Amazon reviews from Facebook friends??

I am getting ready to launch my first book, finally, and the deeper I get into it, the more I realize I am doing things wrong (or at least not optimally).

I LOVE the Novel Marketing podcast and listen to it religiously, but it feels impossible to do all the things, all the time. And so I know that I might be releasing a book that only my friends and family will find.

I made the mistake of setting up an Amazon pre-order (because I wanted to do an ACX audition and you have to have a listing to do that), and then I realized that the pre-launch listing actually locked me into an ebook release date, so I am launching the ebook next week, like it or not.

And I have decided that it is probably ok because after 3 years of working on my book, I think it’s actually really good. It has been through 3+ thorough human editorial rounds as well as last-minute AI fact checks for all the things that the humans missed, and it has a beautiful, professional cover, and my family, who have read it, really like it (I know they don’t count, but my mom said she cried)🤣. It just needs to get out there so I can move on to the next book.

I have about 25 people on my launch team who are reading ARCs, the problem is that I am Facebook friends with nearly all of them, even ones I have not seen IRL in 20 years.

What should I do about this? Will my Amazon reviews get flagged and expunged from the system? Should I unfriend my mom so her review stands on Amazon?

Feel free to give me any advice you have.