I haven't read anything of his, and I'm pretty picky about reviews being objective, but to be fair, according to the NYT article, while he paid for people to review his books, he didn't take the option of positive-reviews-only, and he asked that the reviewers actually buy the books and read them.
*If* that's true, it doesn't bother me as much even as all the authors who get together and trade positive reviews of each other's books for free.
Hiring readers to review seems like a pretty fair thing to do, as long as the reviewers are encouraged - by whomever hires them - to be honest.
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