[staunch]

1) Professional critics are not usually the friends and acquaintances of the author. They have reputations and rules (enforced by their publication) that govern their behavior.

2) Amazon reviews are intended for customers who have paid for the book. Not for friends of the author that received it for free with the expectation that they would review it on Amazon.

It's Amazon's failing that they don't protect against this. If you did the same thing on HN the anti-voting ring software would kill the submission.

[Alex3917]

The vast majority of books on Amazon would have zero reviews if they only let you review a book after purchasing it on Amazon. Yes, it does suck that Amazon won't delete reviews even when the person admits they haven't read the book, or when they are just complaining that the Kindle version doesn't have a long enough free chapter. But other than that I have no problem with anyone writing a review as long as they've read it. Reading the book takes several hours, so the vast majority of people aren't going to sit there cranking out reviews just to get free books. There are people who do that, but it's really only a couple dozen on all of Amazon.

[jacques_chester]

> The vast majority of books on Amazon would have zero reviews if they only let you review a book after purchasing it on Amazon.

A little optional badge to indicate that the user purchased the book from Amazon wouldn't go astray.

[joshkaufman]

Amazon recently added this. I just published a book, which is why I noticed.

You can see "Amazon Verified Purchase" on this review, under the name: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3VSS8V2NFX1NB/ref=cm_cr_pr_per...

[jacques_chester]

Great minds, and now me!