TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home
News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics
Bought book reviews: LibraryThing cracks down to nip the problem in the bud
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
LibraryThing is cracking down on sleazes who charge authors to generate five-star reviews. This isn’t a major problem at LibraryThing now. But the site is wisely taking precautions. The key rule is, "Reviewers must not be paid for their reviews, except in free books and similar non-monetary perks." Exactly. Do we really want LT to turn into Usenet?
At the same time, some members are calling for refinements in the rules, and LT’s Tim Spalding has responded: "I’d be glad to make it more clear that selling your own review, indirectly through adsense on your blog or directly by writing for, say, the NYT, is no problem. It’s being paid by the author or publisher that’s a problem. It creates a conflict of interest."
I like where Tim is coming from, and would like to hear of any bought reviews showing up at other social networking sites.
As a writer, I’d rather not compete against books pushed by review-ola. Yes, free e-copies of The Solomon Scandals will be most likely available to potential reviewers, for LT, Amazon, GoodReads and other sites, who think they’d enjoy a D.C. newspaper novel, a thriller-satire. Same for interested bloggers. E-mail me and I’ll make arrangements—within the bounds of Tim’s rules, now part of LT’s terms of use.
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'The book’s women...radiate that screwball-comedy pizzazz a la Roz Russell’s Hildy Johnson in the film His Girl Friday.'
