That Disgusting "Social Proof"

It's Not So Easy to Come By

Like it or not (not, in my case), independent authors live or die by Amazon, which means we live or die by Amazon ratings & reviews.

That wouldn’t be so bad, if that market were a level playing field. But you either know or you don’t that Amazon is a rigged system. Nevertheless, this post is not about all the fake & gay.

A few years ago, Amazon started Kindle Unlimited. That plus whatever else they did behind the scenes cut independent authors off at the knees. My tax records document a drastic reduction in book royalties. Before the changes, I was on my way to conceivably quitting my day job and writing for a living.

At roughly the same time, Amazon made it difficult to post reviews—so of course authors got less of them. At least, I noticed a change in how hard it was to get them. They seem to have relaxed the requirements to post reviews between then and now, but readers never resumed posting them as much as they used to.

Couple all that with human nature: readers are far more motivated to share negative feedback than positive. I check periodically for changes in the number of reviews. Each new good one is a dopamine hit, I guess. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall…” And because I know about how many each book has, I can track when Amazon deletes them. Not that I can do anything about it, but I know.

Despite each of the Paradox books achieving bestseller ranking, their review/rating counts are pathetic. But at least they were all roughly 4.5 stars…until a couple days ago.

Resisting Fate had dropped to 3 stars; and rather than just a drive-by 1 star rating, the reader had left a review revealing why:

For context, the fate of Madelina and the baby aren’t revealed until the final book in the series—which, presumably, this person now refuses to read.

After reading this, I noticed that the average rating for Provoking Fate had been pulled down to less than 4 stars. Found this:

I don’t work for Scotland Yard or anything, but I have a hunch that Disgusted “Amazon Customer” #1 is none other than Disgusted “Amazon Customer” #2! Which means she was so disgusted that, after not rating or reviewing the first three books, she decided to torpedo the reputation of both Book 4 and Book 5 with these…ahem, reviews.

I suppose I should be flattered that this reader was so invested in the characters. Maybe she saw herself in them. It’s a fairly passionate response. Who knows?

This would not be such a bummer if I had a lot of reviews and this didn’t affect the average so much. Hell and Gone had nothing but 4 & 5 star reviews for years, before the first 1 star review. As annoying as that was, it didn’t move the needle significantly.

(BTW, it’s not always woketard reactionaries who try to torpedo the book’s reputation, though they certainly do. Sometimes I suspect it’s other authors who assume they can improve their own fortune by sabotaging “the competition.” A common ploy (back when anybody could review anything) was to LARP as a retired marine and claim a lack of realism in my military thrillers. Everybody who has read my books knows such “reviewers” are full of it, but that doesn’t matter. They’re put there to scare away readers who have not read them.)

Anyway, in case you needed it, this is an illustration of why you should post ratings/reviews of what you like. Support what you love or it goes away. And you’ll always be outvoted if you never vote.