Amazon Book Review Policy Explained

By Dianna Dilworth 

Last week, we reported how book review and publicty company Reader Views was banned from posting their reviews on Amazon.

The post garnered debate among our readers. According to an email from Irene Watson, the founder of Reader Views, Amazon has banned reviews from 15 sites.

In response to our posts, an Amazon spokesman emailed us explaining the policy for reviews posted on their site: “Paid reviews are welcome in the ‘Editorial Reviews’ section of a book’s detail page. Reviews written for any form of compensation other than a free copy of the product are not allowed in the Customer Reviews section.”

Amazon also gave us links to its Customer Review Guidelines and its Editorial Reviews.

We asked Amazon about why Reader Views specifically had their reviews removed, but did not receive a response.