Does anyone else have this problem with book reviews on Amazon?

Yes, I do write for the love of it,

imagination-keyjpg

Photo credit: http://bit.ly/1FHd6V0

but it would be helpful if….

My query to Amazon this month –

Subject: Book reviews not co-ordinated across Amazon sites.

Hello Amazon team

I am hoping you can help me. Could you please explain why reviews of my books are scattered across different Amazon sites? I have reviews on Amazon.com, but these don’t appear on Amazon.com.au, Amazon.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.in etc.
I uploaded my novel to what I understood to be a global website. I’ve paid Createspace for the print-on-demand option for my first book (they did a great job), and this has managed to appear on every Amazon site. Why can’t reviews be similarly distributed and published?
I have asked this question before and was informed the reviews are there if you scroll down far enough. However, potential readers land on ‘Arafura – Blood, the Wet and tears on most Amazon pages with NO star rating and the message, ‘Be the first to review this item’. This implies there are no reviews. Would YOU bother scrolling down? But go to the Amazon.com page and the Arafura has 13 reviews.
I don’t have many reviews, but they are positive and recommend my novel. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that reviews are what emerging authors rely on to be noticed.
Now my sequel is out, the same problem is occurring – Amazon.com.au has a review by one reader, Amazon.com by another. Can’t all reviews be co-ordinated and appear across all Amazon sites, please?
I would be very grateful, and gladly pay for this service. It all seems a little pointless otherwise.
Very keen to hear your response

Susan Lattwein

amazon

Hello Susan,

I hope this email finds you well. Thanks for taking the time to send us your comments on improving the website by allowing reviews to be shared between our sister websites.

Our Customer Reviews feature doesn’t link reviews across Amazon.com and the International Amazon sites at present. However, as you may already know, we do have a feature that spotlights reviews from Amazon.com on international Amazon websites for the same product. While the reviews are spotlighted, the votes and number of reviews don’t count toward the total for the listings on international websites.

I understand that this is an area we can improve upon. As such I have passed your message along to the team involved with future development of our Communities features. I know they will want to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

I hope this helps. We look forward to seeing you again.

The Amazon team.

So many books so little time

Quote : Frank Zappa

 

I don’t want to whine, so I’m going off to drink one.

Cheers

🙂

This entry was posted in Amazon, Australian fiction, book review, reviews for authors Amazon, uncoordinated customer reviews Amazon, writing and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

38 Responses to Does anyone else have this problem with book reviews on Amazon?

  1. mihrank says:

    I agree with you – Such beautiful poem and words!

  2. Very frustrating for you. I’m sorry they didn’t help much/at all.

  3. Sorry, can’t help you on this one…I’m just a bloggy cat. But I’ll join you for a drink. Cheers and don’t sweat it!

  4. I asked Amazon about this over a year ago and got more or less the same answer, that they’d passed my comments to the team for future development etc, Clearly that development remains in the future, which as we all know, never comes. Most frustrating! 😦

  5. Marigold says:

    This is so weird! I’m gonna go put my reviews on both amazon.com and .au now… until they can get this fixed, at any rate.

  6. Deborah says:

    I leave my reviews on Amazon.com and Amazon.com.au, but yes it’s very weird!

  7. I didn’t think they transferred across. I just presumed UK customers so UK reviewers reviews. As a soon to be self publisher I’m not sure I’d want another countries site to count to a sister site because they could skew ratings. What could be popular in one country may not be as popular in another because we are culturally different in some ways. I suppose some of it depends on the genre of book as well.

    • Hi Rebecca. Thats interesting. I dont think it would skew ratings in a bad way. The Amazon stats could offer a breakdown of reviews country by country perhaps? Thanks for visiting. 🙂

  8. Carrie Rubin says:

    I’d love to see the reviews consolidated on all sites. Let’s hope your letter spurs them to action. Wouldn’t that be cool? 🙂

  9. This should be fixed. Glad you wrote to them. I’m trying to figure out why this might be a problem for them, and can’t. Hope your letter makes a difference.

  10. ChristineR says:

    I hadn’t noticed this yet, Susan. I’ll know to post on both sites now, as did one of your reviewers. I finished Arafura 1 a few days ago (loved it) and have been composing the review in my head since. 🙂

  11. I’m glad you sent in that letter to Amazon. Let’s hope it gets some action from the top guys. 🙂

  12. Dear Jeff Bezos,
    I heard today on NPR that currently you have 1000 robots working for Amazon and that by the end of the year you’ll have purchased and employed 10,000 of these little fellows. How bout you purchase one more of these little Kiva Systems cuties and put him to work at a desk for a day sorting out the tiny tangle of uncoordinated reviews across your multi-national corporation? Your human employees have been struggling for well over a year with it and have found no success. If this continues, you may end up being responsible for the massive uptick in Authors Who Have Turned to Alcohol for Answers.
    Give us a break, buddy. We’ve all got to make a living. *hic*
    😛

  13. Oh Susan that’s just stupid. Could you add something yourself to the listing that says “interested in more reviews? Check out the sister site…?” I hope you get it straightened out but the “I’ll pass on your comments” never sounds like a legitimate action by any corporate player. Good luck my friend.

    • Thanks Paula. Good idea. I’m going to do that although I’m not sure it will show on the initial screen shot a reader lands on. It certainly can’t hurt!
      I’m very impressed with Smashwords, considering how much smaller they are than Amazon. Cheers.

  14. This is a whole new ball game that I haven’t entered yet, but sounds frustrating for sure! For now, I’ll just wait to do anything with my book and drink the wine instead. Good luck to you Susan 🙂

  15. ChristineR says:

    Amazon shows the ‘Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon com’ views under the Australian site reviews. It is marked ‘beta’ so they are testing it.

  16. Hugs right back at you, Christine. Have a lovely Christmas and new year!

  17. As a reviewer I realized the issue long ago as well. As I post across multiple sites, not just Amazon, I have a bookmark file that contains all my ‘post to’ sites. When I am ready to post I open all and hit them one at a time. That way I don’t miss any. I have Amazon.com, Amazon CA, UK, and AU – but none of the non-English sites.

    Happy Holidays!
    Leiah

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