For those of you who don’t know me, I belong to the Gulf Coast Writers Association in Southwest Florida (I’m their webmaster). It’s a large group of around two hundred writers. I like to buy members books from time to time and if I like the book, I write a review on Amazon. As a writer, I know that good reviews help your sales. I always appreciate a review for my book. More is better.

But…where do they go?

I write a review and see it on Amazon. They even send me an email telling me it posted. A week or a month later, when I go back to check on my review, it has disappeared. The same thing happens to reviews people write for my book. Currently I have one review on Amazon. I asked this question, “Where do they go?” and was told that they need to be able to verify purchase. I can almost understand on the books that I buy from the authors at a book signing or a writer’s meeting. Yet even the reviews I’ve added for books I’ve purchased from Amazon have disappeared.

So…where do they go?

I don’t know how to solve this problem. I’m going to start adding my reviews of these books to other websites, like goodreads, indie bound, aNobii, and LibraryThing. There may be more. The other places I found to leave reviews online seem to be either bookseller sites or sites that have been bought out by publishers/booksellers. So you may have the same problems there that you have with Amazon.

Meanwhile, I’m going to start adding those reviews here on my blog and on one or more of the other places I mentioned. We’ll see how it goes.