Buying a #1 ranking?

Best Seller Book Promos | Get Verified Reviews and Ranking | Self-Publishing Review

This site seems to be selling a #1 position on Amazon. I thought Amazon had blocked this in the paid reviews scandal a few years ago. It seems like a scam, but I am not a writer so I don't know.

It seems very wrong. If a book is good, it will get ignored and people will go for books with deep pockets that game the system.

 

Its a bit like splashing the cash on ads. Kinda like publishers buying their own book to game the newspaper best seller lists.

 

If I had to guess, so I will, you don't get guaranteed 5-star reviews, but they will send it to a lot of people who are very, very, very likely to give it a 5-star review.

And if you pay some more, they will look at writing a review of it before other books.

It's pretty much advertising by now, and they use the conceit of buying the book to send to the reviewer to count as a sale as well as getting the review which games the Amazon algorithms even more.

 

I guess there had to be a way for people to promote their books. It's marketing or reviews, so someone is going to work out how to make a quick buck from it.

It's also why so many reviewers have to mention how they received the book, otherwise it gets counted as false advertising.

 

And this is why Amazon review rankings are becoming more and more suspect as people pay for their 5 star reviews enticing people into buying the books allowing them to gain a higher ranking and so sell more books.

And the reviews are all being very positive, because people can always find positive things to say about a book. But to get a book reviewed you have to jump the queue of all the other authors that want their book reviewed.

I still have a backlog of stories to get though and I can quite understand why an inducement to make me read something first instead of being dutiful does make a lot of sense.