is a big change, and I want to ensure everyone fully understands why we have to make the upcoming changes slated to be enabled in the middle of December 2024.
Amazon recently added new information that extends their Community Guidelines. This new section explicitly addresses review clubs. The key takeaway is that any attempt to influence or manipulate reviews is prohibited, including conditioning any future benefit on writing a review. This includes actions like:
- Authors giving reviewers ratings or referrals based on the content of their reviews.
- Authors monitoring reviews from members of a review club.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty, I have to say that I’m really disappointed with what Amazon has decided to do, but I can also understand why they are doing this, even though it seems extreme to me. It’s always been my intention to stay fully compliant with their guidelines and the following explains how we will do that.
TL;DR
We have to change some functions of our site to stay compliment with Amazon’s community guidelines. Here is the short and sweet of it:
- These new updates will be implemented in the second or third week of December 2024.
- You will no longer be able to monitor individual reviews in the “My Reviews” section of your book.
- This also means you will not be able to rate any of the reviews you have received.
- We are going to be stressing the importance of leaving honest, high-quality reviews and will not be incentivizing in any way what star rating you leave for a book.
- We can no longer act as an intermediary about reviews. You’ll have to contact Amazon if you have an issue with any review you receive.
- You will be required to submit your confirmed reviews to us via email or by providing the URL to your review, and we have a new Moderator Review state for members who are unable to consistently submit confirmed reviews. Learn more here.
- We are still fully committed to monitoring and confirming every review submitted in our network.
- We’re still fully committed to adequately dealing with bad actors in our membership.
- There will be a price increase for new members (current members are grandfathered into their subscription fees as long as they remain active).
- While these changes are unexpected it gives GBR new clarity on what we offer and ultimately will give us a competitive edge over other book review clubs.
- The onus for getting good reviews should be on the Author, not the Reviewer.
- There will be even more value for members who have books deserving of 4-5 star reviews.
- Members whose books are not of the highest caliber may not want to stay in GBR because the likelihood of getting low star ratings will be higher than every before for low-quality books.
- We have a lot of new features coming that will increase the value of your membership.
- As a community, we will only grow stronger from these new changes.
The New Guidelines
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GDSRWWGGRA2JXSNZ
In the About Promotional Content section of Amazon’s Community Guidelines there are new requirements that supplement what we knew about previously. The new information specifically mentions review clubs and the changes we have to make to comply with these guidelines is significant. Working off of notes from our lawyer, I will break down the new guidelines and explain how they will affect our community. Italicized lettering is partial content taken directly from Amazon’s website.
Promotional Content Found in Customer Reviews Section
Our goal is to capture all the energy, enthusiasm, and feedback (both favorable and critical) that customers have about a product while avoiding use of reviews to advertise, promote, or mislead.
To help illustrate, here are a few examples of reviews that we don’t allow:
- Some points that are not relevant for us followed by…
- An author posts a positive review about a peer’s book in exchange for receiving a positive review from the peer (This is where our anti-review swapping algorithm comes into play so we’re already good here)
Although products may be provided to customers for free or at a discount, and those customers may write reviews, any attempt to influence or manipulate reviews is prohibited, including conditioning any future benefit on writing a review or the content of the review. Benefits include but are not limited to: future opportunities to receive free or discounted products, continued membership in a program or club, cash rebates or gift certificates, entry into contests or sweepstakes, bonus digital content or credits, and ratings or referrals that may affect the recipient’s chances of receiving other benefits.
Here are a few examples where a review is not permitted:
- The customer’s eligibility to receive free or discounted products or other benefits in the future depends on their review
- The customer’s continued membership in a program or club depends on their review
- The customer is a member of a review club where sellers (Authors) or brands give the customer (Reviewer) ratings or refer the customer to other sellers or brands based on their review
- The customer is a member of a review club where they are asked to register their Amazon public profile so that sellers (Authors) or brands may monitor their reviews of products offered through the club
How This Impacts Our Community
To remain compliant with these guidelines, we need to make the following changes:
- Review Monitoring: We will be removing the link to the Amazon URL, rating text, and rating title from the “My Reviews” section for each book. This means authors will no longer have direct access to specific information about individual reviews on our website, which allows us to comply with “The customer is a member of a review club where they are asked to register their Amazon public profile so that sellers (Authors) or brands may monitor their reviews of products offered through the club” guideline. We will still show you the star rating, the confirmation status of each review (pending, confirmed, unconfirmed), and private notes for each review, but all information that would allow you (the seller) to directly identify and monitor a review will be removed. Our support team will continue to monitor each review internally and address any issues we find without violating Amazon’s community guidelines. We can still confirm reviews and take action against members who fail to leave a review when they said they would. Also, we are still going to have the generic information at the top of each book, which shows the total number of reviews received, reviews in progress, and reviews that have been confirmed, as well as the total average star rating for each book, as this information would not allow you to directly monitor a specific review but still provides you with indicators on how well your book is doing in GBR.
- Review Rating System: We have stopped the development for Phase 2 of our new reviewer rating system, which would have allowed us to utilize the information collected about the quality of reviews received. We are also going to discontinue Phase 1 where we asked authors to leave feedback as Authors will no longer be able to see or leave a score for individual reviews left for their book. Removing this will ensure we are fully compliant with the “conditioning any future benefit on writing a review or the content of the review” community guideline.
- Moderation: We will no longer be able to act as moderators by facilitating requests for changes to reviews at the author’s request. Completely removing ourselves as intermediaries will ensure we are fully compliant with the “any attempt to influence or manipulate reviews is prohibited” community guideline. Authors will need to utilize Amazon’s review reporting system directly to address any concerns about inappropriate reviews.
How Will This Affect Our Ability to Deal with “Bad Actors” in the Membership?
During this update, we will be adding a new Moderator Review status to any member who has not been able to leave confirmed reviews consecutively. Members put into Moderator Review status will not be able to receive tokens until after their review has been confirmed. This will instantly remove the most significant issue bad actors create by lying about or misrepresenting the type of reviews that they leave. More info about this update can be found here.
In dealing with bad actors we will still be monitoring reviews to ensure the reviewer actually read the book. Leaving false or “fake” reviews is against Amazon’s policies and ours, so if we find that a reviewer is not reading a book and is leaving a review that is extremely generic, a close copy of another review, not related to the book at all, or a review taken only from information in the book’s public description then we will return the tokens to the author and reach out to the reviewer with training on how to leave a review based on the content of the book. Members who have issues with submitting honest reviews based on actually reading the book will be flagged in our system and closely monitored. Having said that, it’s important to get perspective on how serious an issue we face when it comes to the quality of reviews being left in our network. From July to the current date, on average, only 1.2% of the reviews received in our network are internally reported by us or to us from members, so the issue of “bad reviews” is currently a limited issue. 98.8% of the reviews our members get are accepted without concern, which is a great testament to our community as a whole.
Of course, even 1% of the community being bad actors can have an effect on the whole community. I am asking the whole community to trust that we can still handle these bad actors behind-the-scenes in a way that complies with Amazon’s guidelines.
Price Increase for New Members
I’m planning to raise the price significantly for new members (don’t worry, our current members will be grandfathered into their current subscription pricing as long as your subscription stays active). If we price ourselves well over our competitors, we’ll end up sending the “baddies” over to our competitors who focus on low pricing and don’t have strict compliance with Amazon’s community guidelines while we attract all the authors who are willing to seriously invest in their book(s).
It’s understandable that independent authors often have limited budgets for marketing. However, to cultivate a truly high-quality community, we believe it’s essential to attract authors who are committed to financially investing in the growth of their book sales.
While we value inclusivity, we also recognize that a thriving community requires members who are not solely focused on maximizing their own gains in spite of the whole community. Therefore, we will prioritize attracting authors who demonstrate a willingness to contribute to the community as a whole, both with the time they take to give reviews and their marketing budget.
To ensure accessibility for emerging authors, we plan to offer discounted rates to new members referred by existing members as well as new members joining through vetted sources. This approach allows us to maintain our high standards while supporting authors who are genuinely dedicated to their craft and the community.
Our ultimate goal is to create a space where serious authors can connect, learn, and grow together. By focusing on those who share this commitment, we can foster a vibrant and supportive environment for everyone involved.
Our Commitment to You
I understand these changes may be disappointing, as they impact some of our features and some of the plans we had for upcoming features. However, I believe these adjustments are necessary to protect our community and ensure its long-term success. I remain committed to providing a valuable service that connects authors with engaged readers and facilitates high-quality reviews. GBR will continue to be the leaders in the industry when it comes to Amazon compliance and the safety of our member’s Amazon accounts and books. Amazon has serious penalties for authors who do not follow their guidelines. Taken right from Amazon’s community guidelines they may:
- Remove their (Author’s) content
- Limit their (Author’s) ability to use community features
- Remove related products
- Suspend or terminate their (Author’s) account
- Withhold (Author’s) payments
If we find unusual reviewing behavior, we might limit the ability to submit reviews. If we reject or remove your review for guidelines violation, you won’t be allowed to review that product again.
At GBR, we believe that these serious penalties warrant strict compliance even though we don’t totally agree with Amazon’s new guidelines.
Positive Outlook
I am confident that we can continue to thrive under these new guidelines. We have several strategies in place to maintain a high standard of review quality, including:
- Clarify Our Network Value: We’ve always been about getting high-quality reviews, but this opportunity allows us to further define the type of reviews earned in the GBR membership. We will fully comply with Amazon’s community guidelines and fully commit to giving 100% honest, high-quality reviews from our network with no coercion or incentive to give anything other than an honest review. A high-quality review will be any review, regardless of star rating, based on the book’s whole content, which is thoughtful and detailed. In the end, a review should be written to provide value to potential readers and not written to provide value to the author (which would be a promotional review). Of course, authors who have great books that get mostly 4 or 5-star reviews will still get tons of value from the reviews earned in our network, but it’s an honestly earned value, not an incentivized promotional value. Authors of books that are not high caliber books will get the reviews they deserve, which may lead them to discontinue membership with GBR, and that will only help in our mission of having the highest caliber authors and books. Additionally, we are going to be stressing the strategy of getting reviews at an organic rate of speed. We have seen way too many accounts get banned from Amazon because the author was using multiple book review services simultaneously and getting too many reviews in a short period of time. We want to attract authors who understand that getting high-quality reviews slowly over time is much better for your rankings and is the only way to ensure your Amazon account is safe from penalties or bans. Reviews received from GBR should only be a catalyst that kicks off fully organic purchases and reviews, not the entire lifeblood of all your book’s reviews. This approach is the only entirely safe and ethically correct way to use a book review service.
- Proactive Monitoring: We will continue to monitor reviews internally and address any concerns proactively. We can still reach out to reviewers when they submit a “questionable” review to encourage them to consider the best practices for leaving a quality review without directly asking them to remove or modify a specific review. Reviewers will not be awarded tokens if their review is not based on reading the book, is a review that is highly generic, is a close copy of another review, is not related to the book at all, or is a review taken only from information in the book’s publicly available description. We will continue to manually monitor this for now, but in time, we can develop sophisticated AI that will be able to identify and flag any reviews that are not compliant with Amazon’s and our standards. If any review violates these standards, then we will return the tokens back to the book author, and the reviewer will have to review educational material to learn how to give a high-quality review before they can submit any additional reviews. It is also still possible to ban a member who consistently fails to meet the minimum standards.
- Reviewer Education: We plan to enhance our onboarding process to educate new members about writing helpful and informative reviews. We have completely rewritten our Site Procedures document which will significantly help new members succeed. We will let every reviewer know that they are never obligated to review a book, even if they have checked it out for review. If a reviewer does not feel they can leave a good review, they can always cancel their review and find a book they would be ecstatic to leave a good review for. We will also ensure reviewers know there are no repercussions for leaving a low star rating on a review as long as the review is based on reading the whole book.
- High Caliber Community Creation: We are committed to fostering a community of engaged and responsible reviewers, and we’re confident we can still accomplish this. We don’t have to win all the authors over to our community; we only need a small percentage of the best authors and books from all over the world to enable us to have a thriving community.
A Competitive Edge
By proactively adapting to these new guidelines, we are positioning ourselves as a leader in compliant book review services. I believe this will give us a competitive advantage and attract high-caliber authors who prioritize safety and ethical practices.
Exciting Things Ahead
I’m still very excited to be at the helm of GBR and still extremely proud of the community we have here at GBR. I see nothing but great improvements for the website going forward, with tons of high-quality reviews being generated for our members at a safe rate of speed that complies with Amazon’s community guidelines.
Be sure to check out our new feature request system to vote on the upcoming features you’d like to see developed first.
I appreciate your understanding and continued support as we navigate these changes. We are excited about the future of our community and confident that we can continue to provide a valuable service to authors and reviewers alike.
Do you have any questions, concerns, or comments? Please leave them in the comments area below!
Most Sincerely,
Benjamin – GBR Owner
