The hard and fast rule is Never Pay for a Review. The second rule is, there is a sucker born every minute. Scams like OBC pay because of rule number 2.
The reviewer loved my book
Well after all these negative feedback I had read as a result they are all compelling and speaking the truth which I have no time spending my energy for this club. I signed up but not going for this. It is good I sense there are catch 22 on the advertisement which is normal every business small or large there is always some hidden agenda sooner or later to know. But the behavior the way they handle business inside for me all the testimonials in form of evidences admissible on my watch. This book club going nowhere.
She loved these books as well
This comment is the perspective of an author. Perhaps I’m lucky. Several years ago as a new author, I wanted an opinion other than friends and family. I happened to find the Onlinebookclub (OBC) and decided to give them a try, despite (as I thought) was a fairly high cost. Her preference for adolescent adventure and magical realism matched my genre perfectly. She was thorough and it was quite clear she read the entire book. Incidentally, OBC asks the reviewers to forward a separate blurb to the author confirming that the reviewer read the entire book. I have since used OBC’s service and the same reviewer for two additional books in the series. I also had my first two books reviewed by Kirkus (twice the cost of the OBC) and was quite disappointed. For the first book it was clear the reviewer didn’t like my genre nor the fact that very few women or girls were in the story. Little was said of the nature of the story. I have found that gaining the services of a reviewer who enjoys your genre is critical. The second Kirkus review was disheartening. The reviewer made comment that indicated to me they did not understand, failed to read, or assumed critical parts of the story. I had to demand a retraction (which was ultimately given). This same book was ultimately the winner in the 2020 Independent Publishers of New England (IPNE) literary fiction book awards contest conferring my trust in the OBC. I will never again seek a Kirkus review. I also have received emails from Scott asking if I needed help on several occasions. I occasionally follow him on Facebook and he seems to be an upstanding young man.
Same here. The first service comes free. I quickly picked up a small 140-page book hoping this would be a quick read but the book was really difficult and turned out to be biographical memoirs. But the book was interesting and it took me almost 3 weeks to complete reading it and note down points to write a review. And then another 2 weeks to write the review and submit it. Now this 5 weeks because understanding their review guidelines is a mammoth task and your eligibility and future earnings are dependent upon your score as a reviewer !! And honestly speaking, i actually spent 5 weeks full-time only on this book.
And as the author of this article rightly points out that the review team/author will have umpteen reason to keep cutting the score and to make it works it fluctuates based on your activity on the site. And this engagement her revisiГіn on site is also not easy to understand. So in a way, you may earn some peanuts if you are really active.
