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Comment by saintblasphemer | Hacker News Reader

Why is the book available for review on the site if review copies haven't yet been sent out? Isn't that just asking for trolling?

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In some ways, it's just a peak into existing corruption, perpetrated by those who couldn't even be bothered to make it believable.

Likely a script that looks for the first x reviews and then starts generating fake ones, and some party that is just lazy. There's probably a market somewhere to short.

That appears to be the unspoken thrust of the piece once you've waded through all of the mock surprise and intrigue.

Because it's being run by Amazon employees who hate their jobs rather than hobbyists who love books?

I guess authors and publishers do like being able to show that a certain title is forthcoming.

Can they do that without allowing third party reviews before the publication date?

Sure, but that doesn't solve the problem. How things are makes the problem obvious. If they put a countdown everyone leaving bad reviews just waits until reviews open and then it becomes much harder to know it isn't an honest review as it is possible that they really read it.

And it lets people add it to reading list plans early etc. But you could probably have a read only entry with a countdown without enormous efforts?

The general term used to describe this business practice is 'shakedown'.

How is that rellevant, this just show how broken reviews are. How much of a scamm it is

That is exactly why it's relevant! Positive sign of scammy behavior.

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