Bogus review offers? > Likes and Comments

Hi all,

Has anyone had experience of emails out of the blue offering review services that sound a bit too good to be true?

I've had a small cluster of such emails recently. I ask them how they got my email address but the replies I get back never provide an answer.

Naturally, I'm staying well clear, but am also wondering whether there could be an innocent explanation that doesn't involve phishing, scams, or plain stealing your money.

It all started with an email from a site called amazebookreviews. Subtle name, I know. Has anyone actually had any real experience with this site and can confirm they are genuine?

Thanks,
Piers.

I haven't heard of amazebookreviews but I have had a spate of offers this week. I just delete them.

I haven't heard of them so sorry I can't help. However, if they've acquired my email without my giving it out, I don't open them and flag them as spam. You can waste a lot of time, and some lose money too. Occasionally I'll do a Google search and see what others say about them.

I've been receiving such emails for a couple of weeks now. I just delete them. My guess is they eventually expect you to pay for the reviews, although the theory is untested.

I'm like Anna, if I didn't contact them, I mark them as spam and delete them.

It must be a seasonal thing. I'm in the middle of a wave of review offers now, like I was six months ago.

I haven't got any of these now, but a while back I got a lot of them. I never accepted them, and am not going to if they start back up again.

I'm getting a bit odd friend requests on a regular basis now, but that is a different story.

There are sites that reach out to new authors offering reviews and then release the book on their site for free. They should have a website, blog, or account that is legit. If they can't show you previous reviews and refuse to give straight answers, don't trust them.

Yup, I've got a few lately. Just ignore them, they're 100% scams of some kind. Real book reviewers don't go cold calling authors because authors come to them.

David wrote: "It must be a seasonal thing. I'm in the middle of a wave of review offers now, like I was six months ago."

Most of the suspicious activity comes in waves. Before Xmass, when people were shopping for presents online, there was a wave of delivery scams, mostly "your package is on hold because you haven't paid €0,1 import fee" or "your package couldn't be delivered because we couldn't catch you at home".

After NYE, there will be a lot of "quit smoking" or "get fit fast" scams (because of resolutions), and I think this may be the reason for review scams - if people made a resolution to get their books seen a bit more.

The ol' good stuff doesn't stop, though. I have received the classic "I won 1,2 billion EURO in POWERBALL" on my work mail before Xmass. Yeah, € in an American lottery, sounds legit.

Hákon wrote: "I'm getting a bit odd friend requests on a regular basis now, but that is a different story."

There was a wave of friend requests or status likes here on GR from stolen profiles that were inactive for 2-3 years, then suddenly liked (or even rated) lots of random statuses/books (or sent friend requests) in the timespan of minutes, then went dormant again. Most of them had a link to Russian sites that, based on how the link looked, were either p0rn sites or something along that line.

They do come in waves. At one time I got so many of those that I finally changed my email preferences.

I’ve been getting unsolicited paid review offers for my book on Instagram recently. Usually it’s a message along the lines of “I noticed your page and would like to feature it for a review on my multiple platforms. Lots of followers... email list... etc.”

They never start with how much money they are asking for but it’s been from $35-$100 plus the cost of the book.
When I’ve looked at their pages they have had a lot of followers and actually have done a lot of reviews of other books in the past. Some pages more than others. And the more expensive review offers always have more followers.

Has anyone else experienced this and if so what would you recommend?
My gut instinct is to say no thank you, and so far I have. Am I missing out. Or should I just save my money for a review on IndieReader or something like that?

Thanks

Apart from outright dubious businesses, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some legit ones. Maybe a good way to 'probe' them would be to see who they reviewed last, see if you can contact the author, and ask about the company.

I wouldn't go in there without some preparation and verification.

I get them, too. Emails. I delete. I got scammed once, and I won't again. None that I've received appear to be legit. Good luck.

I ignore and delete them. As others stated, they come in waves. After the first wave and since they got no response from me, they stopped.

My problem isn't the paid part. I submitted my book to Reedsy Discovery and that's a paid review, but Reedsy is full of other authors, and generally, it's authors reviewing authors. You don't get to know who's reviewing your book and from what I've seen so far, it doesn't guarantee you a 5-star review, which makes the whole thing a bit more genuine. I'd rather take a 3 or 4-star review from someone who actually read the book.

But also, those Instagram accounts offering reviews have too many followers. They seem fake. When you scroll in their comments, it's a bunch of, "Amazing! Great! Awesome! Wow, need to read!" You can see these guys aren't readers about to buy your stuff...

I've gotten hundreds of these since my first book came out. A lot of them were very fishy, but there were a few that were definitely people just looking to review books to build their brand a bit. It becomes very tedious to pick apart each one that comes in, and again, I'd say a solid 95% of the offers are not on the up and up.

Ginevra wrote: "But also, those Instagram accounts offering reviews have too many followers. They seem fake. When you scroll in their comments, it's a bunch of, "Amazing! Great! Awesome! Wow, need to read!" You can see these guys aren't readers about to buy your stuff..."

Good observation to mention. Quantity doesn't mean quality, unfortunately, and I receive a lot of "get thousands of followers" spam offers on my blog, so making this type of scripts/bots is probably laughably easy for someone who knows what they're doing.

As it was said before, if something sounds too good to be true, it's likely a trap. You can make some research, if you have the time for it, or stay away and be safe.

Piers wrote: "Hi all,

Has anyone had experience of emails out of the blue offering review services that sound a bit too good to be true?

I've had a small cluster of such emails recently. I ask them how they go..."

Yes, when I used a book promotion service last year, I got quite a few of these emails, and I still get the occasionally. You can always Google them to find out more about them. I usually Google "scam" or "ripoff" plus the name of the site. Hope this helps!

I don't truly know the motive of reviewers soliciting authors' works for reviewing purposes, but I've often wondered if it's not being done to amass a number of reviews to their credit, so that they can present themselves as being qualified reviewers. Those asking for payment in doing a review, no doubt are trying to establish it as a steady source of income.
I haven't published a book recently, but I still get emails wanting to do a review on my book. Got a persistent caller, stating that my book would be good for a screen play, but of course, was asking for a pile of money. I believe my information and phone number was sold to the caller by another source where I had entered the book in a contest.
I like the many suggestions that have already been given, such as, reviews from paid consumers, Kirkus, and Clarion, whom I have used in the past. Positive clips from Kirkus and Clarion can be used to hopefully increase sales.