: Re: What, if anything, can I do about Amazon reviews being one-sidedly censored? The Seraphinians is a writeup and attempt to document issues with a movement within the Orthodox Church. They are

@Candy753

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Coming to this question 2 years after it was posted, I find the following:

Of a total of 11 reviews, there is 1 5-star review, 1 4-star review, and 9 1-star reviews. Nothing in-between.

Of the low reviews, some are clearly against you because of your positions.

We will be attacked by the world and by the devil, we do not need
these kinds of attacks from "within". If the author has a conscience
he must listen to it and remove this text from circulation.

Others talk about a need for better editing, clearer arguments, and other critiques of your writing.

Rambling from lack of focus and structure. Some what incoherent both
topically and in organization. Needs massive editing. I actually
needed information with issues he semi addresses but could not track
his thoughts as expressed. Reads like a flight of confusion and ideas.
I admire him for trying. Just not cogent. Please get an editor or
rewrite and update.

And some are in the middle or uncertain.

While some things that Fr. Seraphim taught are controversial, they are
not heretical and certainly not worth incoherent rants full of veiled
ad hominems. There are many other people who teach much worse things,
that have no basis in any patristic writings, that deserve refutation.
The author seems bent on blaming Fr. Seraphim for a number of things
that really have nothing to do with him.

Since I haven't read the book and I know absolutely nothing on this topic, I am not making any claims about the accuracy or reasonableness of the reviews. It's clear that you pushed some buttons and a handful of people have chosen to push back.

Amazon is not removing your good reviews since there are 2 there right now. As others have mentioned, those other good reviews (which are not present now) were probably seen to be fake. Perhaps they thought you had friends write them. Whatever the reasons, they're gone. It's also possible they removed some of the bad reviews too.

You can report reviews as abusive so another possibility is that your detractors reported the good reviews. This seems unlikely to me because neither of them looked problematic to me (though they did look like they were made to order).

To compensate, make sure your website asks people to leave honest reviews on Amazon, and include links. Create an author's page on Goodreads and say the same. In your social media, encourage people to leave reviews. Don't ask for good reviews, just for people to take the time to populate your Amazon pages with star ratings and reviews. This will increase your bad reviews too but, hopefully, it will increase the percentage of reviewers who read the book and did so with an open mind.

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