Awww thanks, Miss Jenny! I really appreciate you!

Denise that's not wrong. Sending gift cards from Amazon directly leaves a trail. I've had authors often mail actual gift cards, which I realize sounds like a lot of work - it's not, but it's unfortunate that Amazon is forcing these workarounds.

Ellen hi - Sadly there is no hard and fast solution. The easiest and maybe best thing to do is periodically screenshot your reviews on the backend of Author Central where they also show up, keep these so you can message Amazon if any get removed. Especially if you can show things like that the review is connected to a blog piece they did, or a social media post. It's a lot of work to do it this way, I know!

No that's accurate actually - be cautious of friends and family. Which I know is hard. For a lot of authors starting out, these are the first folks we often tap into!

I agree, it's a gut punch when this happens!!

When my first book was published (over 10 years ago), my folks were so excited, they told EVERYONE they knew.

The problem was, most of my parents' pals (my folks were born in the 30s, for context) weren't even close to being my target audience. One woman even specifically said she didn't like it. My folks asked what to do.

I said if she wanted to review it or give it no stars or whatever, that I was fine with it, and in fact I would prefer that. She wasn't much for writing reviews, but she did mark the least positive review for the book as "helpful".

I consider this a win because a slew of 5-star reviews for an unknown author is a red flag for a lot of people. As it well should be.

So, if there's something I've learned, I think it's to embrace the people who don't like your work. They help to keep us honest and I imagine they help with dispelling the notion that your reviews are paid for or are the product of AI, or both.

Thank you!

Wow! This is excellent advice, Denise!