News PLEASE READ AND REPLY: Pay for Faster Reviews?

I don't know. My immediate reaction is no, but Bookbag and PW charge indie authors only, Bookpleasures and Kiruks charge everyone, and I know how much the dev work is going to take in time and money. We've got some great features planned, but without extra funding they won't come off the drawing board. I might work for free but licenced software still costs, as does getting custom hooks from the original creators.

It is against my better judgement, but we might have to. Could we try with say five slots as a trial and see how it goes?

Besides, how much would you charge?
Bookpleasures are $119
Kirkus is $475-$575
PW Select is $149
Bookbag is £100 (they disclosed that by email to VHF)

Seriously, we've got more reach than most of the sites. It might be worth it.

 

I've long wondered about this, given the size of the stack and how we get through it. My feeling is that it should be no.

We are independent of the situation and feel free to give the review the book deserves whether good or bad, and if we accept any kind of payment then there will always be that wonder of if we should review it when it is bad.

Actually - that suspicion will always be there until we do give a bad review for someone who has paid. And then you get into the problem that someone paid for their novel to have a bad review.

If we were going to do this, I would not want to go full paid reviews. I would have one slot a week or every two weeks which can be booked and paid for a review to take place for better or worse? Would that be acceptable?
As for price - I will let others decide that.

 

Was anyone talking about going full paid reviews? Don't think so.

Authors contributing not a sausage to the site and whining they want reviews? This would shut 'em up. Couldn't put the reviews on Amazon, 'cos that breaks T&Cs.

 

Sorry @Angel but I don't think trying to do a regular slot will work, this is going to be something that people will ask for at a time of their choosing, not ours. I don't think we know how it will go unless we do it and I like @tirial 's idea about giving it a shot.

I'm kinda in favour of it, and if we are going to test it out, I'd say $50 for starters, just to see if there is interest. The payment is for skipping the queue, not for the review and I think its important to make the distinction. The review needs to be as always has been, unbiased

 

Well, I've pondered it some more and while I'm not totally certain about it, I am willing to at least trial it, see what happens and at least be proved wrong.

Given the prices both @tirial and @Terry have mentioned, I would be happy to go for $50 and see what happens.

 

This morning we just had a request we review a book. The author had spent $450 to list it on Netgalley, who simply display it publicly to a group of reviewers who might chose to pick it up. The author also asked us to get it from Netgalley and review it, rather than listing it directly with us.

In other words, they're not supporting our site at all but want to take advantage of our mailing list. I think it is past time we started charging, if it stops this kind of rubbish.

 

I am not hugely in favour of paid reviews, since it is so much like advertising. There is an immediate question of bias. If any of the members want to take funds for reviews, could it be done on a secondary site so bookangel does not have to change policy?

 

Do you expect fallout or criticism from the writers and if so, can you handle the possible fallout? I would email the publishers and authors and tell them first, before making an announcement on twitter, or to a newspaper or anything else.

I see nothing wrong with getting paid for reviews, though I do like Tregaron's idea of doing it on another website. I'd charge the fee up front, clearly mark that I was paid for the review, and would leave an honest review. I definitely wouldn't offer to refund their money, or tell them advance, or just not publish a negative review. Do those things and you'll never get peace from the "bias" charge. I'm new here, but I've lurked for ages so I hope it's okay to add my .02

 

Hi and welcome @Books Bits 'n Bobs ! Could we launch a spin-off? I know we've just merged bargain and ebooks, so maybe if we spun off one of them? @tirial ?

 

I have an idea, so if @Bookangel. @Reader, and @Angel could contact me, it would be really useful.

Also, eye problem again last night, so I am going to have to cut back on screen work a bit. Sorry.

 

I have spoken to @tirial and agree that a secondary blog might be a good idea. Before bookangel we were looking at reviewing bargain reads from discount bookstores. With the help of Cat In A Suit, and talking to a friend with an editorial background who is willing to take it on, that blog is now active again with a domain name we chose and some reviews live on it.

Please could the rest of the club give their opinions? Will this be an appropriate secondary site, and how should we send people to it? The site is at paperbackraider.com

 

Looks good! I like it, can we link it off the reviews policy page?

 

I think that could work. Do we put those reviews in the email?

 

If we put a bio in at the bottom as part of the review, so the email picked it up, I'd have no problem putting the full review in the reviews email. We know who's doing them, so there's no quality issue and they're following bookangel guidelines after all.

 

That looks pretty neat. Opening a second site to handle that kind of thing is a good idea.

Good luck with it.

 

I was under the impression that most review sites charge the authors or publishers a fee. Is that incorrect? If not, I don't see how they pay for site hosting, reviewers, and moderators.

 

I do think that authors should be charged for faster reviews. A lot of time is being put into the project, and there are multiple sites that charge for reviews.

 

I'll weigh in with my experience from Kirkus. I paid for a review of one of my middle-grade books. That was a huge amount of risk because they straight up stated they did not guarantee a positive review. Being an over-confident and naive writer, I went ahead and signed up. What they did do was to give me a chance to see the review before it was published. I could choose to let the public see it or I could simply say no thanks. Fortunately, they gave me a great thumbs up. My point is that you could give the writer this sort of choice.

I'd be willing to pay for an early review when I launch a book. I need reviews for Amazon to pay attention to me and boost my book. And I'd go along with the fact that I wasn't guaranteed a good review as long as I knew that up front and had the option to publish it or not.