Just 10 days ago, Amazon filed a lawsuit against more than 1,000 Fiverr vendors who Amazon says are writing fake product reviews on the retailer’s site.

The company says the bogus Amazon reviews could mislead consumers and give certain sellers an unfair advantage.

“Unfortunately, a very small minority of sellers and manufacturers sometimes tries to gain unfair competitive advantages for their products on Amazon.com. One such method is creating false, misleading, and inauthentic customer reviews,” Amazon wrote in the October 16, 2015, court filing. “While small in number, these reviews can significantly undermine the trust that consumers and the vast majority of sellers and manufacturers place in Amazon, which in turn tarnishes Amazon’s brand.”

Amazon notes that it prohibits any attempt to manipulate customer reviews and doesn’t allow compensated reviews. Even so, the company says, an “unhealthy ecosystem” has developed to supply reviews in exchange for a fee.

Amazon Complaint

Fake reviews are a problem

Fake reviews are an issue for all types of products sold on Amazon, not just books, but I have been monitoring author reaction to this development in particular. Most of it seems to fall into one of four categories:

1. Haters: “Amazon is an evil entity trying to take over the world. Unite in an uprising, authors!”
2. Specialized haters: “This is a free speech issue! Amazon can’t stop us from saying what we want!”
3. Legal beagles: “What’s the legal standing for this suit?”
4. Consumerists: “It’s about time. I don’t even read the 5-star reviews because I doubt they’re honest.”

In the end, regardless of which of those categories best describes your reaction, what’s relevant to you is the fact that Amazon doesn’t tolerate reviews that aren’t honest. If you’re begging friends and family to “write something nice” about your book on Amazon, knock it off.

Is this actually a public relations campaign?

The other piece here for authors and other product sellers is that it’s likely that Amazon has another motive for this crackdown — improving its image.

Amazon is now positioning itself as a champion of the consumer underdog as it stands up in court to protect you from the evildoers trying to trick you into buying books, baubles, or boomerangs that won’t live up to the glowing reviews.

Other businesses that rely on user reviews have noticed. In an NBC News report, a spokesperson for Yelp told a reporter, “. . . we’re really heartened by it. Any message loud and clear that the industry can send that these types of misleading activities cannot be tolerated on platforms is an important message for consumers to hear.”

The suit was filed not long after a New York Times expose describing Amazon’s workplace as “bruising” made national news.

What’s more, just days after Amazon filed its “advocate for the consumer” lawsuit against phony reviewers, it published its response to The New York Times article on Medium.com.

I doubt the timing is coincidental. Amazon wants you to know that no matter what you read about it in the press, the retailer is working hard to protect its customers.

Author takeaways

But back to the author takeaway for this action: Don’t ask friends or family for book reviews, especially if they don’t read they types of books you write. Don’t do review swaps with other authors, either. Instead, learn how to get honest reviews (see “How to get reader reviews“).  Plus, in the article “Get reader reviews fast” on this site, author Michael Sunnarborg explains his simple six-step approach.

Finally, a member of the Build Book Buzz Facebook group commented recently that anything but a verified purchase review is useless on Amazon because Amazon gives verified purchase reviews the most weight. I asked Amazon about this and here’s the response I got:

“Anyone registered as an Amazon.com customer is entitled to write a product review. It doesn’t matter whether they bought the product from our website or not. Also, we encourage reviews on Amazon.com website, both positive and negative, verified or non verified as long as they adhere to our posted guidelines. Customer Reviews are meant to give customers unbiased product feedback from fellow shoppers, any reviews that could be viewed as advertising, promotional, or misleading will not be posted.”

There you have it.

How do you feel about Amazon’s campaign to “out” the phony reviews, reviewers, and review buyers? Tell us in a comment!

Tip of the Month

On the fourth Wednesday of the month, I’ll always share a “Tip of the Month,” a free resource or tool for authors.

File this one in the Cool Tools Department: The Kindle Sales Rank Calculator lets you take the current Amazon rank of any book and calculate how many books it is currently selling.

To get a book’s rank to enter into the calculator, go to the book’s Amazon sales page and scroll down to the “Product Details.” The number to enter into the calculator is the “Amazon Best Sellers Rank” — the first number, not the category sales ranks.

Key point: If there’s a comma (or two) in the sales rank number, remove it. The calculator won’t work if there’s a comma.

Comparing your estimated daily sales to those of books you compete with could help you formulate sales goals. Even if you don’t do that, though, it’s worth knowing what your rank actually means in terms of sales.