According to the Forbes article,Donald Mitchell, a top Amazon reviewer, has made $20,000.00 reviewing books at Amazon over the past seven years. Who know?
REVIEW: Pure by Julianna Baggott
REVIEW: The Principal's Office by Jasmine Haynes
REVIEW: Heat by R. Lee Smith
REVIEWS: Master Class and SUBlime by Rachel Haimowitz
REVIEW: Still Hot For You by Diane Escalera
REVIEW: The Gathering Storm by Robin Bridges
GUEST REVIEW: Surprises According to Humphrey by Betty G. Birney
REVIEW: Eternal Captive by Laura Wright
REVIEW: Alpha Instinct by Katie Reus
REVIEW: Sleepwalker by Karen Robards
REVIEW: Fifty Shades of Grey by E L James
REVIEW: Not Wicked Enough by Carolyn Jewel
REVIEW: Breakaway by Deirdre Martin
Return and Redownload Policies for Ebook Purchases
REVIEW: Under His Influence by Justine Elyot
REVIEW: Her Husband's Harlot by Grace Callaway
REVIEW: Last Man Standing by Cindy Gerard
REVIEW: The Husband Recipe by Linda Winstead Jones
REVIEW: The Whip by Karen Kondazian
REVIEW: Shadow's Stand By Sarah McCarty
REVIEW: Firelight by Kristin Callihan
REVIEW: The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey
REVIEW: Fracture by Megan Miranda
REVIEW: The Orchid Affair by Lauren Willig
Unfortunately, this doesn’t surprise me. There are some reviewers I won’t even read. I also think Romantic Times reviewers get kickbacks. I have read many of their books Top Picks and they turn out to be my DNF’s. Too bad it has taken me years to figure this out.
Hi,
My name is Jackie and i love reading and writing. But unfortunately i have some disabilities that leave me now house bound. I was wondering if you could help me to become a romance book reviwer?
It is something that i would love to do and it is something that i can do from home.
Thank you.
Jackie
I used to review for Romantic Times, and I can assure you that we weren’t paid anything. We received a free copy of the book — sometimes in galley format — so we could actually read the book.
In some cases, I was expected to return the book after reading it.
Romantic Times was completely on the level when I worked with them, and I expect that they still are. I mean, why would they risk their credibility?
One note: RT weren’t happy when I favorably reviewed a book without telling them that the author was a friend.
That review was never published, in case anyone (who knew me in real life) thought the review was biased. (It wasn’t, but I could see RT’s point.)
So, I trust Romantic Times’ reviews, 100%. The only reason I don’t review for them now is because I’m writing my own (non-fiction) books, and that takes up most of my time.
Occasionally I’ve looked up a book on Amazon and found every review to be suspiciously similar. They seem to follow a script, for one thing. For example, for a book I recently looked up, each review had an opening sentence saying how immensely talented the author was, then said how amazing the book is without explaining why they liked it, then outlined the contents of each chapter, then ended with various paraphrased versions of ‘get it! it’s hot!’
Another giveaway was that most of the content was written like a cheesy advertisement – ‘wow this book is so great, you’ll want to get it for all your friends!’
Finally, many of them were supposedly from people in all different countries (Russia, Spain, Iran – notably, always the capital or best-known city of each :D), and yet all had a similar writing style and were written like a native (if not very intelligent) English speaker.
Why isn’t Amazon stricter about this?
@CC: My guess is that there is no easy way for Amazon to police this.
[...] but I know that the most prolific and proficient book reviewers on Amazon used to get paid:http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/…Insert a dynamic date here 1 Answer Collapsed1 Answer Collapsed (Why?) Eric [...]
Have you ever tried those paid to blog services that you use on your own blogs? like payperpost and blogsvertise? They pay you for publishing product reviews on your own blog. I do know that they pay much more than $1 per post
Get Paid To Blogging
http://goo.gl/JwF1
I am glad to see this topic being discussed CC Says hit it right on the mark. In addition to the similarities noted amongst the pro-ratings are the statistically impossible ratings of 0/50+ often seen by neg-ratings. I recently found an ad claiming a commission for your positive review if it results in a sale or rental.
When I brought this up on the Amazon Community chat/ board I was ridiculed for paranoia. I know this discussion was on a board for some time, but when you plug in “paid review,’ or anything similar in the search box absolutely nothing comes up – things that make you go hmmm.