Running a review team without leaking your book or losing the reviews

A review team goes wrong in two ways. Your manuscript ends up on a pirate site because somebody forwarded the file, or the reviews you were counting on never appear, either because readers forgot or because Amazon removed them. Both are avoidable with the same three habits: deliver the copies through watermarked links that expire, follow Amazon's rules to the letter, and send a short, predictable sequence of emails. The rules here come from Amazon's Community Guidelines and KDP Help as they read on 1 November 2026.

Amazon's rules for free copies

Amazon allows review copies. Its Community Guidelines list, among the things readers may do, reviewing free books from authors or publishers, described as advanced reader copies. The same sentence sets the two conditions: the author cannot require a review in exchange for the free book, and cannot try to influence the reader's opinion. KDP Help repeats this from the author's side. You may provide free or discounted copies of your books to readers as long as you do not require a review in exchange or attempt to influence the review.

Three things fall outside the rules, and all three will cost you the review and possibly more.

• Paying for reviews is the first. The Community Guidelines prohibit creating, editing or removing a review in exchange for compensation, and list payments, refunds, discounts, products, gift cards, warranties and services as compensation. KDP Help says that offering anything other than a free or discounted copy of the book, including gift cards, will invalidate a review and the Amazon Community team will remove it. A prize draw for reviewers counts.
• Reviews from friends and family are the second. The Community Guidelines prohibit reviews of products from authors you have a personal connection with, and reviews from anyone with a financial interest in the product. Amazon's promotional content page gives the example of a relative, close friend, business associate or employee of the product creator posting a review to help boost sales. The same page bans authors posting a positive review of a peer's book in exchange for one back.
• Steering the review is the third. Asking for five stars, asking for a change, asking a reviewer to take down a bad review, or sending a template to copy are all attempts to influence. Ask for an honest review and leave it there.

On disclosure, the Community Guidelines require anyone with a connection to what they are writing about to disclose it clearly and conspicuously, and give "I was paid for this post" as the example. We could not find a set sentence for free review copies on either the Community Guidelines or KDP Help. The line reviewers commonly use, "I received a free copy of this book and am leaving this review voluntarily", meets the spirit of the rule. Tell your readers that a disclosure is expected, and let them write it in their own words.

KDP Help also explains why reviews take a while to appear and sometimes vanish. The Amazon Community team manages customer reviews, posts them only after confirming they meet the Community Guidelines, which can take a few days, and will not share the outcome of an investigation. KDP support cannot restore a removed review.

Watermarked delivery

Never attach the file to an email. An attachment can be forwarded indefinitely and you will never know who did it. Every reputable delivery tool does three things instead.

• It watermarks each copy. BookFunnel's Certified Mail help page says the EPUB is watermarked with the reviewer's identifying information to discourage piracy. If a copy turns up on a pirate site, the name inside it tells you whose it was.
• It gives each reader a unique link. BookFunnel says each reviewer's link cannot be shared online. StoryOrigin shows you each reader's completion rate on earlier review copies before you approve them, so the people most likely to leak or vanish never get a copy.
• It records who downloaded. BookFunnel sends a summary of which reviewers downloaded after the campaign closes. That list is the one you chase; the people who never downloaded get a different email.

The Indie Author Toolchest handles review copies the same way from your own author page: readers request a copy through a link, you approve each one, and the reader gets a watermarked PDF on a link that stops working after 14 days.

Expiring links

Set the link to expire. BookFunnel lets you choose how long the book stays available, and a window of two to three weeks is long enough for anyone who intends to read it. A link that never expires can be passed around for months. Expiry also gives you a clean deadline for the reminder emails below.

Keep a sheet with one row per reader: name, email, date approved, downloaded or not, review posted or not, where. It tells you which readers to invite next time and which to drop.

The email sequence

Send five emails, all plain text and all short. Write them before the first copy goes out so they arrive on time rather than when you remember.

1. Send the approval email the day you approve. Thank them, give the link, say when it expires, give the release date, and say that an honest review on or after release day would be welcome and is not required. Say that Amazon expects reviewers to mention they received a free copy. Give them one address to reply to with problems.
2. Send a reminder one week before release. Readers who downloaded get the release date again and the Amazon link if the preorder page is live. Readers who have not downloaded get the link again, with the expiry date.
3. On release day the Amazon page is live and the review form with it. Send the direct link to the book's page, repeat that the review should be honest and in their own words, and ask them to post on Goodreads too if they use it.
4. One week after release, thank those who posted and send a single nudge, with the link, to those who have not. Then stop. A third chase reads as pressure and is where the influencing line gets crossed.
5. Send a closing email a month after release. Tell everyone what the book did, thank them by name if the list is small, and ask whether they want copies of the next one. This is the email that turns a team into a standing team.

Keep author names, other reviewers' names and anything about ratings out of all five. Nothing in them should read as a condition of the free copy.

When something leaks anyway

If the book appears on a pirate site, read the watermark, remove that reader from the team and say nothing public. Many pirate sites take down a file on a plain copyright notice to the address on the site. A leaked advance copy loses you one reader and little else.

How many readers you need to end up with twenty reviews is worked through in how many review readers do you need. Whether to run a preorder alongside the review copies is in KDP preorder or straight to release, and the press copies that go to bloggers and papers are covered in the author press kit.

Sources: Amazon's Community Guidelines and About Promotional Content; KDP Help on customer reviews; BookFunnel Certified Mail; StoryOrigin on review copies. All read on 1 November 2026.