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

Darqref · 03-17-2011, 01:26 AM

I have two separate points here:

1. The whole issue of reviewer's integrity vs payola. I too believe that it calls into question the reviewer's integrity to know that the review was paid for. But I don't think this is absolute. If *I* were to review books, then the question might become how much time do I have for this activity, which includes both critical reading plus remembering details plus writing a coherent account of what I liked or disliked. If then my reviews became more popular than my allowed time, I might be willing to consider a fee to move a book up in the list, so that it got read sooner, and I could equally consider a fee to spend the time necessary to conduct an interview with the author. And last, I could consider a fee to read a book that didn't really interest me.
My reading interests are limited, so I'm unlikely to be popular enough as a reviewer to make such fees feasible, let alone necessary.

2. Would a paid review be useful to me? That's more open. If I *know* that the reviews are paid, AND I have some other reason to trust the consistency of the review, then yes, the review is useful. Why? Because all I need from a review is to be able to gauge my response to the reviewer's response, so that I can tell if *I* want to read the book. If if the reviewer's writing is consistent, and specific enough for me to form an opinion, then should I care how the selection of what to review was made? OK, yes, this might mean that authors who can't or won't pay for the review won't get mentioned, but that doesn't leave me any worse off - there are already lots of books in my genre from Smashwords or Amazon that don't have a review I've seen.

For the original poster's question about whether to allow paid reviews to be counted in his hall of fame, I dunno. I think yes, but only if sufficient work is done to investigate the reviewer, and judge the consistency. If you can't take time to read through a buncha reviews and evaluate if they are consistent, then no, disallow them. But you do need to realize that it doesn't take payola to make a review inconsistent and/or biased.

03-17-2011, 01:26 AM	#14
Darqref space cadet Posts: 334 Karma: 2999999 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Seattle area Device: Rocket PRO, gen3, Pocketbook360	I have two separate points here: 1. The whole issue of reviewer's integrity vs payola. I too believe that it calls into question the reviewer's integrity to know that the review was paid for. But I don't think this is absolute. If I were to review books, then the question might become how much time do I have for this activity, which includes both critical reading plus remembering details plus writing a coherent account of what I liked or disliked. If then my reviews became more popular than my allowed time, I might be willing to consider a fee to move a book up in the list, so that it got read sooner, and I could equally consider a fee to spend the time necessary to conduct an interview with the author. And last, I could consider a fee to read a book that didn't really interest me. My reading interests are limited, so I'm unlikely to be popular enough as a reviewer to make such fees feasible, let alone necessary. 2. Would a paid review be useful to me? That's more open. If I know that the reviews are paid, AND I have some other reason to trust the consistency of the review, then yes, the review is useful. Why? Because all I need from a review is to be able to gauge my response to the reviewer's response, so that I can tell if I want to read the book. If if the reviewer's writing is consistent, and specific enough for me to form an opinion, then should I care how the selection of what to review was made? OK, yes, this might mean that authors who can't or won't pay for the review won't get mentioned, but that doesn't leave me any worse off - there are already lots of books in my genre from Smashwords or Amazon that don't have a review I've seen. For the original poster's question about whether to allow paid reviews to be counted in his hall of fame, I dunno. I think yes, but only if sufficient work is done to investigate the reviewer, and judge the consistency. If you can't take time to read through a buncha reviews and evaluate if they are consistent, then no, disallow them. But you do need to realize that it doesn't take payola to make a review inconsistent and/or biased.