Red Headed Book Lover Blog, Your Blank Pages Have Been Revealed

Wow, it’s been a while since we’ve had to write anything up on BPR, but here we go again!

In the book world, it appears there is a “blogger/reviewer” who thinks it’s okay to charge authors to review their books. She likes to tell them it’s a great way to increase their sales because her reviews create “discoverability” of their work. Not only does she charge for these reviews but she solicits them from those who aren’t even authors! Seriously! This is going to be quick and easy. 

Here’s how this goes down. “Aimee Ann”, the administrator of Red Headed Book Lover Blog (which, by the way, isn’t even written properly, but we’ll get to that later), sends an email telling the “author” she would love to review their work. Upon going to her site, we see she will ONLY review the book on HER site and any other site which will allow paid reviews. Now, how this increases sales and discoverability, no one really knows. Think about it. If someone is going to purchase a book on Amazon, they’re going to look at Amazon reviews, not go searching all over the web for a review on some site that they’ve never heard of before.

And she calls her work “ethical” because she is so transparent about it. Those in the book world know reviews are NOT paid for! Do you pay someone to facilitate a review tour? Sure! But to pay a single person for a review? You are throwing money out the window. And the reason she doesn’t post her reviews on Amazon? You guessed it! She would have her account wiped in an instant!

So this is how the initial correspondence begins. “Aimee Ann” sends an email just gushing over the book she supposedly stumbled across. She fills it with all sorts of flowery language to stroke their ego and draw them in.

What she DOESN’T do is tell the author that she charges when she contacts them. Instead, she waits for their reply. 

Notice how this person asks some hot-button questions? You see, this person isn’t even an author, so it was quite suspicious when “Aimee Ann” contacted her in the first place. Then, “Aimee Ann” hits her with the fees.

She’s not a business but she charges for her “services”? Sounds like a business to us!

She’s even going to let you simply SEND her the money! Well, she’ll go on to tell you she will also invoice you, but we think that you can see where this is going. NEVER just send someone money unless you KNOW them! But wait! If you don’t want to send her a copy of your book, you can certainly send her the money for her to BUY your book! Huh?

Now, riddle us this: How can she respect this person as an author if this person isn’t, in fact, an author?! Wow … just … wow. Next, this “author” replies and asks “Aimee Ann” which book she would like to review. Wait for it …

This is … interesting.

So let us get this straight. This “author” says, “Yo, tell me which book you would like to review and I will send it right over,” and “Aimee Ann” replies with, “Pick one!” Listen folks, we’re going to go out on a limb here and say that this is a lesson for How to Spot a Scammer 101. This person has no clue what they are even talking about! 

Remember when we said we would get back to the spelling of her blog name? Here you go! Redheaded is ONE word, not two.

We bring this up is because “Aimee Ann” says she’s also offering book editing services. Authors beware, the grammar on her site is atrocious! Even her paragraph about the editing service is rife with mistakes! Here, see for yourselves.

There you have it, folks. What do you think? Would you pay this person $75.00 to review a book she can’t even spout off a title for? Think long and hard before you start throwing your money at people. 

Red Headed Book Lover Blog, your blank pages have been revealed and the book is closed.