Sock Puppets Infest Amazon Reviews

In my last post a mentioned my lack of confidence in Amazon reviews, and in the comments Rebecca asked about that. It made me realize that people inside of publishing pay more attention to this kind of thing than people outside, so here I am, writing about it. I stopped writing Amazon reviews maybe six years ago. There were a couple of simple and practical reasons for this, but there was also the sense that things were not always what they seemed. So for example: 1. After a glitch in their computer software, Amazon/Canada's reviews suddenly no longer showed screen names, but the review writer's real name.  A couple of authors were thereby exposed: they were writing glowing reviews of their own work, and not-so-glowing reviews of other people's work. 2. There have been various expose-type investigations into fake or false reviews, in which author's friends and family organize good-review campaigns.The Cincinnati Beacon has a story about multiple reviews of a novel that can be traced back to the author's staff. The New York Times did an indepth story about sock puppet reviews: [so] writers have naturally been vying to get more, and better, notices. Several mystery writers, including R. J. Ellory, Stephen Leather and John Locke, have recently confessed to various forms of manipulation under the general category of “sock puppets,” or online identities used to deceive.  [emphasis added] 3. In 2012 a research group estimated that by 2014, 30 percent of all  reviews would be fake — paid for by advertising entities: With over half of the Internet’s population on social networks, organizations are scrambling for new ways to build bigger follower bases, generate more hits on videos, garner more positive reviews than their […]