Author Jas Ward sends Petition with 15,000 Signatures to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos
The petition challenging Amazon’s “You know this author” review policy, which attracted national attention and sparked debate in the self-publishing world was sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on August 27th. Since its inception, it has garnered over 15,000 signatures from independent authors and their supporters (including Readers+Writers Journal.)
As we reported earlier this summer, Jas Ward, a self-published author with six titles for sale on Amazon was moved to start the petition protesting Amazon’s policy of removing book reviews by readers who “know” the book’s author after a number of readers told her that their reviews of her books had been deleted from Amazon.com.
The issue, according to the petition, is that in the relatively small world of independent publishing, where authors interact personally with readers, it is unfair to insist that reviews come from readers with no connection to the author. The policy, which was designed to prevent authors’ friends and family from writing reviews, has recently also been barring reviews from readers connected to an author via social media.
The petition reads, in part:
“I rely on using Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and other resources to promote and make readers aware of news of my books as well as releases upcoming and out. Readers, blogs and others in the industry follow me and other authors–its just the nature of the independent publishing world. It’s these resources that help us do business and try to compete in a very saturated publishing marketplace as well as stand out.”
The letter accompanying the petition asks Bezos to reconsider the policy and asks Bezos to respond. Stay tuned…
You can read the petition here.
readers+writers journal 
Thank you for this update! 🙂
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