October is here, and it's you that make it possible, you're the heart of this community. 💛 Your passion for stories, your commitment to sharing honest reviews, and the way you lift each other up is what makes Book Bounty such a special place. Each month we grow not just in numbers, but in the strength of the connections between authors and readers. We’re so grateful to share this journey with you. Here’s to another month of reading, reviewing, and lifting each other up!

As you might know by now, last month Amazon made a major change to their platform. Amazon is now tracking people even more and trying to make it even more difficult for brands and sellers to monitor their reviews. The biggest change? Direct review links now require users to be logged in. Visit too many of them, and Amazon may block your account from viewing reviews altogether including review searches and even entire review sections on product pages. We have found safe ways around these changes, but it has affected our speed to confirm posted reviews. Unfortunately, because of these changes, we were forced to delay the new features we were working on in order to adapt to the new challenges Amazon has created. We are now ready to start transitioning to a new confirmation process.

Over the next few weeks, as we roll out the first phase of the new confirmation process, you will start seeing some bounties with a new confirmation page. When a bounty uses the new confirmation page, you won’t have to hunt down a review link from Amazon’s email, log into Book Bounty, find the bounty, and paste the review link. Instead, when you receive your email from Amazon, you’ll simply be able to forward it to us and we’ll take it from there.

We’re excited about this new process because not only does it reduce the number of steps you have to take, it also adds an extra layer of security against bad actors. Now, only members who receive Amazon’s email at a valid email address can submit it for confirmation.

With Amazon’s recent changes, it’s clear they’re tracking activity more closely than ever. You do not want to lose your reviewing privileges... or worse! Their AI is getting better at evaluating reviews to determine whether reviews sound like genuine consumer feedback based on personal experience. That means it’s important to be mindful of how you write your reviews. Remember, you are responsible for your reviewing behavior. You want to be sure you actually read the material, write with honesty, and take your time to not post too quickly or too frequently. You don't want your reviewing to look unnatural to Amazon. Avoid restating the book’s description, copying other reviews, or using AI to generate your review. It's best to focus on the content itself and your personal experience with it. It’s also possible that Amazon’s bots will look over a person’s reviewing history, checking for repetitive words or phrases across multiple reviews. For example, if the same phrase or words are repeated in the reviews you post i.e. "the book is AI", it may raise a red flag since real consumers typically vary their wording. The safest approach is always to keep your reviews authentic, thoughtful, unique, based on personal experience more than how you feel the product was created.

As you know Book Bounty, we believe in building a supportive, respectful community where authors and reviewers lift each other up. While we can’t tell anyone how to review a book, we do encourage kindness, honesty, and professionalism in every interaction.

Need to share private feedback instead of a public review?
Please remember you can always cancel a bounty and send a message directly to the publisher instead. And soon, you’ll even have this option when turning in a bounty too. 🙌

A quick reminder about AI-generated reviews:
Please don’t cut corners by submitting reviews written entirely by AI. Even though Amazon hasn’t published strict rules about this yet, they’re likely keeping an eye on patterns and we don’t want anyone’s account flagged or restricted. More importantly, it doesn’t help fellow authors who’ve poured their time and heart into their work.

On the topic of AI in publishing:
We know opinions differ when it comes to using AI. AI is becoming part of every creative process from grammar tools, image creation, to formatting help and many authors are learning to use it wisely. Calling out a book in a review for "using AI" is not helpful or fair, especially when AI is everywhere. Whether someone used a ghostwriter, an artist, an AI tool, or collaborated with an editor who brought in AI tech it’s all part of today’s evolving creative process. Please help support your fellow publisher by offering guidance to help them get better at using these tools rather than tearing them down on Amazon.

Even with all these exciting new features, we’re far from finished! Our team is already hard at work on the next set of improvements. Just as Amazon is focused on weeding out bad actors, we’re doing the same. The next phase of our new confirmation process will be rolling out soon, giving us stronger tools to detect and block bad actors more quickly. Once this is fully in place, we’ll be able to shift our focus back to building even more features and tools to make the Book Bounty platform the best it can be.