The Fact You Can’t Enter Reviews On Amazon and Barnes And Noble Before Release Date Is Pretty Annoying
I just want to say that I find it very annoying that you can’t enter reviews on Amazon or Barnes and Noble before the release date of a book. I much prefer how Goodreads just ignores this and lets you go ahead. I’m sure this is probably done to combat review fraud, but it’s still annoying.
After all, I get a lot of books before release date because I write book reviews for places like Gently Read Literature, [PANK], InDigest, The Lit Pub, and The Rumpus. Further, sometimes when I order direct from the publisher (or sometimes even from my local independent, Tattered Cover) I end up getting (and often reading) the book before Amazon and Barnes and Noble think it has been released.
That would be all fine and good, except that Amazon and Barnes and Noble won’t let me write a review at that point. Granted, I don’t write an Amazon or Barnes and Noble review for every book I read. I make some kind of comment on Goodreads for everything, but I tend to copy the review over to Amazon and Barnes and Noble in certain cases (such as when I like the book more than normal, when I think more people need to know about the book, when I think the book especially deserves support, when it’s from a smaller press that is going to get less attention, when I know the author and/or particularly think they deserve support, and so on).
But, when the release date hasn’t hit yet, Amazon and Barnes and Noble won’t let me post. This actually leads me to post less, because I’ll post to Goodreads when I finish reading and promise myself to return to Amazon and Barnes and Noble when the release date hits. What happens is that I forget. Sometimes I come across it later and remember…sometimes I do not.
Now, I know that they probably do this to combat review fraud since it is less likely that people actually read the book before release date. Still, some people can read before release date and it would be nice to be able to post a review if I want.
