Kirkus Indie Is a Scam

So let me tell you about my experience with Kirkus Indie, a publication which claims to provide professional and unbiased reviews of indie books.

For a fee, of course.

But that’s not my problem.  Nor is the idea that one might pay a fee and, in return, get a spectacularly bad review.  Honestly, speaking as both an editor and a consumer here, I’d hope so!  The idea of paying for good reviews would be even worse of a scam than the one I’m discussing.  No, my problem with the good folks at Kirkus Indie is that they take your money and then don’t read the book.  And it’s not cheap, either.  So while no, I’m not expecting to pay for a good review, I am expecting to pay for a review.  A review that involves reading the book and then having some, you know, cogent opinions about its contents.  Again.  Contents.

Mr. PJ had a long and storied tenure as the editor of his various school publications; he informed me that if someone had submitted this review to him in high school, he would have told them to go back to the drawing board and that they could do better.  So what did the review consist of?  In essence, first a cut and paste from the blurb on the back cover followed by a thought that I can only cogently summarize as, “this isn’t fantasy, because it doesn’t seem much like Terry Brooks.”  Which, well…no!  It doesn’t seem much like Terry Brooks.  But no actual mention of the characters, their evolution, or the actual plot of the book was mentioned.  Because, you know, pretty obviously, the so-called “reviewer” clearly didn’t read the book.

Since I write my own blurbs, what I essentially did was pay some unnamed, faceless person a premium for reading my own words back to me.  And believe me, don’t I feel stupid.  In fact, so stupid that I really don’t feel like writing this post–much less hitting the “publish” button.  But I am, because I want other authors to benefit from my experience.  Better that I look stupid, than that the rest of you waste your hard-earned money.

I’d never purchased a Kirkus Indie review before and, based on this experience, never will again.  I understand the appeal; it’s hard to get people to review your books, even on Amazon.  And I’ve offered a lot of people a lot of review copies, most of which they haven’t wanted.  Which, well…the thing about writing is, you kind of have to check your ego at the door.  But part of me does wonder if Kirkus Indie doesn’t essentially exist as a vanity offering: quote the person’s own blurb back to them, more or less, and you never risk saying anything to offend the paying customer.  Never really get into depth and, well, you never really get into depth.

So the bottom line is this: you’re being charged a premium for something that, at least in my experience, you’re not getting.  One of my more disappointing experiences, in college, was being informed by my thesis advisor that he’d given me an A on my thesis because he hadn’t had time to read it, and didn’t want me to contest the grade.  Because, you see, he knew that he’d been unethical; by throwing that sop to Cerberus, he (he thought) gave us what we both wanted.  And he did, in a sense; I didn’t contest the grade.  I just felt kind of disillusioned.  But see, at least he knew that what he was doing was wrong.

So save your money, or at least give it to someone who’s serious about earning it; and who’s serious enough about their own reputation to do their job.