What practices are considered 'Gaming the System'?

[A.G.]

I see a lot of things like review swaps, tagging parties, like parties etc... and I find myself wondering what we can and can't do to promote our work.

It seems like the threads on the KDP community are lightly moderated at best. Various topics spring up all the time and pull in new authors. Somewhere in the middle of page twenty, someone will mention that swaps, tagging etc... is a TOS violation and could get you banned from Amazon.

So what do you folks hear about practices that we need to avoid? Some of them become obvious pretty quickly (like review swaps where someone agrees to review a book and then posts the review ten minutes later...) but some seem more like honest simple ideas until you learn that threads are being removed by Amazon for violating their terms.

We all want our titles to do well, but we need to help each other to avoid tainting our names in the process.

I would appreciate hearing what you think about the subject.

[Rachel]

I have been watching this post and wondering at the lack of replies. I too am curious as to what we can do as indie authors to promote ourselves and what is over the line. I think the ebook revolution and online marketing are still new enough that maybe nobodies really sure what's okay and what's not.
I would think that swapping reviews would be okay if the reviews themselves are honest. Buying a review or giving someone a book and telling them "give it five stars" are dishonest and shouldn't be done. As to tagging, I am not sure what that is.

[Jim]

The lack of replies is likely largely because we don't really know.

I tend to think the following are "gaming" the system:
- Trading reviews that aren't reviews...just advertising. I.e., bogus reviews.
- Paid reviews that guarantee good results...again, bogus.

Most of the other things that are more grey area, I don't really know and I'm guessing others don't either.

The mass-mailings through GR are annoying and turn me off...but they aren't gaming anything. Spam of any kind is just a turn-off to me, but not against most TOS or whatnot.

The like/taggings Amazon set up specifically for people to use that way, so I can't say that's gaming anything. Others disagree on the "like" part, but tagging is meant to be used extensively.

Most of what I've seen get slapped down by Amazon are the paid reviews that have no merit. For the most part, they leave the paid honest reviews alone, but the "$5 for 5 stars" crap they go after pretty fast.

Jim

[A.G.]

Thanks for taking the time to weigh in.
I would like to beleive that tagging is ok but I've heard several writers claim that Amazon eventually goes after tag party organizers.
Frankly, I dont know why tagging would be a bad thing. I would like to give it a try myself, Amazon is notoriously vague about stuff like that.

I did engage in a swap thread when I brought out my first novel. I realized after a couple of reviews that some people were just paraphrasing my product description and giving me 5 stars - twenty minutes after agreeing to do the swap.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not allergic to the stars, but readers are pretty good at spotting stuff like that. They know how to find reciprocal reviews and, once they do, your rep takes a nosedive.

I'm not planning do get involved in any more swaps but maybe tagging...

What are you guys hearing about tagging?

[Jim]

When I asked Amazon, they said it was encouraged. Others have been told otherwise and that tags should not be used (which seems to defeat the purpose of even having tags, so I take that one with a grain of salt).

In the end, Amazon uses outsourced help, who really doesn't care and might ban something that corporate encourages or the opposite.

From what I've seen throughout GR, KB, and other places, tagging is most rarely considered a bad thing. "Likes" get a lot more disfavor than tags. Review swaps get the most hatred.

[A.G.]

Agreed on the Swaps, Jim. Even with the best of intentions, they quickly degenerate into worst sort of five star swap party.

I think I might give tagging a go. The folks on "Authors Voice" threads who claim that tagging is a violation are usually quoting their interpretation of the posted rules.

If Amazon told you it's encouraged, I'll go hunt for a few parties.

Let's see what else we can think of that should be avoided. Too many new writers fall into practices that end up harming their name in the long run. It would be nice to have somewhere that they could go to find out the right and the wrong way to manage their KDP pages.

[Sherry]

I have a novel coming out in May and another author has recently published a "competing" book about two of my protagonists. I saw an Amazon review in which the reader said she wished the other book followed these protagonists' lives until their old age -- which mine does. I responded to her comment by telling her about my book. Later, I thought I'd gone "over the line" by using another author's Amazon page to promote my own book. I realized that everyone who reads the reviews for the "competition" would see my comment -- which, although it certainly does not harm the other book, seemed like a questionable practice. So I removed my comment. *Sigh* Under so much pressure to publicize, publicize, publicize, it's easy, sometimes, to lose sight of that "line."

[Jim]

And the line can be very ambiguous, I might add.

Early on, I was in a KB thread where a reader specifically asked, "Can anyone let me know of any books with X, Y, and Z? I don't care if you recommend them, just looking for anything with those."

My book had those, so I mentioned it. Got a nasty slap on the wrist and my post deleted for doing so, even though I didn't advertise.

Sometimes, it's just hard to say where the line is. Now I tend towards caution, just to be safe. I just find it funny that we have people on GR that send out messages to 1000 other authors advertising their book (why authors and not readers, I often wonder), but KB threatens people for answering questions in a way that could be advertising.

*shrug* The line probably varies more by what site you're on than anything else.

[Sherry]

Jim wrote: "And the line can be very ambiguous, I might add.

Early on, I was in a KB thread where a reader specifically asked, "Can anyone let me know of any books with X, Y, and Z? I don't care if you recomm..."

Jim, what is KB?

[Jim]

Kindle Boards

[A.G.]

I pretty much stay away from the kindle boards. There are so many trolls lurking over there looking to start a fight. I used to watch and participate in a thread started by an author to post about exciting new technologies but then it went sideways. Some jerk showed up with his buddies (and a dedicated wikipedia terminal - unless I miss my guess) and they just kept flaming the living daylights out of her. Every post she put up was disected and refuted by their sketchy interpretations of the Wiki entries. I even found some of those entries, copied and pasted right into their smug attacks.

Whatever benefits there may be to KB, it seems to be outweighed by the risk of having some trollpack show up on your book pages and leave nasty reviews of books they haven't read...

BTW, Sherry, I think you did the classy thing - removing your post on the competing book thread.

At the end of the day, it's your reputation that's going to take you to the top of the best seller list.

[Rachel]

For now I try to act in good faith. I review, recommend and promote books I have read and really liked. Promoting books you haven't read because the author has paid you or offered some sort of trade feels unethical to me.