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:
And:
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:
And:
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:
And:
And again here:
And:
But isn’t swapping reviews against Amazon rules, you say? Here’s what Pete Morin thinks about those pesky Amazon rules:
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:
And this:
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:
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:
Did you see anything there about swapping reviews?
No sir.
Pete knows when he’s living in a glass house.
These people… No self-respect. No respect for others. No pride. It’s all leaving me at a loss for words!
Great work STGRB! Pete is such a nasty bully. I’d love to see how smug he is now after reading this. Of course he’ll pretend to laugh it off.
I’ve seen him attack so many other SP authors for doing this VERY thing! He is such a big hypocrite!
Whoa!
Now that’s some mighty fine shillin’!
Excellent research for this post! We had to know that some of the worst offenders of the ARM and BBA are really authors that manipulate the rest by any tool available, but you caught it. Cheers!
Hear! Hear! Good job, Tink!
I think what Tink here is trying to express is that it is against the ARM’s “code of honor” to review swap, so for Pete to be doing this, just as Looney did, is a bit hypocritical on the ARM’s part, since Pete and Looney are included in their numbers.
As for authors reviewing other author’s work, we agree with Joe Konrath. We don’t see harm in it as long as the reviews are honest. But it is true that some review swaps are just not honest. At all.
As an author, I have to say that I started out as a reader. A lot of authors don’t do reviews for the reasons they can cause quite a bit of flack but honestly, if I review on Amazon, I only do it for verified purchases. I bought the book and I have just as much right as the next person to review it. If I don’t like it, I don’t review it. It’s hard enough on the authors as it is without having a peer give them a negative review. Anyway, that’s my two cents.
I have known many of these authors online, in the same way they know each other, for a number of years now. And I can vouch for their warmth, humour and enthusiasm for literature of many different kinds. None of these people have been dishonest about what they are doing, or given an opinion that was not their own. They are readers, just like others and have a right to state their views about the books they enjoyed. Have a look at their other reviews – they have commented on far more than just the reviewers you say they have swapped with. Yes, they may have read books they wouldn’t otherwise have picked up – due to knowing the author, but the opinions of these books are very much their own.
We actually agree with Joe Konrath on authors reviewing other authors’ works. Authors are readers, too. The point of this post is to show how Pete and the other ARM members are extremely hypocritical in condemning review swapping, then engaging in it themselves. And there is always the question when you see something like this. Is it honest? Some review swaps are. Others are not.
I’ve spent hours upon hours reading the cyberstalker’s posts on many forums. They whine and whine about self published authors who market their books. They whine about who is doing the reviewing on author’s books. They whine about things that have nothing to do with publishing, period. These are frustrated individuals who have a personal need for control and power. I never read anything from these cyberstalkers that portrays anything helpful, hopeful or of a positive nature, which is why I am extremely puzzled about Goodreads and Amazon combined for allowing this to go on and on. It’s quite apparent to me that these cyberstalkers make excuses daily for their ridiculous behavior, but in reality, everything they do is personally attack people. Many, many hours of reading their posts has not produced much in the way of actual productive behavior where someone actually honestly reviews a book! No, what I’ve read is hours upon hours of posts that plot, scheme, and strategize within their ranks, detailed, although masked to some point, their vicious attacks. Yes, I’ve seen where Amazon has removed entire pages of postings. I’ll never know why because they’re gone, but I assume that they were so very vicious that someone had to act. Now, this prompts me to ask…why is this allowed to continue? Just throw these crazed individuals out for good. Simple solution. Isn’t anyone keeping score?
When I say masked, I mean that what I’ve read are posts that cajole, provoke, manipulate, praise destruction, and even reach the point of “Now let’s get out the popcorn and watch the demise as we all join in and descend upon this unknowing person”…this is incredible to me. Do they actually believe that their intentions can’t be dissected and exposed? I honestly think they believe they are more intelligent, more street savvy, and more resilient than anyone else in the world. You know, when you sit and read this very sick rhetoric, you really do see extreme mentally disturbed behavior. Again, I have testimony from clinical people who have verified that for me. It is pure evil, no question about it. There is nothing at all that’s redeeming about these stalkers. Nothing. They are parked where they are for a solid evil purpose, and when the shit hits the proverbial fan people, they will be shown no mercy by the people they’ve taken down, the confidences they’ve eroded, the beat downs they’ve given out, and the lack of any human emotion these ratbags have been dishing out for years.
Now, do these stalkers actually believe that authors don’t read books? You know, I can’t even intelligently address this madness, so all I’m going to say on the subject is this…
Authors probably read more than you skanks read, so STFU. You sit back and decide which author can read another author’s book, then write an honest review based on what they actually thought of the book…well, we all know that since you don’t actually READ books to begin with, and all you do is sit in the forums and plot gang attacks, I think that all authors out there are above and beyond your mental capabilities.
Sometimes, while writing these comments, I truly become nauseated on the subject matter and have to stop writing.
Here is a recent comment from an Amazon forum from a newbie author who has been viciously attacked…
How painful it must be to read any book when basically all you’re doing is looking for errors of any kind. However, the reviewer in this case chose to go much further than that. She pointed out faults in the story that were not true. I could go into it further but whats the sense in that when it’s so easy to just blame the author for every bad review. Like I said, I seldom get bad reviews, but when they feel they have to resort to lies for the purpose of distroying the book and the author, they’ve gone too far. And in all fairness Amazon should have removed it. But they didn’t, and for that reason I’ve removed the books. And until Amazon decides to do a better job of reining in these monsters they’ll stay off Kindle. There are a lot of people who will wonder what happened to this series, but that’s just the breaks. Maybe they’ll find them elsewhere later.
NOW LET ME COMMENT ABOUT THIS AFTER READING THE ENTIRE THREAD POST…
I swear to God, it’s editors trying to get WORK!! I’m beginning to believe there is strong evidence that bloggers who promote editing services are behind much of the evil going on. Why else take the time and effort to go line by line and edit someone’s new work? COME ON, this is sabotage people!! This is not some academic goof actually trying to help someone. This is someone trying to promote work. Editors must be hurting! HA….I remember reading some of the reviews on Hocking’s first books, I laughed out loud, they tore the girl to shreds and ground her up like sausage patties, but people kept buying her books, and I guess the trolls just committed suicide at that point…LMAO
Funny how he rationalizes it here.
Wonderful post. But however much the Amazon Mafia is looking into this .. this is happening. You scratch my back and i scratch yours is happening. Question is if reviews are the reason for buyers to buy the book- how is this wrong? You create a product and you have to sell it. Whatever means is available to you. Do you really think this is so wrong. Would love to hear your thoughts on this as a writer and a reviewer.
As far as STGRB is concerned, if reviews are honest and not a personal attack on the author or anyone else, they are fine. This post is really just to show how hypocritical the AFT are in their agenda and their “rules” that they impose on everyone else but themselves.