On Bogus Book Reviews

There’s been a furor recently about authors faking reviews in one manner or another: Either by buying reviews, or by sock puppetry. As nobody can generate reams of morally-outraged words like offended writers, it’s created a pretty big buzz in the publishing world. Here’s my thoughts on these types of reviews. For brevity, I lump all of these reviews into a category I’m going to call “fake reviews.” It’s not strictly accurate, I know, but I can’t come up with a better phrase at the moment.

I’m...