Would you trust a review that was paid for?

[Anke Wehner]

If the author paid for it, it's not a review, it's an advertisment. And unless that fact is mentioned in the review, it's deceptive to boot.

[Dark123]

This is the first thing that came to my mind.
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/11/30/ru...and-lynch-rev/
In short: Reviewer gave a game bad review and the game had loads of ads on their website so he got fired.
This is what I think when someone says paid for review.

If I see it's paid for review I would disregard the entire review and the website itself.

[Soldim]

Originally Posted by ficbot

So, what do you think, should a paid-for review have equal weight to a non-paid-for one?

Most definitely not. If an author has to pay to get his/her book reviewed, I would assume the book is not interesting enough for the reviewer to be reviewed without the financial incentive. Furthermore, the payment jeopardizes the objectivity of the reviewer.

If I would hear of such a thing, I would loose confidence in the reviewer, and very likely ignore the author. Heck, if the author pays people to review the book, I'd expect to be paid to read it

[Worldwalker]

The free books already compromise their objectivity to some extent, in that they would be concerned that if they annoyed a publisher too much by pointing out the flaws in the books, the supply of free books would stop. Would anyone want me to review their books? But I don't think the value of a few books, especially when the odds are that most of them are books the reviewer wouldn't have bought anyway, can do nearly as much damage as cash payments.

It's also concerning that the cash goes to the reviewer's boss. While the reviewer might be able to remain objective in the face of bribery, is the same true of the publisher? "Fred, that guy is a big advertiser. I know his book/movie/game sucks, but please, just find something good to say about it" happens already. It's a small step from there to "Fred, that guy paid for this review. Make it a positive one."

[rhadin]

It really depends on who is doing the paying. For years people have relied on reviews written for such magazines as the New York Times Book Review and the New York Review of Books. The reviewers in thier pages are paid for the reviews. But they are paid by the magazine, which also assigns the book to be reviewed. I do not see any problem with this. It assures that that the reviewer is competent.

What you are talking about, however, arises on the other end of the spectrum: an author paying for his/her book to be reviewed by someone who may or may not be qualified.

One question immediately comes to mind: How different is this from paying well-known authors or people in the academic field for cover blurbs? If you are interested in a SciFi book, does a book endorsed by David Weber stand a little higher in your list than a book without his endorsement?

As regards the paid reviewer in Ficbot's original post, my answer would be it depends. I would take the time to read a few of the reviews that have been paid for. Are they all positive 5-star reviews, or do they appear to be more objective? If the former, I would not accept reviews from this particular reviewer; if the latter, I would be inclined to accept the reviews.

I have a more fundamental problem with the reviews regardless of whether paid, solicited, unpaid, or unsolicited: Who is the reviewer and what makes them trustworthy? I feel confident about the reviewers who write for the New York Review of Books. I know many of them and the reviews are significantly more than "I like/dislike" type reviews. That is why I subscribe to the NYRB. But who is opus941 or the person who uses the pseudonym Charles Duckens? What are their qualifications? How do I know they actually read the book? FWIW, this was something I touched upon this week on my blog, "The Missing Ingredient: Quality Control in Indie eBooks," which discusses reviews.

[Andrew H.]

I would be very suspicious of a paid review, to say the least. And, as Anke pointed out, it's even worse if this is not disclosed.

This does sound a lot more like advertising than a review. And while advertising can be useful, it's not useful in the same way a review is useful.

But, as WW and others pointed out, there are some conflicts of interest in most reviewing contexts: the reviewer may get free books, or the reviewer may be paid by a publication which derives some of its revenue from ads placed by publishers. These conflicts are more attenuated than with being directly paid by the author, however: for one thing, many professional reviewers receive far more books for review than they could ever possibly review, meaning that the donation of a particular book will likely have little bearing on the reviewer's judgment. And while working for a publication funded by book ads is a slightly more direct conflict, in practice I think this is ameliorated by only reviewing good books (i.e., if the reviewer doesn't like the book, he doesn't publish the review of that particular book).

Of course the NYRB approach is probably the best; its reviewers tend to be people known and knowledgeable in other fields who will occasionally write a longish essay on a few related books...since they are not dependent on the review for their livelihood (and they may be dependent on being viewed as having integrity), these are probably the best reviews going. But of course there aren't a lot of such reviews.

[GraceKrispy]

Originally Posted by rhadin

It really depends on who is doing the paying. For years people have relied on reviews written for such magazines as the New York Times Book Review and the New York Review of Books. The reviewers in thier pages are paid for the reviews. But they are paid by the magazine, which also assigns the book to be reviewed. I do not see any problem with this. It assures that that the reviewer is competent.

My first thought was that- "who is doing the paying?" As I read the OP, I realized it was the author who was doing the paying. So my second thought went like this one:

Originally Posted by Anke Wehner

If the author paid for it, it's not a review, it's an advertisment. And unless that fact is mentioned in the review, it's deceptive to boot.

With regards to ficbot's question, I don't think those reviews should be counted as the required reviews. I think the author directly paying the reviewer makes it virtually impossible to think of that review as unbiased. Even if it's not a stellar 5-star review, who's to say it wouldn't have been a 1 star review that got boosted to 3 stars because of the payment?

I've already posted about the frustration of dishonest reviews. The latest ridiculous thing I saw was a reviewer who stated that she sends her reviews to the author for approval before posting them. What the heck is that about? That's not a review! That's a promotional piece! At least I know that now, and won't be reading any of her reviews. I don't want to waste my time reading reviews that had to be "approved" by the very person who has the most to gain from a positive review and the most to lose from negative feedback. WorldWalker made a good point about the higher ups in these situations perhaps having something to gain from positive reviews about their advertising customers, too. That puts another spin on it.

As someone pointed out, yes it's true that many reviewers receive free books in exchange for reviews. I wouldn't say that's the same as being paid, but I would say that it's a benefit for reviewers. A lot of time and effort go into writing a good review, and an author may have a lot to gain from positive reviews. So of course they'd want to get that book out to people who may be able to help them out in that regard. If it makes a reviewer more likely to put a positive spin on every book, then that's something that has to be discerned by the reader, I guess. I try to be clear that honesty is what you'll get from me. I will look for positives, but I won't shy away from the negatives, if they're there. If an author sends me a book and doesn't like my review, I guess it's just a risk that person takes. But it's true, there's no one but myself keeping my reviews honest. Readers can't truly know about the level of the reviewer's integrity, except what can be gleaned from reading the pattern of previous reviews.

[DreamWriter]

An author-paid review used to sell books is just wrong. Their work should be critiqued on its own merits (or demerits), without money changing hands. I would not give serious consideration to those reviews. Is the fact that a review was purchased clearly evident, though?

[DuskyRose]

I wouldn't give any consideration to a review that's been paid for. The reviewer can claim all they want that they'd be honest, but I don't really buy it. Eventually, they're going to realize that they give a bad review and that author isn't coming back. And maybe he tells his friends not to bother with you. You don't tick off those who're giving you a paycheck.

When it comes to reviews, I'm more likely to check out the unhappy ones. Especially at Amazon. You can get all kinds of "Love it!" but the "Hate it, don't bother" reviews are more likely to get to the point and tell me why. I'm usually looking to avoid certain things, and I find out faster if the book is something I shouldn't bother with from the bad reviews. Then if the bad review mentions stuff that doesn't bother me, I'll go back to the mid-line reviews. I read the good ones last.

[MartinC]

Originally Posted by tompe

Reviewers usually get sent a lot of books for free. And they do not review all of them. So in a sense they get paid by the publisher by not having to buy any books.

In my day it used to be normal practice in Fleet Street for newspaper reviewers to sell the books they received. There were several bookshops in the area that made a good living out of it, so presumably the reviewers didn't do badly.

[JSWolf]

I do not mind a reviewer who gets sent the book for free. That's not an issue. But that's as far as i goes. If any money changes hands, then it's not a review that I feel I can trust.

[khalleron]

It's also a violation of FTC rules if it's not disclosed.

[Elfwreck]

Magazine & newspaper reviews have traditionally been paid for, by the magazine, not the author. But a blogger isn't writing for pay (usually). And an indie/self-pub author doesn't have a publishing company or marketing venue to nudge indirectly for reviews. Many magazines & newspapers flat-out won't touch self-published works, won't review them no matter how good they are. NYTimes ebook rankings won't list self-published ebooks. So indie ebook authors are forced out of many of the normal review/popularity venues; I don't think it's wrong of them to look into paying for reviews.

As more self-publishing takes off, I can see more authors offering to pay for reviews--good or bad--on the grounds that any publicity is better than none. And most of the reviews will be (1) honest and (2) positive, because authors who *know* the value of a good review, and are willing to pay for it, are more likely to know how to write a good book.

I'm not sure there's a big difference between "I'll give you a free copy of my book for a review" and "I'll give you a free copy + $10 for a review."

However. There is a difference, and a tendency to review positively anything one's being paid for--the focus of the work has shifted from "I'm writing this for random readers, because I think they'll want it" to "I'm writing this for the author, because I know she'll want it." And there's always the tendency to want to protect any source of income; it's easy to skew the review positively just because the reviewer is well-disposed toward the author.

I'd think it shouldn't be counted towards the "three good reviews," but I wouldn't think a paid-for review was worthless. And if the listings include links to the reviews, they could include 3 traditionally impartial reviews, plus a link to the paid review, which could help people decide if they'd be interested in that book.

It's also possible that paid reviews should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, with some of them being acceptable and some not. (By "some" I mean "some review blogs" or "some reviewers," not deciding whether each review is okay. "AccurateReviewsForTwentyBucks.com" reviews might be acceptable while "PayForPromos.com" might be out. But either accept all the reviews at ARFTB or not.) But that's probably both too much work, and too much politicking/headaches.

[snipenekkid]

creator paid for review == paid advertising

It's a rare case today when there are any truly critical reviews for products by a given media outlet's major advertisers. Heck even the minor ones. Not sure it's any different today than in the "good old days" of Harry Reasoner or any of the other greats. I often wonder if that is why the focus for "bad reviews" is not politicians, they don't pay for advertising the way, say Coke, Pepsi or any of the major brands might.

Nothing can't be bought today. Then again we don't actually buy the things we thing we do anyway, so does it ultimately matter? Sorry feeling pretty cynical tonight and am all for setting the hypocrites ablaze, or at least leaving a flaming bag of, well you know, on their door steps.

[rhadin]

One thing not discussed in the kind of depth it should be, is what does it matter whether the review is paid for or not when the terms used to describe the review are good or bad? What I mean is that how helpful is an unpaid positive review like the following?

Well-written story with believeable characters. 4/5 stars. -- opus941

or an unpaid review like this one?

Way overpriced by the publisher -- 1/5 stars -- perkydog101

What do the positive or negative reviews tell you about the book, the reviews, or the reviewers? How really valuable are they? opus941 or perkydog101 may well be the same person, or the same person who was paid $25 for the paid for review that was rejected. opus941 may be a shill for the author, and perkydog101 simply a contrarian.

"Well-written" much too often means there was used for their, scene was used for seen, and seam was used for seem, but the reviewer didn't know the difference between the words.

Or what about the review that says the book was obviously well-researched but doesn't tell you how the reviewer know it was well-researched? When I read a review of a World War II book in the New York Review of Books written by Max Hastings that declares the book was well-researched, I feel I can believe it because Hastings is well-known historian in his own right and has signed his name to the piece. That Hastings has been paid to write the review, really doesn't matter; he has earned a reputation for objectivity. But opus941 and perkydog101 haven't -- nor many of the reviewers on Amazon, Smashwords, or the review blogs.

Consequently, I do not see what difference it makes to include or exclude a paid-for review. Perhaps it should be included but marked as author paid for. But should it be excluded? I see no compelling reason to exclude it considering the reviews that people are accepting and the inability to verify that they are not paid for, are objective, and written by competent reviewers.