MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Would you trust a review that was paid for?

ficbot · 03-16-2011, 03:40 PM

I am trying really hard not to let my Indie Hall of Fame website get bogged down by too many rules, but it seems that lately I keep needing to clarify things with authors that I had not anticipated. First it was the sampling issue, and now it's paid for reviews.

An author submitted a listing to me where one of the blogs was one which was new to me, so as usual I went to check it out just to make sure it was a blog and not a vendor website or aggregator-type thing or whatever. And under submission guidelines, the blog owner has the usual about what genres she will review etc. and then a note about the different 'tiers' available. Tier 1 was I think $25 and would get you a basic book review. Tier 2 was slightly more and would get you an author interview as well. Unless I am misunderstanding, the blog owner is basically saying that she is charging the authors for the review!

I'm not sure whether or not I should disqualify reviews from blogs such as this one. I am not sure how wide-spread a practice this is---most indie bloggers I know, myself included, do ask authors to provide the book for us, but other than that we do not charge the authors! To be fair to this blogger, she did say that the reviews would be honest and she did seem reasonably comprehensive in the remarks she made about the books. But...charging authors for a review?

So, what do you think, should a paid-for review have equal weight to a non-paid-for one? As I said, I hate to blog down the site with hundreds of rules, but the site---useful a promo tool thought it might be for authors---is really geared toward the reader, toward directing them to books which have the 'seal of approval' from a larger community (the book must have three positive reviews to be considered for addition). Should a paid-for review count?

03-16-2011, 03:40 PM	#1
ficbot Wizard Posts: 2,409 Karma: 4132096 Join Date: Sep 2008 Device: Kindle Paperwhite/iOS Kindle App	Would you trust a review that was paid for? I am trying really hard not to let my Indie Hall of Fame website get bogged down by too many rules, but it seems that lately I keep needing to clarify things with authors that I had not anticipated. First it was the sampling issue, and now it's paid for reviews. An author submitted a listing to me where one of the blogs was one which was new to me, so as usual I went to check it out just to make sure it was a blog and not a vendor website or aggregator-type thing or whatever. And under submission guidelines, the blog owner has the usual about what genres she will review etc. and then a note about the different 'tiers' available. Tier 1 was I think $25 and would get you a basic book review. Tier 2 was slightly more and would get you an author interview as well. Unless I am misunderstanding, the blog owner is basically saying that she is charging the authors for the review! I'm not sure whether or not I should disqualify reviews from blogs such as this one. I am not sure how wide-spread a practice this is---most indie bloggers I know, myself included, do ask authors to provide the book for us, but other than that we do not charge the authors! To be fair to this blogger, she did say that the reviews would be honest and she did seem reasonably comprehensive in the remarks she made about the books. But...charging authors for a review? So, what do you think, should a paid-for review have equal weight to a non-paid-for one? As I said, I hate to blog down the site with hundreds of rules, but the site---useful a promo tool thought it might be for authors---is really geared toward the reader, toward directing them to books which have the 'seal of approval' from a larger community (the book must have three positive reviews to be considered for addition). Should a paid-for review count?