One of the things, and logically so, that's critical to selling books on Amazon is the reviews that people write. Just like you (or at least I) would think twice about buying a vacuum cleaner that has only been reviewed by one person ("I don't wanna be the schmuck who ends up having to write the crappy review! I'll just get 'cuum that's been tried and tested and reported on already."), lots of people aren't willing to waste their money/time/energy on a book that no one else seems to have read. And, equally important, liked.

So in an effort to garner more reviews, I offered The Watchmaker's New Order at a weekend-long promotional price of free. I publicized the promotion on every social media outlet in which I participate and asked (on those same venues) that people who read and enjoyed the book consider writing a review.

My first review appeared a few days later, a glowing five stars, I might add. To my delight, another five star review appeared just a couple of days after that. Two reviews! Small victories! Aaaand... then I was down to one again.

I've now spent a while reading about Amazon's censorship of reviews, specifically of those that address the work of indie authors, and it's a pretty disturbing phenomenon. The reviews that disappear are, from what I can find, always the good ones (devil's advocate, though, says that no one would complain about losing bad reviews). In at least reported one instance, this censorship has effected the majority of the reviews that an author has received (if you've only had six, losing four is a huge deal, especially if it's the four that were five stars). Further reading revealed anecdotal stories of authors who had complained and were threatened by Amazon with the removal of their work. Note to Amazon: I am not complaining. I'm merely panicking. And sad, but that's more to do with the lack of sunlight here.

Now, Amazon is a private company, and it has no obligation to post all the reviews it receives. It has every right, as far as I know, to engage in all the censorship it wants to. But this is a fairly horrifying prospect to someone who is just getting started. I have to worry not just about writing (which is all I really want to think about), formatting, and publicizing, but all the work I do in those arenas can be wiped out with a little whimsy on the part of a corporate behemoth. Good writing should garner good reviews, which in turn will help more people discover my work, but Amazon has no obligation to show any of the good reviews I receive. And further, of course, Amazon provides a platform for indie writers to sell their work to a broad audience, and Amazon is under no obligation to provide that venue. Have a dream? Amazon can choose to crush it.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Higher ratings mean higher sales, which translate to more money for Amazon. Obviously, Amazon wants to discourage fraudulent reviews because that would undermine the whole review system. But this is a real person (yes, I do know this person, but that happens when you publicize on social media) who has now attempted three times to post a review of a real book that was really read. What gives?