Who knows without reports?

My reports from KDP are odd. Google says KDP is "experiencing intermittent functionality
issues " - to me that means faults - the KDP platform is operational but authors have
reported books getting stuck in the review/draft phases.

There's also delayed reporting which is my major concern.

Google reports faults and complaints across the whole KDP platform. I know one or two of
their data centres have suffered bomb damage during the raids on Saudi and Bahrain and I can understand that would cause problems.

They may not be operating 100% but at least I am not losing money - except for royalties
which I may not have earned anyway. Who knows without reports?

Massive probs for Amazon

I think my time placing Ads on Amazon to promote my books is over.

For the last 18 months I have the feeling they are benefitting from me rather me benefitting from them. Sales are way down and even KENP reads are none-existent. Now this may be for a number of reason but  Amazon glitches are not helping.

To be honest, this time my bank had a rather large part to play because they declined to pay off the invoice for no other reason than fraud protection. They suspected/were checking that I was really me, so they said when I rang today. So they were the reason Amazon stopped everything dead. 

I think the banks should at least e-mail people if they are going to do this. Their action has caused me awful problems and all for nothing - there was no fraud.

Though I have spent a good hour online with Amazon Ads AI helper today telling them their billing page does not allow me to pay the wretched unpaid invoice (for $9.18 cents.) In the end the AI helper handed over to an attendant and though Avindar could send a message to me, I could not send one back to him. No joy with  Microsoft Edge (my normal browser)  or with Firefox or Google Chrome. (The AI helper thought that would help if I changed browsers.) I think Amazon Ads has massive problems these days.  Anyway, I gave up and took the dog for a walk.

Re-publishing

Thinking of a new title for one of my books.

The Gybford Affair is about to become the Unwilling Marquess.

I've re-edited the entire book, which was fun and went by really quickly but for some time now I've thought the Affair series wasn't a good selling point. Many of the names I chose - all placenames in the UK, seem to cause the internet and Amazon problems. Craigmuir was never really accepted, so I changed it to Cragstone, which did better. 

Now I am thinking of renaming the entire series so that the genre is more easily seen by prospective buyers. Titles that include buzz words for genres ie Duke, heiress and Marquess for Regency stories. I understand it means unpublishing on Amazon and republishing so I am hoping all goes smoothly.

Dictatorial forms

 It has been a while since I posted, mostly because I was tied up with Amazon. They had been sending me notices to refresh my Tax information, which I duly did, received a verification in the shape of a big green tick and sent it back to them. A few days later the request appeared again, so I went through the same steps and returned it. This happened four or five times and then I needed to fill in a different form. This one requested my Unique Tax Reference Number (UK) and I didn't have one. 

Ah! The steps I went through! It took days and much pulling of hair and then to crown all  after I received said Tax Number, they said I could use my National Insurance Number. Duh! I could have used that the first time. 

Dealing with online forms is difficult. Put a letter where a number should be, or where there should be a space and the equivalence of red ink springs up all over the screen. Invalid information! It repeats the same information endlessly until by lucky chance you hit the correct format/information. If they really want AI to work, then the red ink should have politely informed me I had  allowed a space in the answer I gave and they didn't want the space but a number. Perhaps one day, all forms will be helpful instead of dictatorial!

The pic is of York. Evidently the town is considering charging a Tax on Tourists who stay overnight.

Transformations

 These last few months I have renewed most of my e-book covers.

The e-covers are easy and I enjoy doing them. Some turn out better than others, but even so, it is a pleasure, and gives me a task to do while I await inspiration as to the story I am supposedly moving forward.

I am finding the paperback covers much harder to change and given the low number of paperbacks sold, I'm wondering if it is worth the hours it takes. Or the frustration, for that matter. Amazon instructions are never harder to interpret than when loading book covers!

On the other hand, I should be able to manage it, given time and patience. 

It is hard to believe that the two boys in the picture are now in their fifties and one is actually having his sixtieth birthday this year! This is one of the many slides dh and I retireved using a film scanner.

Author incomes tumble

The Authors Guild suggested that Amazon’s dominance is partly responsible for loss of earnings for US authors. 

Amazon says the findings are flawed.

The report was published in  early 2019, but I never saw it at the time, which is why it is interesting now when I have been looking at my own stats.  On the whole I made more sales prior to 2014 than I do now. One thing the report does not consider is the vast number of books that are now self-published. One report I read stated over 7,000 a day! 

The Authors Guild said the median writing income in 2017 fell 42% from 2009 and pointed out the growing dominance of Amazon as a reason for this. The company now controls 72% of the online book market in the US and keeps costs down and takes a large percentage, plus marketing fees, forcing publishers to pass on their losses to authors.

Amazon disagrees and points out significant differences between the data it compared in its recent survey and years prior, with many of the survey’s conclusions flawed or contradictory. It claims earnings increased almost 17% for traditionally published authors and 89% for self-published authors, and that full-time authors saw their median income rise 13% since 2013.

Read the full report by Alison Flood

Really, Amazon?

It is claimed that 25.5 million US households bought books in the past month, and fully a quarter of those used Amazon’s Prime Reading, which allows subscribers to borrow 10 items at a time from a vast 1,000 item catalogue.

Kindle Unlimited, a similar program, costs an extra $9.99 and offers a wider selection of millions of titles. Amazon First Reads allows members to download a book a month earlier than the unsubscribed public for no extra cost. Often, First Reads are Amazon Publishing titles, and they rocket up the Amazon best-seller charts as soon as they’re made available. Titles topped the charts in early July despite being due out August 1. (I did not know that First Reads exsted!)

And then there’s Amazon’s 19 brick-and-mortar stores around the country, ( he journalist is talking about America) which sell print copies of Amazon Publishing titles, produced via a sophisticated print-on-demand operation. All told, these services overlap to create an ecosystem with the same aim and model as Prime: to lock customers into a regular subscription that binds them to Amazon. The company’s then pushes its own titles to subscribers to keep them happy with their membership.

Amazon Publishing puts out 1,100 titles a year, compared with the 1,500 to 2,000 a large publishing house such as Simon & Schuster might publish. Estimating sales for those 1,100 titles is difficult because Amazon  keeps the info to itself.

Grace Doyle, an Amazon editor, says the subsidiary looks at three things when measuring the success of a title: the book’s sales, the number of people who read it, and whether the company can expect more books from that author. Her goal was to maintain partnerships with authors for as long as possible, which often results in publishing series, especially for the thrillers and mysteries that do so well with ebook readers.

“Amazon readers are voracious readers of genre fiction.” Fans of romances and thrillers race through books quickly.

So it’s perhaps unsurprising that Amazon is taking an interest in courting household names. The chart-topping thriller writer Dean Koontz unveiled a five-book deal with Thomas & Mercer in late July.

If you would like to read the lengthy article for the full picture, go to BLAKE MONTGOMERY  He is a journalist and fiction writer living in San Francisco. He reports on technology and Silicon Valley for The Daily Beast.

Gloomy days for Indie publishing

Gloomy days for indies

Facebook is abuzz about posts from Nora Roberts and others who have revealed the plagiarised, ghosted, pirated scams going on in the world of publishing. The scams have now moved into audio where Audible pays on hours listened just as Amazon pays on pages read; scammers run "loop systems" where the book just plays for hours and hours and... consequently the pay-pool for genuine audio is reducing.

In retaliation, readers are saying that therefore any book offered for free or 99 cents is ghost-written and isn't worth tuppence. Yet many indie writers have, in the past, been advised to offer a 0.99p series leader as an enticement to bring readers into the entire series. The pundits said it was a solid marketing technique; they also advised offering the book for free for a while to encourage reviews and possibly ensure an Amazon ranking. 

Now readers are saying they will never look at 99 cents and free books again. This is a sad blow for the genuine indie writer and publisher, who works very hard to write every word of their offerings.

Self-publishing loses it s appeal

The saga of publishing a paperback copy of The Queen's Letters goes on and on.

After receiving a proof copy I have redesigned the inner content, and thought all was done. Set to Publish. Back comes an email saying I have loaded the barcode in the wrong place. So I redesign the back cover, which means rejigging the whole back, spine and front cover and carefully re-position the barcode and send it off. Now they are telling me the barcode is not there. What do they want? I can't stick a real barcode on the cover when I'm working online, now can I? It seems an impossible task.

I don't recall having this problem with Createspace. And now this morning they have decided that I need to update tax information because I have relocated from Createspace to KDP. Suddenly self-publishing loses its appeal.

Time and my CD-player

My proof copy of The Queen's Letters arrived today from Amazon and I see I have alterations to make. The font is too big, by far, and the the margins could be smaller. That will reduce the page count somewhat, so I may need to adjust the cover when I'm done fixing the interior. Good Job I sent off for the proof.

I am on the hunt for a CD-player that will fit not too obtrusively with the double cassette deck, tuner and amplifier from my Technics mini system - which all still work splendidly. The whole system is at least 40 years old, but gives me, or rather. gave me, exactly what I wanted. Only the laser that reads the cd has given up the ghost, and there are no replacement parts to be found. I suppose lasers will still pretty new back in the earlu 80s.

This is the first time I have sat down in front of my compueter today, and it is 4.37pm! We had friends for a meal last night, drank lots of wine and slept late this morning, then walked Tim, had lunch and then off to pick up the hi fi system from the repair shop. Then a quick whiz around the MetroCentre only to discover it has no hi fi shops at all! Lintone has gone, no one else keeps it either, not Currys, Debenhams, House of Fraser - though I did note that a lot of the HoF stuff is 50% discounted because the store is closing down. Maybe time for some new towels, or duvet covers?

Changes

Autumn is here. One of my favourite seasons, possibly the favourite. I took  some photos yesterday and then lost them in transferring them to my PC. Ages since I've done that, and so annoying but I don't suppoe the fields and hedgerows will change much in a day or two, when I can take them all again. Since I came back from France I've had the fields mostly to myself, which is good, but it also surprises me. The weather has been so brilliant this year, and yet people don't seem to have been out and about exploring. Or if they have, the have not been where I've been!

The internet is desperately quiet, too. People say it is because  of all the changees to Facebook and it does seem less hectic than a year ago. Time was when new posts would go flying by with barely time to see what they were; now the same post stays for ages. It is becoming boring. I assume that this means posts promoting books will be so much less effective and wonder if it is a ploy to get authors to use Facebook Ads. Paid, of course. I heard today that Amazon, which now owns Goodreads, is using the GR friends page to find and delete "friend" reviews on Amazon. Way sneaky, I think.

Reviews are hard enough to get without this sort of nuisance fiddling, and since Goodreads and Fb both count mere contacts as "friends" this is likely to mean reviews will disappear. One way round it, I've read, is to mark your friend pages as open only to yourself. That way Amazon cannot read them. I don't know if it is true, but I pass it on for what it is worth.

Promote your title

Amazon are putting on a day in Newcastle and have offered me a free ticket. Naturally, I shall attend, but I cannot help wondering what it is all going to be about. 

I've been with them since my first venture in self-publishing way back in 2011 when I put Fair Border Bride with them. I had four books published by then, but for different reasons each of the two American publishers closed their doors and disappeared. Having got my rights back for the four titles, it seemed silly not to try and get them onto Amazon Kindle. How hard could it be? I seem to remember a steep learning curve, but I achieved my goal and since then the process has certainly become easier.

I've got out of the habit of approaching agents and publishers, but lately I've begun to wonder if it wouldn't be easier to let someone else take the strain of publication and marketing. My good friend Shirley Dickson has got a contract with Bookouture this week, and all congratulations to her, for I know she has worked hard on her two stories for such a long time. Obviously, her success stirred my thoughts on the subject. One hears that promo is down to the author these days unless you are one of the very top level authors - who probably don't need much promotion! 

The only way I know is using Twitter and Facebook, but those  seem to be in a process of change. Perhaps the Amazon day will tell me what I should be doing.

Are e-books priced too high?

David Naggar, Amazon’s publishing chief, says a price of 99p sells more books.

Self-published authors  regularly sell  their work on Amazon for 99p  

Faced with two book by unknown authors which cost £9.99 and £2.99 respectively, which do you think most people would pick? 

Trad publishers find this "economically unwise"  because their business models are quite different. Indie authors sell at 99p via the Kindle platform and earn a royalty of between 35-70% of the retail price. Trad published authors earn 25% on e-books. 

Amazon has around 90% share of the ebook market in the UK according to the Publishers Association and according to them sales of trade ebooks fell by 17% in 2016 to £204 million.

One publisher (Alessandro Gallenzi) argues that nurturing authors requires a long term investment and cheap prices damage authors by devaluing and homogenising their work.

Matthew Lynn is the CEO of Endeavour Press and thinks that the market dictates the price, that e books are overpriced and £1.99 is a better price than 99p - though it does depend on genre.

"Digital and print books serve different audiences," he says..."cheaper ebooks are enhancing sales."

Evidently an Amazon spokes person has said that Naggar's comments had been intended to illustrate and example of KDP tactics to drive discovery for new authors. 

September 4, 2017 by Natasha Onwuemezi and Katherine Cowdrey

Scared of Amazon

Selected a wonderful list of books yesterday in anticipation of spending my gift token. Chose nine titles all from awesome books at 0.35 pence each, hopped over to checkout and stopped short. The total cost of the books was something like £3.50 - but the postage and packing charge was £28.00! 

Telling myself it was too good to be true (to get  so many titles for so little) I went away shaking my head. They were all paperback, all from the same second-hand dealer in the UK and couldn't possibly have cost that much to post them all together.

Anyway, I declined to spend that much on postage.

Now I'm looking more carefully at each screen as I go. For me Amazon seems to be a minefield. Last time I remember their system swallowed my gift card and gave me nothing in return. (I did get it all sorted out, but it makes me wary. A couple of years ago I found I had somehow selected Amazon Prime and £79 had gone from my bank account. I did not and still don't want Amazon Prime, but their screens are so trickily worded and set out that it is easy to fall into the trap. DH fell into it a year or so later. Again, we both got everything sorted and money returned, but this sort of happening does make one wary. DH wont use Amazon any more. I use it, but in fear and trembling!

Wish me luck as I try to spend my gift wisely!

Since we have snow, wind and cold temperatures forecast for my area today I've been up and walked Tim so we can now hunker down in a warm house for a few hours and see what happens. Forecasts don't always come true, but I went looking for snow pictures and found this, taken in Zermatt in 2009 when we were perched on the top of the Kleine Matterhorn in sub-zero temperatures at something like 12-13,000 feet.

One of those days

This has been one of those days when lots of little things either don’t happen or don’t get fixed. Nothing major, nothing life changing but mildly annoying all the same. For example, my trip to the chemist to pick up my repeat prescription was foiled because it hasn’t been made up yet, which reminded me that I have not yet contacted the surgery to have an annual blood test done, the results of which will dictate the medication I take for the rest of the year. (This may be the reason the prescription was not ready for me!)

So I came home and tackled the online system for the surgery only to find that I can make an appointment with a doctor online, but not the nurse practitioners who do the blood tests. Picked up the phone to make said appointment only to be told that the surgery is closed until tomorrow morning. Surprising, since it was only four in the afternoon. They have half days? Who knew?

Our local supermarket did not have a copy of Writing Magazine which I wanted to purchase because a friend has a piece in the November issue. I don't know if they don't stock it, or if they simply have not received it yet. A second product I wanted was not available – found a rather large space on the shelf where it is usually kept.

I have tried yet again to change the description of my new novel release on Amazon Kindle. Yes, I know there’s a typo – that is what I’m trying to change, but it seems the gods are not with me today. Now Amazon is asking me to fill in their dreaded tax form and it seems I cannot find the right method of listing - international style – my phone number. They keep printing it in red. The final insult - the printer refuses to print out a copy of the instructions for filling in said tax form.

At this point I am making a major decision. I am going to bed to read my Gabaldon.

Half-Viking Scots hero.

Sometimes you have to give credit where credit is due. Yesterday around 3pm I ordered three books from Amazon to arrive in time to take on my holidays next month. Imagine my surprise when half an hour ago, they were delivered to my door! That's less than 24 hours! and with free delivery. Amazing. Congratulations to Amazon.co.uk. Somebody in there has a good management strategy going!

What did I order? My holiday reading will include two books from Lee Child, and the latest in the Jimmy Perez series by Ann Cleeves - Cold Earth. Besides these, I shall have several titles on my ipad and will happily peruse the book shelves at our destination. I tried a copy of The Red Tent and never finished it, but now I see it has become a tv serial. Perhaps a second look is in order.

I mustn't take too much reading matter as I have a novel to read and edit. Alba is Mine is now down to 106k word count and I am over the halfway mark, almost two thirds done on a first edit, and I have to say that it is looking good. I suppose re-reading Jack Reacher novels would be good right now in fine tuning how men think - though perhaps not all men think like him! Still, his thought processes might be a tad more in tune with a half-Viking Scots hero than me. 

The local woods were full of garlic flowers a few days ago, billows and cushions of them. Such lovely flowers when viewed close up. The perfume is strong and antiseptic but not unpleasant - I should think it would be used in many medieval potions and lotions.

How am I doing?

I’ve spent several hours collating stats only to come to the conclusion that I cannot compare like with like due to the many changes Amazon have made in the last few years. 

In 2011 books were sold and we authors received a royalty. In December of that year, the first change appeared - books were either sold or borrowed. By the end of June 2014 we had the introduction of KU/KOLL units. I understood that KU stood for Kindle Unlimited, but I was never sure what KOLL stood for. (Now I know it is Kindle Owners Lending Library)

By July 2015 we saw the introduction of “Net Units Sold or KENP Eead.” Otherwise explained as:  Net Units Sold or Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) Read. According to Amazon people bought books but never read them, so this was an attempt to pay only on pages read in an effort, so they said, to weed out the dross that was self-published. 

When KU came in, KENP made some kind of sense. Members of KU didn't buy the book, but "borrowed" it, so no royalty accrued to authors. KENP means that for every page read the author is paid a tiny amount, something like 0.0016 of a penny. On a 400 page book that would amount to 64p. It was as much, sometimes more, than the original royalty payment on low-priced fiction. 

So far, KENP Read is still holding. The only way I can see that I might be able to tell if I am doing better or worse is by tracking the money. Is the money that comes to me via KENP pages read better, worse or equivalent to my payments back in 2011? Who knows? Looks like another few hours doing stats. Even then,  other things have moved and changed since those days, so I won’t ever be certain whatever the stats tell me.

Questions, oh questions

I don't know if I should believe Stat Counter.
Today it tells me that some two hundred  people have viewed my blog yesterday, yet when I look at the behind pages, they record only 65. So what exactly is going on?

I've often wondered if the views each post gets on Facebook are recorded. If they are, that might account for the difference. If anyone knows the answer, please tell me - it would be good to know for sure.

It seems that independent book publishers are still going to the wall. The latest to close its door is Samhain, one of the bigger names in the US. I had two books with a smaller independent and that closed in January after 17 years in business, so I have two books waiting to be given a new lease of life, but I don't think I shall look for another independent publisher. They all seem to be rather precarious. Better to publish my books myself via Amazon Kindle. That way I know I am in control, but a .curious question came into my head the other day.

 A case in point is Banners of Alba, the paperback version. The rights came back to me when the independent publisher closed, but I see the paperback is still up there on Amazon. Amazon say they keep every edition up as a record and it has a silly price on it, but supposing someone wanted to buy it. With the e-publishing process, Amazon could print a paperback copy of Banners whenever they liked and I would never know. I am not in control of that particular item as Write Words, Inc went ahead with the paperback some years back. Is there a way of getting that paperback title removed from Amazon? another question is - what happens when I die? Assuming that my books would still sell, do Amazon get to keep the royalties? Can I will my rights to someone else?

In the search for a good way to promote, I've been doing banners, like the one above. They're fun to do and don't take a lot of time, and hopefully they avoid the readers response of "oh, not that old ad again."

Bestsellers of 2016 Amazon

Amazon announced today its list of the best-selling books of 2016.

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2, Special Rehearsal Edition Script topped the list in every category: Best-Selling Book overall, Best-Selling Kid & Teen Book, Most Gifted Book and Most Wished For Book. This year marks the first that a play has made Amazon’s top 20 best-selling list.

The top 20 best-selling books are:

1. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2, Special Rehearsal Edition Script by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany
2. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
3. The Whistler by John Grisham
4. The Last Mile (Amos Decker series) by David Baldacci
5. Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
6. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
7. Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty
8. Night School: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child
9. The Black Widow: Book 16 of Gabriel Allon Series by Daniel Silva
10. Diary of a Wimpy Kid # 11: Double Down by Jeff Kinney
11. 15th Affair (Women’s Murder Club) by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
12. Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
13. Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben
14. Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate by Gary J. Byrne
15. The Wrong Side of Goodbye: A Harry Bosch Novel by Michael Connelly
16. The Magnolia Story by Chip Gaines and Joanna Gaines
17. The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
18. One with You: Book 5 of A Crossfire Series by Sylvia Day
19. The Obsession by Nora Roberts
20. Everything We Keep by Kerry Lonsdale

The top 20 best-selling Kids & Teens books of 2016 overall are:

1. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2, Special Rehearsal Edition Script by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany
2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid # 11: Double Down by Jeff Kinney
3. The Trials of Apollo, Book 1: The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan
4. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay by J.K. Rowling
5. Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, Book 2: The Hammer of Thor by Rick Riordan
6. The Last Star: The Final Book of The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
7. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: The Illustrated Edition (Harry Potter, Book 2) by J.K. Rowling and Jim Kay
8. The Crown (The Selection) by Kiera Cass
9. Empire of Storms: Book 5 of Throne Of Glass Series by Sarah J. Maas
10. Lady Midnight: Book 1 of The Dark Artifices by Cassandra Clare
11. Take Heart, My Child: A Mother’s Dream by Ainsley Earhardt and Kathryn Cristaldi
12. Glass Sword (Red Queen) by Victoria Aveyard
13. Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier
14. A Court of Mist and Fury: Book 2 of A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
15. Gravity Falls: Journal 3 by Alex Hirsch and Rob Renzetti
16. Calamity (The Reckoners) by Brandon Sanderson
17. Give Please a Chance by Bill O’Reilly and James Patterson
18. Pax by Sara Pennypacker and Jon Klassen
19. The Thank You Book (An Elephant and Piggie Book) by Mo Willems
20. Broken Prince: Book 2 of The Royals Series by Erin Watt

Amazon rules, OK?

Amazon has altered its customer review rules. Some revisions appeared in late September and others came in October.

• ·        “To post a review, customers must spend at least $50.00 using a valid credit or debit card. Prime subscriptions and promotional discounts don’t qualify towards the $50.00 minimum. Customers in the same household cannot submit a review for the same product.”

• ·        “We updated the community guidelines to prohibit incentivized reviews (a review in exchange for a free or discounted product) unless they are facilitated through the Amazon Vine program…The above changes will apply to product categories other than books. We will continue to allow the age-old practice of providing advance review copies of books.”

• ·        Paid Reviews – We do not permit reviews or votes on the helpfulness of reviews that are posted in exchange for compensation of any kind, including payment (whether in the form of money or gift certificates), bonus content, entry to a contest or sweepstakes, discounts on future purchases, extra product, or other gifts.
• 
  
• ·        “A somewhat murky area is the case of reviewers who post reviews both on Amazon and on their own blogs, with links from the blog to Amazon that result in the blogger/reviewer receiving pay if the person clicking on the link then buys the item on Amazon. It’s not entirely clear at this time, but it appears that this scenario can lead to a purge, because it violates the rule that an Amazon reviewer may not post a review on a product in which the reviewer has a financial interest. Until more is known, a blogger who has monetized his/her blog might be better off not reviewing the same product on both the blog and Amazon.”
• 
  
• ·        Promotional Reviews – In order to preserve the integrity of Customer Reviews, we do not permit artists, authors, developers, manufacturers, publishers, sellers or vendors to write Customer Reviews for their own products or services, to post negative reviews on competing products or services, or to vote on the helpfulness of reviews. For the same reason, family members or close friends of the person, group, or company selling on Amazon may not write Customer Reviews for those particular items.

I don’t know about you, but I will have to read these several times to realise the import. Author Anne Allen talks about the new rules on her blog (see right) and from reading her I understand a good deal more than I once did. Those one star reviews we’ve all suffered over? Evidently some people actually set out to trash competitors by leaving one star reviews. So there you go. The world is stacked against you!