It is a truth universally acknowledged that review swapping is a bad thing.

A few months ago, a noted Amazon poster had this to say:

“Last week or so I went through the threads where they were swamping (sic) reviews and put them all on my do not buy BBA shelf.”

Another one in the same thread said:

“Maybe we should have shelves that say: DNR~Author Swaps Reviews.”

What is review swapping? It’s when two authors exchange reviews, usually positive ones (of course). For example:

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And:

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Here we have author Orest Stelmach reviewing a book by author Pete Morin, and Pete Morin reviewing a book by Orest Stelmach. On Goodreads.

Some authors find that swapping reviews really works for them, so they start to do it many, many times, any place they can find. Such is the case with one of the above authors:

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And:

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Here we have the author Pete Morin swapping reviews with another author, Stephen Woodfin, this time on Amazon. Pete Morin must really like swapping reviews because here he is doing it again:

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And:

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And again here:

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And:

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But isn’t swapping reviews against Amazon rules, you say? Here’s what Pete Morin thinks about those pesky Amazon rules:

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Read that sentence again:

“I do not know (or care,frankly) if my review of this novel comports with Amazon’s review guidelines”

Wow, Pete. If the Amazon Review Mafia heard you say that! They … well, they wouldn’t do very much at all, apparently. Because Pete is pretty tight with the Amazon Review Mafia, so he can review swap compulsively without a peep from anyone. How did he get to be so lucky?

Pete first came to the attention of the ARM sometime in the May of 2012, when he got a two-star review because his book had too much cussing in it. He responded by saying that the reviewer had a perfect right to their opinion. somebody pointed out his good behavior in the forums, and a legend was born. starting a whole thread to praise him over this incident.

Isn’t that just lovely?

But something strange happened. If you click on Anna’s link, you’ll get Amazon’s famous ‘Looking for something?’ message. That’s because Pete’s two-star review disappeared back when Amazon was purging itself of shill and fake reviews. A lot of people were complaining that perfectly legitimate reviews were disappearing along with the shills.

Maybe Pete was a victim.

Or maybe that two star-review was a shill. It sure sounded like a ‘fake negative’ review. The complaint, that there was too much cussing, is one of those old standbys, like saying there’s too much sex, which attracts more people than it repels.

Or here’s another possibility: it was a fake negative review designed specifically for Pete to worm his way into the heart of the ARM. Think about it: author has friend write fake review, author responds exactly the way the ARM thinks authors should respond, somebody points this out to the ARM, and voila! The author is in like flynn!

If you search ‘Pete Morin’ on the forums, the earliest posts about him is this:

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And this:

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They can still be found on .

What’s wrong with them, you may ask?

Nothing much, except that they’re dated May 20 2011, almost FIVE MONTHS before Pete’s book came out.

Hmm….*scratches chin*

If you’re an unknown indie author, what are the chances of some total stranger(s) spontaneously plugging your book and trying to create a buzz like this? That’s right: approximately none.

You’d have to get a friend to do it.

And you’d have to be pretty far-sighted to think of doing it five months in advance. We’ve all seen authors who publish their books to Kindle, and two days later someone just happens along on the forums to tell everyone what a great book it is. Such people are quickly labelled as friends of the author and run off the forums for spamming.

This wouldn’t happen to them if they’d thought of it five months earlier.

Now Danny Gillan did his plug on the Meet Our Authors Forum, which is allowed. But this other poster didn’t:

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Suzy’s , where such blatant spamming, even by non-authors, is usually, uh, frowned upon.

And who is Suzy? If you check out her profile, you’ll see she goes by the moniker ‘Swedish-Irish Bookworm.’ Someone by that name reviewed Pete’s book…as well as a book by Danny Gillan. It’s a small world, isn’t it?

So to recap:

-Five months before his book comes out, a friend of Pete’s, possibly tag-teaming with a second friend, shills it in the MOA.

-About a week before the book comes out, another friend of Pete’s shills the book on the Kindle Forum. And nobody complains!

-At various times, Pete swaps reviews with various authors. All of them are four or five-star.

-A few months after the book is out, a two-star review appears, thanks to which Pete is brought to the favorable attention of the Amazon Review Mafia.

-Almost a year later, a top-ranking Amazon reviewer, who has been impressed by Pete’s indefatigably good behavior, .

-And boom! The reviewer gives Pete a five-star review. Everyone who’s paying attention is thrilled that Pete actually got a review he didn’t have to swap.

Ask yourself: is a guy with at least two helpful ‘friends’ and who obviously has a far-sighted and subtle approach to stealth spammi…er, marketing, capable of planting a fake two star review in order to further his marketing campaign?

Nah.

But back to the review swapping. Pete really is out of control, but at least he’s not a hypocrite. Check out the little homily he gives over on the notorious BBA #3 thread:

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Did you see anything there about swapping reviews?

No sir.

Pete knows when he’s living in a glass house.

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