Most of the book bloggers I know post their book reviews to Amazon as well as to their blog. I usually post mine to my blog first, then Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indigo, etc.
Although Amazon is usually very quick to publish my reviews, there have been a few occasions when my reviews got rejected!
The first time this happened I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what I had done wrong. WELL… it turns out that Amazon runs an algorithm to STOP certain keywords. And my innocent little reviews got caught in that algorithm.
It might be something very innocent. My two rejections included the expressions “a cock-up” (to make a mess of things) included in my review of “Death in profile” by Guy Fraser-Sampson, AND “wankers” (British insult describing contemptible persons) which is included in my review of “The shivering turn” by Sally Spencer.
Once I removed the offending terms with other words my reviews were published successfully.
My Amazon reviewer status right now is:
My reason for writing this short blog post is because this topic came up in a Goodreads discussion where another blogger was wondering WHY their review got rejected.
Have you ever had YOUR Amazon reviews rejected?
If so, what did you discern the problem to be?
Fictionophile 
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http://www.technologyassention.com/2018/02/how-can-i-sell-my-product-on-amazon.html
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Good to know
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Good to know.
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I’ve had reviews rejected by Amazon for curse words (not gratuitous). When that happened I just replaced some of the letters with asterisks….(for example: f**k)…..and problem solved. Once they didn’t like the word butthole (which doesn’t seem so bad to me). Now I know better and do the asterisks before submitting to Amazon.
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Oh yes I’ve had all of my reviews deleted and when I asked why I got a very rude email back saying they weren’t obliged to respond to me but I had violated their rules! I very rarely if ever use profanity in my reviews so all I can think is that it’s because I stated I got it for free in exchange for an honest review. 🙄
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Oh Beth I’m so sorry that this happened to you. I can’t remember exactly when it was, but sometime last year there was chatter online (Goodreads I think) that said they were going to do this. I amended my reviews to take out that sentence and they all stayed up on the Amazon site. I’m not sure what their reasoning was for doing this, but it was supposedly to weed out ‘certified customers’ (ones who actually bought the book from them). I think it was short-sighted on their part as book blogger’s reviews quite often sell the book to other customers. Just sayin’…
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Definitely I can’t understand their logic as I had a number of “likes” despite me saying I had got the book for free! If it convinces another customer to buy the book what is the problem? 😠
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A few. Used to be I didn’t investigate. The last few, I said a bad word, but I can’t recall which. I intend for my reviews to be suitable for most, so I tend not to use my favorite swear words. 😉
Whatever, I used, it would have been something I wouldn’t have thought twice about saying, therefore safe for primetime television.
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Yeah, I noticed that. Basically, our reviews should be very PG. My two rejected reviews had the following words: bullshit and fuck.
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This is quite timely. I wrote a review yesterday and it never posted. When I go to the book and click on leave a review, the one I wrote does not come up to read or change. I did not get an email to say it was rejected or anything. I have no idea what happened. I am waiting to see if I hear anything, perhaps after the weekend?
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Carla, the emails I got were very obviously computer generated, so I don’t think it being the weekend would be a factor. Can I take a peek at the offending review? Perhaps I can spot the perceived offense.
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It is identical to the one on my blog for The Woolly Hat Knitting Club. I wonder if it is the word “come” in quotes. They did not even send me a computer generated one, nothing at all.
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Carla I doubt it was the word come. The only thing I could guess was the term “hot-shot” in the synopsis. Even then I doubt it. Try submitting the review without the synopsis? And try rewording the sentence with the word come. Maybe….
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So, I emailed them and asked what the problem was and they replied that they were checking the language. An hour later it was posted, so I will never know what the hold up was.
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Yep, mine have gotten rejected for profanity before… hehe.. ‘sh#t’ for example and the usual culprits.. but once these keywords are edited, it’s all good again.. Sometimes I remember to edit the review for amazon, other times I don’t but then… the rejection reminds me- ahh! I used a bad word 😀
I have been seeing some authors/ readers have their reviews removed from amazon as well recently due to the algorithms… but that’s a whole other kettle of fish…
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Algorithms are just so impersonal, but what else can we expect of a huge company like Amazon. I guess it will only get better when computers become more sentient and can read words in context. LOL
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Both my partner and I have been rejected as apparently two people from the same household, no matter how disparate their reviews are, cannot submit reviews for the same book. They will reject both of them, and there is no way to convince them otherwise. Frustrating!!!!
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Interesting Christine. I can’t imagine why this happens unless they identify your IP address as the primary screening tool. I feel your pain as I can imagine just how frustrating it would be.
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I had one rejected a while back and like you it took me a while to figure out what i had done since I’m not the type to do any cussing or anything that would seem offensive. Once I figured it out a simple correction and it was easily approved thankfully.
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Knowing that the same thing has happened to others is somehow strangely comforting Carrie. I just wish that when they reject your review they would state what the ‘offense’ was, to save the time of having to scour your review looking for it…
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It would definitely help but that would be too easy for us I suppose. LOL Reminds me of rejections on NG and EW too though, I just want to scream tell me WHY!!!!
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Well, one mustn’t offend the delicate sensibilities of Amazon readers, forfend!
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Reblogged this on bookmarkchronicles and commented:
I don’t do reviews on Amazon but for anyone who does
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I had one, and they sent me an email telling me why. I deleted the one word and it went back up.
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Interesting. I received an email each time telling me that they were unable to publish my review – but NOT the reason why. I had to discern that for myself. It took me reading and re-reading the review several times before I cottoned on to what was offending them.
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Yes, I’ve had them rejected for the same reasons. I’ve mentioned to them once or twice in feedback that, since they happily sell books containing these words, it’s a bit hypocritical to ban them from reviews, but actually I’m kinda happy they do. I get fed up with some of the language some reviewers use on Goodreads…
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I do agree that with some of the content of what they sell, they are being hypocritical when it comes to swear words. I don’t think it is necessary to use swear words when writing a book review, but can see the hypocrisy inherent in their policy.
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So far – fingers crossed – only my first one because I put a link to my blog in it and that’s not allowed (no external links). Clearly I don’t cuss often enough to be considered a very stable genius 😀
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Cathy, I don’t cuss often either, but as this post states I DO use a lot of British jargon/slang. I’m from Canada, but my Mum was a British war bride AND I read an incredible amount of books set in England so I guess it has just worn off on me over the years.
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I guess the Amazon algorithms need to do as much reading as us book bloggers do!
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Yes I had a couple rejected due to an inadvertent swear word although it wasn’t meant in the sense the algorithm thought!
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Yes Cleo, the Amazon computers that run the algorithms are not very savvy at reading words in context. LOL
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I haven’t had any rejected yet, but this is a really helpful blog on how not to get rejected!
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I’ve had quite a big discussion about this in a group on Facebook. The swearing/cursing is a guaranteed rejection. I know this and have for a while so always edit my reviews that have any offending words in before I post to Amazon as I do have a tendency to swear rather a lot!
Also, it’s a good idea not to link Amazon with Facebook and Goodreads. I don’t do this so it’s not an issue for me and also use a different email address on my Amazon account but people who have them linked have had issues where they are friends with an author and the algorithm has caught that and then rejected their reviews on the basis of bias. Absolute nonsense but they are doing it a lot as far as I could gather from the conversations I was having.
I did hear that there were rejections around saying you had received an ARC but I haven’t had any issue at all with this.
I’ve also heard of people who have had their reviews rejected because they only leave positive reviews, so never leave negative reviews. Again not an issue for me as there are semi-regularly a one or two star review that goes up but I’ve seen a few people say they’ve received emails from Amazon saying they aren’t allowed to post reviews anymore because of this.
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Yes Claire, I have also heard that Amazon reviews would be rejected if you state in the review that you got the book for ‘free’ and are writing the review in ‘exchange’. I then promptly edited my reviews so that they no longer were worded that way. I’ve never had a review rejected for THAT reason.
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Yeah, I never say free or exchange so maybe that’s the trick! 😉
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I’ve had a few rejected! A couple were for keywords too! So frustrating… Being a growing Indi-Author myself, I rarely put reviews on Amazon for the sake of being “bios” or “swapping” dispite the fact that I DO actually read AND give honest reviews… I call it supporting other Indi’s, because we are in fact book lovers who enjoy each others work…. Apparently Amazon sees it differently, though. 😣😒
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Very interesting!
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I had one of mine rejected for the first time last week. All I could figure out is that it was because I put the word f**k in it (including the stars). I replaced the word resubmitted and it was accepted. I guess you can’t even use semi swear words.
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No, I guess not. Not even s**t. LOL Only the president gets to say naughty things like that.
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