Found out my book club's favorite author paid for fake reviews on 30 of their novels

I was just digging around on some reader site yesterday and stumbled on a whole archive of someone tracking review patterns. Turns out this author we've been reading for 3 years had over 200 five-star reviews posted from accounts that only reviewed their books. Crazy part is nobody in my club wants to talk about it now. What would you do if you found out your club's go-to writer was gaming the system?

2 comments

2 Comments

linda30529d ago

Honestly I read something similar about this one thriller author who had like a hundred reviews that were basically copy-pasted. People dug into Goodreads and found the same accounts rating ten of their books in one day. Ngl it makes you wonder how much of the "buzz" around certain writers is just manufactured hype. Your club probably doesn't wanna talk about it cause nobody likes admitting they got fooled for three years.

perry.jessica29d ago

@linda305 Sure, but a hundred copy-pasted reviews out of thousands isn't that much, and people love to dig for drama when a book gets popular. Pretty easy to fake buzz, but it's just as easy to call it fake when you don't like a writer's success.