[Reviews/Contest] Readers Favorite, LLC

The only part of it that is legit is that they legitimately want your money. And as contest scams go, this is one of the more expensive.

Yep, they just want your money. I know someone who prances around that they're an award winning author, but I think everyone gets the gold for the low price of $85.

Now their review seems legit. I have submitted a story to them and what I got back was a detailed synopsis of my book and the pros. Standard review.

It's a FACT. Awards grant instant credibility and influence book sellers and buyers alike!
http://readersfavorite.com/annual-book-award-contest.htm

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Well, it depends on the award, doesn't it? "Readers Favorite" doesn't quite have the same cachet as the Man Booker Prize.

Last year's Gold Award winner in the Fiction-Action category, Lebensborn by Jo Ann Bender (Eloquent Books), currently has an Amazon ranking of 1,168,823. Evidently not even a Readers Favorite Gold Award can do much for a vanity-published book priced at $16.95!

The author of the 2011 Gold winner in the Fiction-Adventure class was Rick Anthony, author of Red Smoke Rising (Basket Case Publishing):

Rick Anthony will accept the Gold Award for best Fiction - Adventure novel at the Readers Favourite Awards banquet at the Las Vegas International Book Fair.
http://www.basketcasepublishing.com/submissions.html

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I couldn't find any information about the Las Vegas International Book Fair - do they mean the Las Vegas Valley Book Festival? - and the mention of a banquet immediately called to mind the old poetry.com scam in which the 'winners' paid to attend an award ceremony.

I just got a review pitch from an author boasting of receiving a five-star review on this site. The review was not well written, but sounded like it might be sincere.

I dug a little deeper ... reviews are free, and only four- and five-star reviews are posted. Other authors receive a critique. If you want your book turned around speedily, however, they are happy to take your money for an expedited review or reviews.

Now what I'm wondering is, if you don't pay, do you ever actually get reviewed? In any case, there's no way of knowing who did pay and who didn't. And a site with no negative reviews isn't credible to me.

On Oct 20th last year I sent them a review copy of Shardfall, for a free review. This should take 2 months, if there were any takers who wanted to review it.

Just now I received an email that alas nobody had picked the book up yet; no slight to me.

Because I had had to wait so long, they offered me a 20% reduction on a paid express review ($59 - 20%).
They made it very clear this was completely optional and only because I'd had to wait.
If I don't take it, they will keep my book in their system and available for reviewers.

I'll pass on their offer and wait what happens.

Fuchsia Groan said:

I just got a review pitch from an author boasting of receiving a five-star review on this site. The review was not well written, but sounded like it might be sincere.

I dug a little deeper ... reviews are free, and only four- and five-star reviews are posted. Other authors receive a critique. If you want your book turned around speedily, however, they are happy to take your money for an expedited review or reviews.

Now what I'm wondering is, if you don't pay, do you ever actually get reviewed? In any case, there's no way of knowing who did pay and who didn't. And a site with no negative reviews isn't credible to me.

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I can, finally, answer the question: yes, you get reviewed

In my previous post I said they'd contacted me to apologize for the long wait. Today I got my very own, free of charge, 5 star review. It was a perfectly good, well written, serious review, too. They posted it on B&N, their Google+ page, Facebook. Not Amazon, that doesn't accept commercial reviews, but I could add it there as an Editorial review. So all in all it took three months, but the result was a review.

To my mind they seem serious, working to build something that could be of real value. Now I'm curious if more people have something to add.

Graylorne said:

I can, finally, answer the question: yes, you get reviewed

In my previous post I said they'd contacted me to apologize for the long wait. Today I got my very own, free of charge, 5 star review. It was a perfectly good, well written, serious review, too. They posted it on B&N, their Google+ page, Facebook. Not Amazon, that doesn't accept commercial reviews, but I could add it there as an Editorial review. So all in all it took three months, but the result was a review.

To my mind they seem serious, working to build something that could be of real value. Now I'm curious if more people have something to add.

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My suspicion would be that there's a paired scam that exploits would-be editors or reviewers, or that promises free books to reliable reviewers, but doesn't give a fair cut (or any cut) of the proceeds to the people who read the books and write the reviews.

Some writing scams -- display sites, for example -- get spontaneously reinvented by naive entrepreneurs who have good intentions. That isn't the case with award scams. People who run them generally know they're a scam. Self-aware scammers don't engage in good works for free.

I'm not saying it would be impossible to have a wholly legitimate review operation yoked in tandem with an awards scam, but it would be a very odd thing.

That said, if it's a sincere review from a real person who's obviously read and enjoyed the book, it's legitimate in its own right, and can be used for promotion.

readers favorite: Is it worth it?

Got a five-star review for Fragment, but also for Mind Control (which I don't remember submitting. Probably months later).
Didn't pay a thing.
Shooooot, you can't get a dime out of me XD

Be warned: I haven't tried it but it's a pretty obvious scam when it comes to paying for an award. Like wtf? It makes no sense. I'm afraid to know how many authors bought into it....