Amazon Reviewers Get Paid to Review

11 Comments

1. Jody
   Dec 01, 2006 @ 19:02:19

   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.

   Reply

2. Jackie Lynch
   Feb 15, 2009 @ 18:53:47

   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

   Reply

3. Eibhlin
   Mar 07, 2010 @ 08:13:51

   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.

   Reply

4. CC
   Mar 12, 2010 @ 09:20:48

   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?

   Reply

5. Jane
   Mar 12, 2010 @ 09:21:52

   @CC: My guess is that there is no easy way for Amazon to police this.

   Reply

6. Are there legitimate income opportunities to be had from reading books? - Quora
   Oct 29, 2010 @ 15:00:39

   [...] 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 [...]

7. SeoGym
   Oct 30, 2010 @ 03:28:23

   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

   Reply

8. Eurobaby460
   Apr 05, 2011 @ 20:55:33

   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.

   Reply

9. Pradnya Adhav
   Feb 25, 2013 @ 12:47:18

   I am a post graduate in English literature and love reading books, I am also working as a counselor and I would love to work as a book reviewer with you

   Reply

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    Apr 04, 2013 @ 19:51:05

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11. Bertie
    May 23, 2013 @ 11:50:18

    Good post. I am facing many of these issues as well..

    Reply