Who is Harriet Klausner....

[xg4bx]

and why do I see that name on so many Amazon reviews? Is she a real person or is this some type of ghost written, VC Andrews thing? 25k reviews? I guess this shows a pretty big flaw in Amazons review system.

[K-Thom]

You mean this one, who even got her own Wikipedia entry?

[xg4bx]

yup. i'm just here scratching my head over this phenomena. it seems to me like a clear cut case of fraud perpetrated by publishers, anyone can have 25k reviews when all you do is copy/paste promo materials.

i refuse to believe its a real person, its literally impossible. movie studios have been caught creating fictional reviewers so i don't see why publishing would be any different.

[abookreader]

If you look at her profile there are some days when she'll post 30+ reviews and that is just on Amazon. She's also on several other sites. Whatever the scam is I'd almost guarantee she's generating money from it somehow.

There was a magazine article a couple of years ago with a picture of her.

[afa]

I never buy anything without Harriet's recommendation. Undoubtedly, the most informative and trustworthy critic out there.



P.S. Harriet, I'm looking for a new toaster. Can I get some help?

[anamardoll]

*whew* Thought I was on the Amazon Discussion boards for a minute.

No, she is not a real person, or at least the reviews written under her name and account are not all written by the same person. Smarter people than I have done the math, and it's pretty much not possible for one person to POST at the rate she does, let alone actually READ the books.

It's an interesting conundrum, though, because who IS posting the reviews? They seem to be essentially "back of the book" blurbs except they often get major details wrong. So... basically, they seem to be "back of the book" blurbs.

She is most likely a publishing group, and she is pretty much the major reason why Amazon changed their ranking system drastically about a year ago. It was becoming a minor source of embarrassment for Amazon.

[luqmaninbmore]

Why don't they just ban "her" then?

[abookreader]

That's always been my confusion though - if she is a "front" that has been set up by the publishers to promote books, then why do so many of her reviews have such glaring errors such as getting the plot or the names of the characters wrong? If the Publishers were writing the reviews and sending them along to her, it seems like they'd do a better job.

I'm fairly convinced that it is somebody or a group of somebodies that is making money from it somehow, but I'm clueless as to how the operation works. And it seems like by now somebody in Publishing would have spilled the secrets.

[DiapDealer]

Harriet's a minor book-reviewing deity. I trust her opinion implicitly.

(I'm still waiting for the Harriet Klausner vs Robert Stanek cage-match)

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by luqmaninbmore

Why don't they just ban "her" then?

Because acknowledging they were fooled (there were quite a few online interviews with her back in the day) would presumably be more embarrassing. I think Amazon figured it was easier to plug a hole in the ranking system and quietly get rid of her at the same time -- 2 birds, 1 stone.

Not how I would have done it, but that's just me.

Theoretically, by failing to declare that "she" is receiving books for free in exchange for review, "she" is probably in violation of the Blogger/Reviewer Disclosure Law that was passed however many months ago, but I doubt that anyone is going to spend the money to get rid of "her" and protect the customers.

Originally Posted by abookreader

That's always been my confusion though - if she is a "front" that has been set up by the publishers to promote books, then why do so many of her reviews have such glaring errors such as getting the plot or the names of the characters wrong? If the Publishers were writing the reviews and sending them along to her, it seems like they'd do a better job.

I'm fairly convinced that it is somebody or a group of somebodies that is making money from it somehow, but I'm clueless as to how the operation works. And it seems like by now somebody in Publishing would have spilled the secrets.

It IS very puzzling. Blurbs DO sometimes get details wrong (and often spoil endings! grr!) but she has a level of Fail that is quite surprising at times.

[DiapDealer]

Harriet Klausner is the Thomas Kinkade of the book-review world. I think she started out as a "real" person, but as time has gone by, she's farmed the work out to a stable-full of flunkies. Have you ever seen how fast Kinkade can sign a giant stack of his "art?"

The "real" Harriett has probably long since "flew the coop," though.

[carpetmojo]

Perhaps she/he/it doesn't recieve, or read, any books at all - just wonders around book stores reading the jacket blurb, quickly - which would explain a lot of the blunders !

And perhaps they only have a liitle notebook to surreptitiously jot things down - or a dictaphone with nifty lapel microphone.

Watch out for anyone muttering to themselves , or frantically scribbling, and you've unmasked her/he/it ............

[afa]

Originally Posted by abookreader

That's always been my confusion though - if she is a "front" that has been set up by the publishers to promote books, then why do so many of her reviews have such glaring errors such as getting the plot or the names of the characters wrong? If the Publishers were writing the reviews and sending them along to her, it seems like they'd do a better job.

I don't think she is a front for a publisher. For one, it would have been noted a long time ago that all her reviews were of books released by Publisher X. And I don't think it's a group of publishers, either, because they're in competition with each other. I don't see them sitting down and jointly creating such an elaborate scheme.

I'm fairly convinced that it is somebody or a group of somebodies that is making money from it somehow, but I'm clueless as to how the operation works. And it seems like by now somebody in Publishing would have spilled the secrets.

I think this is closer to the truth. A group of people who decided on this 'review' scam a while back. Perhaps it started as some sort of weird joke, and has since morphed into an actual operation that involves receiving money from someone or the other to post.

The question, of course, is who? Again, I don't think it's any of the major publishers. The chances of destroying their reputation should word get out is a risk I don't see them taking. So who, then? Who on Earth could possibly benefit from this? The authors themselves? I feel the same way about that as with publishers.

Who could be making money off this? Maybe we're wrong, and nobody actually is. Maybe this isn't an actual operation, or at least not a profitable one. Maybe, for some reason, a group of people decided years ago to play the weirdest and most pointless prank on the industry.

[tubemonkey]

Who reads book reviews???

[wayrad]

Originally Posted by afa

And I don't think it's a group of publishers, either, because they're in competition with each other. I don't see them sitting down and jointly creating such an elaborate scheme.

Well, they certainly managed it in the case of agency pricing. For authors to buy or create a Klausner review, wouldn't the knowledge of how to go about it have to be widely disseminated rather than being the deep, dark secret that it is now? Seems like the only other parties that could benefit would be the publishers. Unless it's Amazon themselves, but there are Klausner reviews on other sites too, negating that idea. And if someone were doing it in order to entirely stock a bookstore with review copies, I don't think they'd have any time left to sell them.