This is a bizarre one. One of my colleagues happened across this website, which as you can see from the picture, is brightly emblazoned as selling reviews to authors, starting at $29 each.
Here’s how it supposedly works: You send them a PDF or Word copy of your book, and they’ll read and review it, giving you a 200-500 word review. If your book happens to be on Amazon for $2.99 or less, they’ll buy a copy so you get that “Amazon Verified Purchase” label, “which carries more weight than non-verified reviews.” Continue reading
I thought it was a simple question, just like my answer. Kat Brooks mentioned that while sampling books using the “look inside” feature at Amazon she’d been seeing a lot of books front loaded with reviewer quotes among the front matter before the start of the actual book. Her question was whether the reviewer quotes were going to influence our buying decisions.
Sometimes I feel like my posts at Indies Unlimited help too little, or maybe that should be they help, but complain too much. Largely, I see that as a difference between my logical role as a contributor here, and the majority of IU’s other contributors. While most of IU’s posts are written by authors, Cathy Speight and I are exceptions. We’re book reviewers. Other contributors can talk about how to craft proper dialogue, their experiences with KDP Select, and various marketing techniques, and all of us can pass on our experiences with social media or (in Cathy’s case), help with punctuation usage, but there are areas Cathy and I can talk about that the other minions can’t. We see the best indie books out there (largely written by IU readers) and the worst (the authors who I’m guessing frequent those other sites instead). When we see trends in those “worst books,” we can point them out. These can be reminders or cautionary tales for those faithful IU readers and, for those other people who stumble in from elsewhere, possibly help them see the error of their ways. They’ll not only become better at their job as an author, but may eventually rise to the level of the faithful IU reader. Raising everyone’s game, helps us all. Which leads to my current criticism. 
Congratulations to author Steven M. Moore on a great review of his science fiction book, Survivors of the Chaos.
