Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

Hi,

Can I ask, has anyone had a similar experience to that below?

I have just published a novel and obviously I am trying to obtain reviews (without too much success I might add).
I have recently been inundated (well, I have received around three to four per day so slight exaggeration) with a succession of e-mails offering to very kindly write a review if I send them a free file.
Now originally I was very pleased and my finger was poised on the send button, but then I started examining the content of the offer.

Every e-mail address without exception was for gmail.com. The sender had a name and then a three-digit number.
The language was slightly off. Where we would place an 'a' or a 'the' it was missing.

Something just wasn't right.
I have replied to several asking where the review would be posted and not one of the supposed senders has answered.

I believe this is a scam and I have not sent a file but wondered if I am alone and do not know how they obtained my HOME e-mail address?

Be careful out there.

Martin
Author of The Jake West Trilogy and A Child of Szabo
mjwebbbooks.com

I, too, have received several emails offering to review my book. I've not responded to any of them. They've all been very bland, plain-vanilla, many stating they're college students. There's been no way to identify that the sender is who they say they are. I have no mechanism by which I can really track them down. As I see it, if they are who they say they are, and their intention is legit, the email is still very poorly written. I was unconvinced by the sender; so my decision has been to avoid them.

Colleen wrote: "I, too, have received several emails offering to review my book. I've not responded to any of them. They've all been very bland, plain-vanilla, many stating they're college students. There's been n..."

Excellent. My thoughts entirely. They sound like the same people. I'm thinking it is not safe to send to any who do not post a website you can check out. Thanks.

Each time I publish or edit a book on Amazon I get dozens of these emails and dozens more wanting payment for reviews.
DON'T REPLY - they are all scams.
They want free copies of your book, possibly to distribute outside of the U.S.
I can only guess Amazon makes this information available somehow.

Ed wrote: "Each time I publish or edit a book on Amazon I get dozens of these emails and dozens more wanting payment for reviews.
DON'T REPLY - they are all scams.
They want free copies of your book, possibly..."

Thanks Ed. That makes sense as I can not remember giving my e-mail address to anyone. I fell foul of that last time and electronic copies of my fantasy trilogy appeared undermining my sales etc.

Do you think doing a giveaway with Librarything would yield the same results? It's impossible to stop people sharing electronic files I guess?

Update

Here is a copy of a typical e-mail;

'Hello,

I am a professional reviewer reading and reviewing books from all genres. If you want a fresh, honest and high quality book review from someone who has done Masters in Literature then please connect with me. I am also a beta reader and editor.'

Mary Jane

I replied to this e-mail and eventually received a response. It turns out she has a site called iloveuniquebooks I believe and she is offering PAID reviews.
These paid reviews are not allowed by Amazon or Goodreads.

Ed was correct - they are all scams.

M.J. wrote: "Hi,

Can I ask, has anyone had a similar experience to that below?

I have just published a novel and obviously I am trying to obtain reviews (without too much success I might add).
I have re..."

Hello MJ. I've been sent numerous emails like the ones you've described even before I published my debut novel last November. One general rule of thumb I follow when it comes to emails like this goes as such: Did I contact this person about reviewing? Is the person responding to a post I made on Goodreads requesting reviews? If the answer is "No" to any of these questions, then it's a scam.

Also, from my experience reaching out to book reviewers and research that I've done on the matter, legitimate book reviewers get inundated with so many review requests, that they typically don't have time to reach out to authors unprompted.

Hope this helps.

Hailey wrote: "M.J. wrote: "Hi,

Can I ask, has anyone had a similar experience to that below?

I have just published a novel and obviously I am trying to obtain reviews (without too much success I might add)..."

Yes, thank you. Hard to believe I could be so naïve at my tender age (not) but I suppose we all know what we want to hear and sometimes what we don't?

Thanks for sharing.

Hey MJ,
I would venture a guess that half the reviews on Goodreads and Amazon are paid. Goodreads doesn't police this at all and Amazon barely.

If someone buys a book (or uses Unlimited) on Amazon it's extremely difficult for them to detect if it is a paid review.

I've been approached by reviewers who state that part of the fee goes to purchasing the book so they look legit.

Then there are the books that suddenly appear on the first days with hundreds of reviews - don't tell me that none of those are paid. Wink, wink.

And as far as how thy get your email - I can only assume your data is being sold.

Yep

I'm getting them as well. I think mine was through Facebook, but I think when they couldn't get my email address from here, they went scouting.

I simply just move the emails to trash. I have a means of getting unbiased reviews.

Thanks both. Yeah, the e-mails will be filed in trash but the whole episode has opened my eyes a little. The world sure has changed since I last published.

Yeah, there must be some kind of list. I'm on it too.

Tony wrote: "Yeah, there must be some kind of list. I'm on it too."

Thanks Tony. We are finding it's a popular tactic. I've tested the ones I have been sent and so far, they either refuse to answer or they are paid schemes (Scams).

Hey MJ, I've had the same experience. Along the same lines I initiated a giveaway for my book through goodreads hoping to get some reviews and several of the winners have blocked content on their goodreads profile with 0 ratings and 0 reviews attributed to them. These must be bots intending to download my ebook and sell it elsewhere. I am beginning to think that with all these scams out there, goodreads, though perhaps at one time a worthy idea, is under-resourced for handling the online evils. I am thinking of giving up on goodreads and deleting my profile because it is not helping with my book's promotion as I had hoped.

Joe wrote: "Hey MJ, I've had the same experience. Along the same lines I initiated a giveaway for my book through goodreads hoping to get some reviews and several of the winners have blocked content on their g..."

Thanks Joe - this scares me a little as I have a Free Giveaway due to go live on Librarything and I'm concerned my book will then be electronically in the public domain. Should I pull out do you think ?

I also can't believe Goodreads charge for giveaways, especially if it turns out to be such an enormous risk?

I've been a member for years but the site is noticeably quieter and scamming appears rife generally in this electronic world?

My standard response to e-mails offering reviews is an offer to join my ARC team. I use a pretty standard format when I answer:
Thank you for your interest in reviewing my books. Upfront FYI; I don't pay for reviews. That being said, I do have several books I would like to get reviewed.
My usual procedure is to send you a download link for a book from BookFunnel.com. I do ask that you notify me when complete a review and send me a link to it.
If you are interested in joining my ARC team, please let me know and I will add your e-mail to the ARC list and send you a link for my latest book.
Thank you
Gail Daley
www.gaildaley.com

Gail wrote: "My standard response to e-mails offering reviews is an offer to join my ARC team. I use a pretty standard format when I answer:
Thank you for your interest in reviewing my books. Upfront FYI; I don..."

Excellent. Thank you. Great way of working.

Best

It saddened me when the reviewers asked me to pay them to read my book. It wasn't that I was a cheap person, but it hurt my feelings when they shamelessly asked me to pay for reviews for something I had worked on for almost six years.
At that moment, I felt I would rather see my work in a dumpster fire than give anyone a penny just to read my book.
Even though, later on, I found that most of them were scams, including the publisher's calls, I still have that terrible taste in my mouth.

Farshad wrote: "It saddened me when the reviewers asked me to pay them to read my book. It wasn't that I was a cheap person, but it hurt my feelings when they shamelessly asked me to pay for reviews for something ..."

Yep, I agree mate. Something not right about having to pay. And how can any paid reviewer be impartial? If they leave a bad review you are unlikely to pay for any more.

And it's definitely NOT because we are cheap. lol

M.J. wrote: "Joe wrote: "Hey MJ, I've had the same experience. Along the same lines I initiated a giveaway for my book through goodreads hoping to get some reviews and several of the winners have blocked conten..."

Hi MJ, I guess the jury is still out on the giveaway for me. I went through the profiles of all of the winners on my giveaway and there were some that appeared legitimate. My giveaway ended 10 days ago and I have received no ratings or reviews yet and it is a very quick read (178 pages). I should give it more time but I am not very hopeful that I will get anything from it. Goodreads doesn't demand a review from winners they can only suggest it. If you wanted to delay your giveaway by two weeks or so I would be able to share more information with you about what has transpired since. You would think that this would be a very easy thing for goodreads to tabulate for us newbies: conversion rate of ratings/reviews from giveaways. Then we would be in a better position to act. Or maybe they already know that information and don't want to share it because it is uninspiring.

Joe wrote: "M.J. wrote: "Joe wrote: "Hey MJ, I've had the same experience. Along the same lines I initiated a giveaway for my book through goodreads hoping to get some reviews and several of the winners have b..."

Hopefully you will begin receiving reviews soon. Some readers will have books they have to finish first/will not jump straight into it?

It's a little soul destroying to think you ae being treated with so little respect but we all know it happens. I have two weeks to send off the files so I will wait and maybe vet the e-mail addresses/check the persons reviews if possible, though I'm unsure as to what information the site provides.

I am in two minds as to whether to cancel as my Kindle free days (ends today) has so far netted around fifty downloads so hopefully some good feedback there.

Thanks for sharing mate.

P.S. Just had a look at your book and that looks inspirational. Good luck with it.

M.J. wrote: "Joe wrote: "M.J. wrote: "Joe wrote: "Hey MJ, I've had the same experience. Along the same lines I initiated a giveaway for my book through goodreads hoping to get some reviews and several of the wi..."

Hi M.J., Thanks for taking a peek at my book. I checked out yours, too. Sounds like a page-turner. Good luck with it!

M.J. wrote: "Hi,

Can I ask, has anyone had a similar experience to that below?

I have just published a novel and obviously I am trying to obtain reviews (without too much success I might add).
I have re..."

Hi, M.J. and everyone! I've had this issue with unsolicited review requests for my books and I started a thread on here last year on how to detect scammers. Here's the link --

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I've been plagued with these scammers 3 times now and had to call the FBI twice. It's really annoying! Good luck!

M.J. wrote: "Hi,

Can I ask, has anyone had a similar experience to that below?

I have just published a novel and obviously I am trying to obtain reviews (without too much success I might add).
I have re..."

You are right. It's a scam. Send a file? Yeah, right... Reviewers, even free ones will be someplace real where they can get your book (or eBook) their reviews will live somewhere. Files shouldn't get sent to anyone! Not ever.

I think you just saved yourself A LOT of trouble.

-Michael

I too have received a plethora of emails like those mentioned above. I wondered if they were scams. Thanks to all of you at Goodreads I didn’t get scammed.

I got one, a post on Facebook offering to make a "video" of the book (like an audiobook) for free if I'd send an electronic file. I didn't answer. Anyone who wants your file is a thief - flat out.

I would suggest every one of us make our feeling known about this to he CEO of Goodreads. This site has become a cesspool of scam artists.

Libby Roin

lroin@goodreads.com

Ed wrote: "I would suggest every one of us make our feeling known about this to he CEO of Goodreads. This site has become a cesspool of scam artists.

Libby Roin

lroin@goodreads.com"

Thank you, Ed, I will definitely be writing her!

Hi all,

Update - I received my list through for my free giveaway on Librarything. Single figures due to readers requesting several books and only being allowed one. High number of books.

ALL of the requests were from members with a gmail.com e-mail address. Two I looked at had no review history to speak of. A third seemed to be genuine.

I have declined to send any at present, replied quoting this post and the facts, and asked Librarything to investigate.

I do NOT want to knock this site or any other which strives to help authors but I think this scamming of honest writers and reviewers needs highlighting.

I would be checking the review history of anyone you are sending a file, just to be on the safe side?

Thanks