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Amazon TOS Questions

by keblack
9 replies
If you sell amazon kindle books, you may wonder about some of their TOS. Here is one question:

5.2.1 Marketing and Promotion. We will have sole discretion in determining all marketing and promotions related to the sale of your Digital Books through the Program and may, without limitation, market and promote your Digital Books by making chapters or portions of your Digital Books available to prospective customers without charge, and by permitting prospective customers to see excerpts of your Digital Books in response to search queries. We will not owe you any fees for any marketing or promotional efforts. You acknowledge that we have no obligation to market, distribute, or offer for sale any Digital Book, or to continuing marketing, distributing or selling a Digital Book after we have commenced doing so.

So, does this mean we cannot have a link from our website to our book on amazon? Does it mean press releases announcing a book are not allowed ? Does it mean paying for PPC to a listing is not allowed ?

Comments appreciated.

Thanks.
#amazon #questions #tos
  • Profile picture of the author quadagon
    No its just in reference to what Amazon may do to promote your book.

    Ie any promotion that they do for your book is at their discretion, you can't ask or demand it to be done and if they do promote it you have no control over how they do it.

    Amazon actively encourage you to promote your book through other channels

    Hope that helps

    Eric
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    I've got 99 problems but a niche ain't one
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  • Profile picture of the author keblack
    Thanks Eric ! I guess the topic of reviews is related also. Many use paid reviews or you give a discount to your book and people might review your book. But, i think paid reviews in any form are against amazon TOS ? Seems kind of stupid, because they have their free book promotion - 5 days every 90 days - and people can review your book if they want to, but that is kind of paying for reviews in a way. Hard to understand some of their text. Anyone figure this review thing out yet ?
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve B
      Originally Posted by keblack View Post

      . . . they have their free book promotion - 5 days every 90 days - and people can review your book if they want to, but that is kind of paying for reviews in a way.

      How is reviewing a book during "free book promotion" considered "paying for reviews?" I don't make that connection at all.

      Amazon only allows one type of paid review and that is a professional editorial review where the editor is paid, as usual, to perform his editor "duty" of analyzing a book. Outside that specific case, all other types of paid reviews are against the Amazon TOS.

      To me, Amazon's rules seem logical and fair. They want reviews from people that have actually read the book and don't stand to have their review biased due to some compensation. In addition, they don't want family members or others close to the author who may be biased doing reviews. It all make perfect sense to me.

      Steve
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    • Profile picture of the author quadagon
      Originally Posted by keblack View Post

      Thanks Eric ! I guess the topic of reviews is related also. Many use paid reviews or you give a discount to your book and people might review your book. But, i think paid reviews in any form are against amazon TOS ? Seems kind of stupid, because they have their free book promotion - 5 days every 90 days - and people can review your book if they want to, but that is kind of paying for reviews in a way. Hard to understand some of their text. Anyone figure this review thing out yet ?
      You're right about paid reviews being against Amazon's TOS and I think rightly so.

      Amazon are looking after there customer base. If they allow paid reviews then every outsourced spun piece of junk book would be 5 star rated by hundred of people. Eventually the star rating and reviews would be useless and amazon could see a drop in sales of both kindles and kindle books.

      The knock on effect to genuine authors could be terrible.

      A rebuttal I often hear is that in real world publishing you can pay for reviews from authors, journals and papers. Its true but the important difference is that you have no editorial control over the review whether it be 0 star or 5 star. I don't think the same can be said of fiverr gigs.

      With the free giveaway days the downloader is under no obligation to leave a review let alone a good one. As an aside if you've ever done the giveaway days you'll know that they are a really poor method of getting reviews.

      So how do you get reviews?

      Amazon Reviewers

      There are people on amazon that love to read books in your genre appraoch them and see if they will review your book

      EYK List

      The EYK List is the Everyone You Know List and is a great way to get the ball rolling. Literally write a list of everyone you know: friends, family, co workers, man in the shop, barmaid. You'll be surprised how many people you know.

      When you do a free event talk to everyone about it be pushy ask them to download and review your book. Remember to use the word 'because' and the phrase 'your free not to' and position it as asking them to do you a small favour. You have to run it as a military campaign but you should be able to get 20 - 50 reviews in a short space of time. Just avoid people with the same IP address and other household members.

      Amazon are really good at picking up on this.

      Crowd Source Your Book

      Ask you list to help you with your book. Place drafts in google docs and get feed back from them up until a couple of weeks before your release the book. When you release make sure you thank them and ask them to leave a review. They'll feel ownership and will gladly leave feedback as well as tell others about the book.

      Social Media

      Get on goodreads you can pick up some really good reviews on here and as its now owned by Amazon it appears to help with rank. Make sure you join in the community here and give as well as taking from the site.

      Mail Your List

      People often don't have time or forget to do things like reviews so ask your list if they have bought your book to leave a review.
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve B
    Originally Posted by keblack View Post

    So, does this mean we cannot have a link from our website to our book on amazon? Does it mean press releases announcing a book are not allowed ? Does it mean paying for PPC to a listing is not allowed?

    No, I don't read any of that into what Amazon is saying. IMO, Amazon is claiming that they have sole discretion about the marketing and promotion of books in their program. What is done outside of Amazon by the author to promote the book is something altogether different and not covered. How could they "police" every author and force them to not promote their own books?
    Amazon: "We will have sole discretion in determining all marketing and promotions related to the sale of your Digital Books through the Program"

    Steve
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    Steve Browne, online business strategies, tips, guidance, and resources
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  • Profile picture of the author keblack
    Thanks Steve for the info. That would mean amztracker.com is on the borderline of breaking TOS. I am not using them, but thought of it because of the way they ask for reviews for a discounted book ...
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    • Profile picture of the author AMZseo
      Originally Posted by keblack View Post

      Thanks Steve for the info. That would mean amztracker.com is on the borderline of breaking TOS. I am not using them, but thought of it because of the way they ask for reviews for a discounted book ...
      Nope, not borderline at all. If you read the actual TOS it clearly says something different.
      "Additionally, you may not provide compensation for a review other than a free copy of the product. If you offer a free product, it must be clear that you are soliciting an unbiased review."

      So yes, this is actually in the Amazon TOS that you can give away products in exchange for an unbiased review
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  • Profile picture of the author agmccall
    Amazon has some great forums for getting this type of information. you should really check them out. Amazon employees regularly participate in those forums so the information you get will be correct and up to date

    al
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  • Profile picture of the author keblack
    Okay, that is good to hear. I really wanted to be a member but another very knowledgeable kindle person advised me not to. So at AMZ you can give your book away for free for potential reviews ? I thought that people would just give discounts and not offer them for free - such as regular price $9.99 and now $0.99 ?
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