The Best Book Reviews Money Can Buy

By DAVID STREITFELD - Published: August 25, 2012  - The New York Times

Photo above - Nick Oxford for The New York Times - Todd Jason Rutherford inside his home in Bixby, Okla. He says that he is now suspicious of all online reviews — whether of books or of anything else.

Ashly Lorenzana paid Mr. Rutherford to review her self-published book, “Sex, Drugs & Being an Escort.” She would later write a negative posting about his review service on several consumer Web sites.

TODD RUTHERFORD was 7 years old when he first understood the nature of supply and demand. He was with a bunch of other boys, one of whom showed off a copy of Playboy to giggles and intense interest.

Photo - Leah Nash for The New York Times

Todd bought the magazine for $5, tore out the racy pictures and resold them to his chums for a buck apiece. He made $20 before his father shut him down a few hours later.

A few years ago, Mr. Rutherford, then in his mid-30s, had another flash of illumination about how scarcity opens the door to opportunity.

He was part of the marketing department of a company that provided services to self-published writers — services that included persuading traditional media and blogs to review the books. It was uphill work. He could churn out press releases all day long, trying to be noticed, but there is only so much space for the umpteenth vampire novel or yet another self-improvement manifesto or one more homespun recollection of times gone by. There were not enough reviewers to go around.

Suddenly it hit him. Instead of trying to cajole others to review a client’s work, why not cut out the middleman and write the review himself? Then it would say exactly what the client wanted — that it was a terrific book. A shattering novel. A classic memoir. Will change your life. Lyrical and gripping, Stunning and compelling. Or words to that effect.

In the fall of 2010, Mr. Rutherford started a Web site, GettingBookReviews.com. At first, he advertised that he would review a book for $99. But some clients wanted a chorus proclaiming their excellence. So, for $499, Mr. Rutherford would do 20 online reviews. A few people needed a whole orchestra. For $999, he would do 50.

There were immediate complaints in online forums that the service was violating the sacred arm’s-length relationship between reviewer and author. But there were also orders, a lot of them. Before he knew it, he was taking in $28,000 a month.

A polite fellow with a rakish goatee and an entrepreneurial bent, Mr. Rutherford has been on the edges of publishing for most of his career. Before working for the self-publishing house, he owned a distributor of inspirational books. Before that, he was sales manager for a religious publishing house. Nothing ever quite worked out as well as he hoped. With the reviews business, though, “it was like I hit the mother lode.”

Reviews by ordinary people have become an essential mechanism for selling almost anything online; they are used for resorts, dermatologists, neighborhood restaurants, high-fashion boutiques, churches, parks, astrologers and healers — not to mention products like garbage pails, tweezers, spa slippers and cases for tablet computers. In many situations, these reviews are supplanting the marketing department, the press agent, advertisements, word of mouth and the professional critique.

But not just any kind of review will do. They have to be somewhere between enthusiastic and ecstatic. 

Full story at The New York Times

And from Galley Cat:
Major Bestsellers with More Than 150 One-Star Reviews

By Jason Boog on August 27, 2012

How do you know if a book review is real or fake on Amazon? The New York Times explored the world of paid book reviews in a long article this weekend, showing how hard it can be to spot a paid review.
Check it out: “[Researcher Bing Liu] estimates that about one-third of all consumer reviews on the Internet are fake. Yet it is all but impossible to tell when reviews were written by the marketers or retailers (or by the authors themselves under pseudonyms), by customers (who might get a deal from a merchant for giving a good score) or by a hired third-party service.”
While paying for book reviews creates the illusion of a perfect book, true bestsellers will generate a wide range responses from readers. To prove this point, we collected ten bestselling books with 150 on
e-star reviews on Amazon. Follow the links below to read one-star reviews of some beloved books…


One-Star Reviews for Bestselling Books
1. Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James (3,665 one-star reviews)
2. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (717 one-star reviews)
3. A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin (456 one-star reviews)
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (432 one-star reviews)
5. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (248 one-star reviews)
6. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (262 one-star reviews)
7. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (194 one-star reviews)
8. The Help by Kathryn Stockett (183 one-star reviews)
9. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (174 one-star reviews)
10. The Confession by John Grisham(166 one-star-review)