SundayAtDusk’s Comments (group member since Jan 26, 2018)

SundayAtDusk’s comments from the NetGalley Addicts Support Group group.

Donna wrote: "Yeah, I agree, it's irritating, and it doesn't serve the author well, either, because when people think they're buying one thing and it turns out to be something else, only one name is on that book..."

Well, we could request novels under True Crime, and then soon after give feedback that there will be no review because it wasn't a true crime book! :) That could definitely send a message to the author or publisher, but would reduce one's feedback ratio, and it's not something I would do anyway. Doing so would also be a type of dishonesty, because I knew when I requested it that it was fiction.

I think they are trying to make their novels stand out when they put them under True Crime. As I said, there were less than 50 True Crime books to request, while there are over 1,200 General Fiction books and over 200 Literary Fiction books to request. Nevertheless, it's dishonest to list them as true crime. Plus, if word got out doing so increased requests, the True Crime category would end up with mostly novels!

Does anyone else think that novels should not be listed under the "True Crime" category at NetGalley? There are 44 books listed right now and 12 are novels! "True Crime" is a nonfiction category. Novels are fiction. You can't always tell by book covers if one is a novel or not, and it's a waste of time for nonfiction readers to have to click in fiction books in the "True Crime" category. I once e-mailed NetGalley and asked why they allowed it, and they said because they allow publishers and authors to list their books under whatever categories they want.

Thanks for info.

This isn't going to affect NetGalley books, is it? Sorry, I'm ignorant about file types! :)

An email sent today from Amazon:

Dear Kindle Customer,

Thank you for using the Send to Kindle service to send your documents to your Kindle. This is a final reminder that on November 1, 2023, we will start winding down support for sending MOBI (.mobi, .azw, .prc) files through Send to Kindle. This change will impact sending MOBI files through Send to Kindle for Email, Kindle apps on iOS and Android, and Send to Kindle apps for Windows and Mac. We will end all Send to Kindle support for MOBI files by December 20, 2023. MOBI documents already in your Kindle library and other document formats will not be affected by this change.

MOBI is an older file format and does not support the latest Kindle features for documents. If you wish to enjoy our most up-to-date document features, please re-send files in a compatible format. EPUB (.epub) is one such compatible format, and you can send it to your library from the Send to Kindle web app.

If you have any questions, please visit our help page or contact our Customer Service team. By downloading or using Send to Kindle, you agree to the terms here.

Regards,
The Kindle team

To suggest reviews less than three stars not be published makes BookSirens a dishonest organization, in my opinion.

Amarachi wrote: "Does withdrawing my request for an arc from a specific publisher affect me when I’m requesting another arc from the same publisher?"

Interesting question. I never thought of there being any bad ramifications of withdrawing requests. I have withdrawn requests the day after I requested the books. I like being able to do that, plus not seeing a book on my request list for months and months.

Hope wrote: "I will tell you this. If you review a book and you give it a rating of 2 stars and under, they will ask you not to publish it everywhere and to just leave it on BookSirens. I wasn't ok with that si..."

Good for you! There is a very dark side to the internet, which includes the advocation of incest and calling sexual abuse of children "love", that keeps slipping closer and closer towards the light side.

I recently did a documentary review at Amazon about the subway spokesman pervert, and I got a notice the review broke "guidelines". There was nothing in it that broke guidelines, unless Amazon thought it was "hateful" to call a pedophile a pervert and the scum of the earth. IMDB also posted the review, with no problems, and that website is owned by Amazon. Thus, I resubmitted it two more times, it finally got posted, and then I got a notice from "Communities" that my reviewing rights were revoked and all my reviews disappeared.

This happened once before years ago after I posted a lot of reviews in one weekend. I emailed Jeff Bezos' and his staff immediately got my reviews and reviewing rights returned. Since I submitted a lot of reviews right before the "Communites" action, I don't know for sure if it was the review or something else.

How can you know? Amazon will not tell you anything when they take such action against a reviewer. The only response from "Communities" showed the rep had absolutely no idea what the problem was! It was like she was answering someone else's email about a different issue.Plus, unlike Jeff Bezos, Andy Jassy does not get his staff to answer his emails.

I'm not sure the matter is going to get resolved this time, either. But if the review revocation was due to the documentary review, I will see them in a very hot place before I agree for a second that review was abusive and broke guidelines. Those who prey on children are perverts and the scum of the earth. They need to be stopped, not encouraged to think the general public will one day accept their perversion and their abuse of children.

That sounds serious. At some point in the past, it came up somewhere that you no longer could say you got a free book or whatever in exchange for a review. It was like that meant the review was bought. I just state now I got a free ARC from NetGalley and the author or publisher.

I wonder, however, if Amazon has ever read NetGalley's suggestions to reviewers, which do seem to suggest you want to write a review to promote the book, even though it's totally against Amazon's review policies to post a consumer review doing so. NetGalley's money comes from publishers and authors, though, so they want to make publishers and authors happy.

As I said, I might be imagining authors can do that. :) But there was something truly odd about the review I mentioned.

Every time I get a rejection review e-mail from Amazon, which is not common, I resubmit. Sometimes it is then posted and other times not. If not, I contact Amazon through "Help", either by chat or call. The rep taking it will then send the problem to Communities, which is the group that decides what is posted and what is not. Never, after that happens, does my review get rejected again and is not posted. Either it just posts or I get an e-mail from Amazon apologizing for the rejection.

A lot of times, I think it's simply a software rejection, where no person saw the review. After you complain, a rep reads the review. So, always complain through Help, if you see no reason for the rejection. Also, I always put at the end of the review I got a "free" copy, because my understanding is that's like the law or something. You must state you got a "free" product, period.

Sometimes, too, I suspect an author may not like a critical review and somehow gets it rejected. That may be my imagination, though. But once, not too long ago, a 2-star book review posted and then it disappeared. The second time it posted and then disappeared. After the third time it posted and disappeared, I complained to Amazon. It posted permanently then and I received an apology from Amazon. I had made no changes to the review at all.

You can always tell if your review has disappeared by going to the book page and clicking the "write a review" button. If your review is still there, the review boxes will show up with your review and title. (It can take days before a review posts, too, after you submitted it.) If the boxes are blank, so you can write another review, your original review has been rejected or removed, but Amazon should still have a copy of it. Always complain if you feel your review did not violate review guidelines.

Okay, was it Amazon in the UK or the US that caused you problems?

Okay, who were you dealing with--AmazonUS or AmazonUK?

No, I don't think a password change would have anything to do with the situation . . . as far as I know.

Sheila, did Amazon ever respond to your last e-mail?

Keep us posted!

Dorie, so what are phone conversations like with the reps? I've tried chat, and the one thing good about it is you can make certain the rep understands the problem, or at least appears to understand. They then always said they would forward the problem to the right department, which did not necessarily solve the problem.

I would contact Amazon again, Shelia. I'm saying it's very bad, though, because e-mailing Amazon reps is not like having a normal discussion with someone. Many don't understand your complaint at all and some only understand it partially. It use to be if you kept clicking in that your problem was not resolved, your complaint would move up the ladder to someone more capable of understanding. The last time I did that, though, as I stated in a previous post, the fourth rep understood the problem less that the first three reps! In addition, others in past forums have repeatedly said the charges against them were never revealed.

Go ahead and try again, though, and keep trying as long as someone still responds. Or you can send your complaints about being falsely accused to Jeff Bezos at jeff@amazon.com

I do wish you luck. You'll need it dealing with Amazon about reviews. (:

Very bad. They obviously think you are guilty of fraud.

Donna: "I was told by an Amazon rep and also a Net Galley troubleshooter that no minimum purchase is required for NG reviewers; they are trying to weed out sock puppet and other fraudulent reviews."

That's good to hear and thanks for posting it. I knew it wasn't a matter of greed, but did not know they made exceptions for NG reviewers.

Dorie, it's probably not a problem with any US NG reviewer, but the UK ones were complaining because they had spent at least that much at AmazonUK, but, of course, had made no purchases at AmazonUS. I just got three Amazon deliveries this weekend. :)

Sheila, go to https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom.... Use a contact link to contact Amazon, or the community e-mail address, and present your problem to them. It's best to include a specific example giving the book's ASIN. Maybe they can explain why you are being blacklisted, or help you to start posting reviews again.

Don't be too hopeful, though. Amazon has obviously greatly reduced the time and manpower it gives to review problems. The last time I e-mailed about a problem, the first two reps did not fully understand the problem; the third one understood it completely, but still did not resolve the issue; and the fourth rep totally did not understand anything. I gave up.

Also, in another thread, UK reviewers mentioned they could no longer review at Amazon US because they did not meet the new minimum $50 purchase requirement. (See the guidelines.) Have you? If not, that may be the real reason your reviews aren't posting.