Somebody’s Paying for Customer Reviews!

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books spotted a shocking freelance job offer: Apparently there’s an unnamed publisher out there who’s openly willing to pay $5 or $10 for a good online bookstore review of their product. They don’t even bother hiding what they’re after, either:

“We ask that you write a 1-3 Paragraph review with a 5 star rating (5 being best) of each of the 3 books. We will then ask that you forward the reviews over to us so that we can look over them before you post them…”

And, believe me, this company is quite deliberate in its effort to game the system: “Unfortunately, Amazon has recently instituted a new procedure whereby you can only review books if you have an account that you have used to purchase books/products from them before,” they caution. “You must have an account with Amazon that you have used to purchased books with them from before.” (The reviews are also intended to appear on the Barnes & Noble and lulu.com websites.) So: Anybody have any idea who the “kenwelsh” fellow offering this plum assignment (FIVE dollars!) is, what company he works for, or what these fine, fine books might be? Tell us!

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