UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion

A review is a review. So why, when I get reviews in USA do they not get posted in UK and all other regions? And vice-versa. If you leave a review for someone, if you want to do them a favour, you have to visit every Amazon.dot, find the book, and paste it in there. It makes reviewing needlessly hard work. And it doesn't give the reader benefit of feedback on books. You could have 20 reviews in US, none in UK and your book looks like it's never been read. (and .com.au(Oz) won't even let me leave a review due to a 'technical problem' (ie I don't live in Oz)).

For Amazon the reviews in the US will appear in the UK but not vice versa. Else get a goodreads review :)

I *think* any review posted on .com can be accessed from all the others by clicking on 'see all reviews'.

But if someone only posts on .uk they can't e accessed elsewhere. I think.

And if I'm right, it's a lousy system and they should remedy it.

S. wrote: "For Amazon the reviews in the US will appear in the UK but not vice versa. Else get a goodreads review :)"

They don't! Check this one out on both sides of the pond! Red Jake

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Red-Jake-Pete...

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Jake-Pete-C...

Yep, they can.

Scroll down on the UK one.

There's a link that says 'go to amazon.com to see all four reviews'

Apologies - .com reviews do now appear on the bottom of the .uk page. I don't think they used to.

They didn't, no.

Not sure but they have for at least several months. Maybe longer.

I don't know why amazon can't cross pollinate them to all the sites, though.

Maybe too technically difficult?

Patti (baconater) wrote: "I *think* any review posted on .com can be accessed from all the others by clicking on 'see all reviews'.

But if someone only posts on .uk they can't e accessed elsewhere. I think.

And if I'm right, it's a lousy system and they should remedy it.

Yes- I've checked both ways.
UK links to US reviews.
US can't see UK reviews - no link, nothing, as far as I can see.
AU links to US only
CA links to US only, haven't checked others.

Patti (baconater) wrote: "I *think* any review posted on .com can be accessed from all the others by clicking on 'see all reviews'.

But if someone only posts on .uk they can't e accessed elsewhere. I think.

And if I'm right, it's a lousy system and they should remedy it."

So how do we moan at Amazon then? In a way that they'll respond to, that is.

Through KDP, maybe?

If enough authors bitch (in a nice polite way, of course) perhaps they'd fix it.

Patti (baconater) wrote: "They didn't, no.

Not sure but they have for at least several months. Maybe longer.

I don't know why amazon can't cross pollinate them to all the sites, though.

Maybe too technically difficult?"

More likely it isn't a priority

There are probably quite a lot of reviewers who cross review on both sites, and it might cause more of a headache for Amazon to combine the two, than to leave it as it is. If you have a review posted on both sites, and they combine the reviews, Amazon would probably remove one - and if that deleted review turns out to be the most popular one, then you are going to have some very disgruntled reviewers out there.

TBH, as well, I tend to very rarely look at the reviews on .com -=mainly because it is the .com reviews that are more likely to be the "paid for" ones. If a book has four mixed reviews on .co.uk and 75 5 star ones on .com, then I am more likely to take note of the four mixed ones as there is more chance that they are going to be genuine. The others just look suspicious. In fairness, I think any attempt to combine all reviews would just open up a whole new can of worms.

While it might be a bit of a ballache for writers wanting to rack up reviews so they can get on bookbub or whatever, I think it's reasonable that reviews in one country are not beamed around the world. A review is not just a review, in that readers from different countries will be reading a book through a different cultural prism. My Casanova book that's getting lovely reviews in secular Britain and Protestant America could, for example, seriously upset some readers in Catholic Italy, thanks to the bit where Casanova reads Sister Mary of Agreda's book The Mystical City of God and finds it so bad that it sends him mad. Casanova would have been a Top 50 Amazon reviewer fo' sho', yo.

Similarly, as my book is a translation from the French, my reviews tend to at least mention the standard of translation, so they would be spectacularly pointless on the French site, where customers can wander off and buy the French original.

That every mirror site seems to reflect the .com reviews is a sop to the fact that the .com site has been around for longer than most of the international offshoots and holds a huge database of consumer reviews.

Andrew wrote: "While it might be a bit of a ballache for writers wanting to rack up reviews so they can get on bookbub or whatever, I think it's reasonable that reviews in one country are not beamed around the wo..."

Fair point about paid for reviews. I tend to be suspicious of 5 star reviews, because, for me, that rating is reserved for books I will remember for the rest of my life. Books that are 'merely' very good get 4 stars.

I try to post to Amazon UK and Amazon US, but i'm definitely not going to try and post on every single Amazon out there. I just don't have the time or the patience for it. I know that's awful, but I just don't! haha.

It is also worth noting that Amazon UK have started putting the "most helpful reviews from .com" at the bottom of each page (it's a beta test, but still, it's progress)

Katy wrote: "It is also worth noting that Amazon UK have started putting the "most helpful reviews from .com" at the bottom of each page (it's a beta test, but still, it's progress) ..."

And today - I swear it wasn't there 2 days ago, .com are showing UK reviews in the same way. At least on one of my books they are...

Link please Pete?

Patti (baconater) wrote: "Link please Pete?"

goo.gl/PtWPhh (USA)
goo.gl/pWCMHn (UK)

Ah, but I think my kind reviewer has posted on both sites.

Pete wrote: "Patti (baconater) wrote: "Link please Pete?"

goo.gl/PtWPhh (USA)
goo.gl/pWCMHn (UK)

Ah, but I think my kind reviewer has posted on both sites."

Ah