Sock puppetry still 'rife' in book reviews

Sock puppetry is still "widespread" today in spite of the trade's best efforts to stamp it out more than five years ago, a number of publishers have told The Bookseller, following the latest case to be brought to light.

However, others in the trade have argued the practice isn't commonplace but serves to highlight the "imperfect" nature of online reviews and the danger of relying on them too heavily to promote books.

Ian Buxton, a writer of books on whisky and gin, has admitted a lapse in judgement after Private Eye called him out for sock puppetry in its last issue. The term refers to the practice of an author trashing a rival’s work online by giving them an anonymous bad review. In response to the incident, Buxton’s publisher told The Bookseller he "should have known better".

According to Private Eye's article, using the online name “Socialworker”, Buxton dismissed Rachel McCormack's new book Chasing the Dram: Finding the Spirit of Whisky, published on 29th June (Simon & Schuster) as "a thin watery blend . . . not a cookbook . . . not a whisky book . . . poor value too". The publication of his own Scotch whisky travelogue Whiskies Galore is due this September. 

His publisher, Scotland-based Birlinn, said that although sock-puppetry is "widespread" on the web, it did not encourage authors to review competitors anonymously and hoped the two authors involved could bury the hatchet. It added that Buxton "regretted" his comments and was "quick" to delete the review.

"Ian Buxton is aware of the piece in Private Eye and the embarrassment that his comments have caused and agrees that he judged this badly. He regretted his hastily made comments and quickly removed the review from Amazon," a spokesperson for the publisher said.

"Although we know that the practice of ‘sock puppetry’ is widespread, as a company we don’t encourage authors to review competing titles anonymously, no matter how fair the comment. Ian has been the victim of this practice himself so should have known better. I hope Ian and Rachel can patch things up and that their new books both do well in the trade."

Sock puppetry - which also encompasses those who use fake identities to write rave reviews about their own books to rise up Amazon's rankings -was condemned as "damaging to the trade at large" in a statement signed by authors including Ian Rankin and Val McDermid back in 2012. The issue came to prominence after author Stephen Leather "came out" at the Harrogate crime festival about some of his promotional techniques, which included posting positive reviews about his own work in different online guises and having conversations with himself to build a buzz around his books. That same summer, crime writer R J Ellory was outed by fellow crime writer Jeremy Duns for giving himself glowing reviews on Amazon while criticising rival crime authors Mark Billingham and Stuart MacBride under a pseudonym. 

In 2015, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched an investigation to clean up fake online reviews, resulting in an enforcement action in 2016 against an online marketing company that posted 800 fake reviews on behalf of its clients. A newspaper investigation found in 2015 that a five-star Amazon review could be bought for as little as £3. In a bid to shut down the ecosystem around fraudulent reviews in exchange for payment, Amazon says it has sued "thousands" of sellers for using sock puppet accounts to post fake reviews about their products. 

A spokesperson for the e-commerce giant told The Bookseller: "Customer reviews are one of the most valuable tools we offer customers for making informed purchase decisions and we work hard to make sure they are doing their job. We’ve introduced a machine learned algorithm that gives more weight to newer, more helpful reviews, applied stricter criteria to qualify for the Amazon verified purchase badge, and suspended, banned or sued thousands of individuals for attempting to manipulate reviews."

But these efforts to curb the practice don’t seem to have stamped it out in relation to book reviews.

Alessandro Gallenzi, publisher at Alma Books, said the practice of sock puppetry was "still quite rife these days, and it will ever be as long as anonymous reviews and comments are allowed online”. He added: "I have come across some glorious examples of sock puppetry in recent years."

He joined other publishers in noting that the problem extended to an uptick in the numbers of authors who are encouraging friends and families to leave positive reviews of their books.

Gallenzi explained: "Most authors and translators I have come across are so vain that, when they don't do it themselves, they enlist friends and family to give their book an early boost on Amazon with – if not fake – let's say slightly partial reviews. And when a one-star review crops up, this is swiftly counteracted with a barrage of friendly, spontaneous positive reviews. 

"In short, it's a rotten system: people should not be allowed to review unless they put their own name and email address on their review. But then, of course, that would create another set of problems of an altogether different nature."

Curtis Brown agent Gordon Wise, president of the Association of Authors Agents, called online reviews an "imperfect" system for book promotion. While branding sock puppetry "deplorable", he said this was only part of the problem given how "subjective" many online reviews are anyway and how easy it is for results to be skewed.

"Obviously calculated rubbishing of others’ works is not only deplorable but also breaches the golden rule of ‘do as you would be done by’," said Wise. "Given that Amazon algorithms, which lead to books being promoted and well ranked, are in certain measure pegged to review activity (number of reviews, number of stars), the matter of online reviews is a particularly hot topic – and even an Achilles heel for an unwitting author. Many yearn for review coverage there; many are distraught at improper reviews skewing the whole perception of a book.

"If calculated rubbishing is actually going on, that is only part of the problem – negative reviews often come from very subjective ‘genuine’ reviewers who may be assessing a work out of context, and as we all know can sometimes even relate to packaging, fulfilment time or condition of the dust jacket. It’s a very imperfect mechanism for book promotion."

The Society of Authors has disagreed that sock puppetry is “widespread”, but did say it was unsurprising authors might be tempted to "game the system" given the link between Amazon's rankings and a book's success. 

"We’ve seen no evidence that sock puppetry is particularly widespread. We’d certainly condemn it whenever it happens – whether it takes the form of trolling or dishonest practices – and in particular when it is directed against another author," said chief executive Nicola Solomon. 

"Having said that, the success or failure of a book is so dependent on ratings and rankings and the profile an author manages to create with readers, so perhaps it should be no surprise that some have been tempted to game the system.

"We tend to find it more useful to work with authors through advice, workshops and guidance, helping them to build an author brand without resorting to underhand approaches that risk damaging their careers."

Buxton and his agent Judy Moir were contacted for comment but referred The Bookseller to Birlinn's statement.