How Amazon Allowed Someone to Sabotage My Book Sales

And the death of customer service

Last year, March 2024, my book on politics, Left Wing, Right Wing, People, and Power, was released. My small but erudite following on Medium made the book a Bestseller on Amazon’s New Releases list. Thanks, people!

Troll Attack, Part One

Three days after the book’s release, someone not at all erudite left a nasty review on one of my books. It was not on the new book but on my philosophy textbook, How We Are and How We Got Here. The review wasn’t about the book, but was a political tirade. A troll went off, Trump style, in mostly capital letters about woke professors and liberal indoctrination and people like me should be banned and so on.

One huge flaw of Amazon is that anyone can leave a review on a product even if they haven’t purchased it. Anyone who has made over $50 in purchases from Amazon within the previous six months can leave a review on any product listed on the site. Thus, any troll can buy a couple of video games or comic books or whatever and go to town flaming anything they don’t like. Amazon does give a “Verified Purchase” tag…