INTERACTION

This is very good money. The most I saw on Craigs List for reviews were $200 or less, I think. Other online venues like Helium offered $60 to $80 with experience and credentials a must (published clips). Or the usual Writer's Market fodder for 75 or less.

Right now I proofread paperwork/essays/assignments from other countries in English and do resumes as they come in a $100 a pop with future revisions included. I get a lot of unknowledgeable kids out of college, who are unsure if they're going to find a job in this climate or who don't even know what to put down as their objective. Many are scared they'll be underqualified or overqualified.

But $400 to $500 for a review --- hey, that's worth looking into.

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HOMEPAGE: www.lawrencedagstine.com

FRESH BLOOD (print): http://www.genremall.com/anthologiesr.htm#freshblood

FRESH BLOOD (pdf): http://www.wargamevault.com/product_inf ... s_id=78120

It may be worth it for the person charging the money.
But it is not worth it for the pro or semi-pro author. Paying someone to review your book?

If the reviewer is being paid, how unbiased can they be? If they give a bad review, the author may not return the business. So the incentive for the reviewer is to give a good review to encourage business.

The reviewer should be paid by a respectable employer. Young authors want reviews from other established authors or from respectable review sources, like Locus, Interzone, etc.


As an Editor at a professional small press I wouldn't pay for a review of our titles. I don't know any Editor worth their salt who would.

Unfortunantly, some young authors may be tempted to follow this path.
Just my 2 cents.

Rafala
www.immersionpress.com

Only a fool would trust what was said in a review that was paid for by the reviewee, and only a bigger fool would pay for them.

I can't see that it's all that much different to those fraudsters who allegedly post glowing but pseudonymous reviews of their own work on amazon, goodreads etc. Just less cost effective.

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http://trumpetville.wordpress.com
http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/casenotesblog/

Exactly, Pete.

And as far as posting a review under a pseudonym, it is usually painfully obvious that it is a fake review.

Can I point out to anyone who is tempted to follow this course of action that vanity reviewing is ethically no different from vanity publishing. Any slight financial gain from fleecing the gullible and desperate will have to be balanced against never being taken seriously as a reviewer or critic for the remainder of your life. No self-respecting publication would risk their reputation by accepting work from someone who has been involved with this form of deceit.

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http://jimsteel.wordpress.com/

On Kindle, fake reviews are totally pointless, since you can read a preview and see for yourself before putting down any money.

With a bit of luck that'll put a stake in the heart of this kind of stuff.

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Theaker's Quarterly Fiction

Last night I was reading Neil Gaiman's introduction to The Machineries of Joy, by Ray Bradbury (PS Publishing), and he confesses to the kind of inadvertent plagiarism I was worrying about above:



He challenges readers to identify the two stories...

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Theaker's Quarterly Fiction

I think such accidental plagiarism is pretty much how the human mind works, dependant on education, by the time you're an adult. After all, teachers etc try to get us to research, process the information and then relay it in our own terms to show that we understand it. I guess sometimes other people's ideas or phrasings stick with us and go through the processing without us realising.

I get amused by people putting a pseudonym on a classic and sending it through the slush pile just to see if editors have any taste. They often forget a few things like changes in acceptable writing styles and it being possible to be widely read without knowing about particular authors.

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Jo Thomas
http://www.journeymouse.net/

Watching The First Men in the Moon recently I was really surprised to find out how much I'd nicked of it for my first novel...

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Theaker's Quarterly Fiction

It's not exactly the same thing, but this involves copyright, and has cropped up today, causing quite a stir. Rightly so, I think.

http://illadore.livejournal.com/30674.html

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Blogarific!

Twitterific!

Just been taking a gander at what is going down on Cooks Source facebook page - talk about a train wreck.

Neil Gaiman and Warren Ellis have apparently tweeted about it. Brilliant!

The Boyer thing is mild in comparison. I guess the moral is genre people are easygoing compared to the cookery crowd.

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http://trumpetville.wordpress.com
http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/casenotesblog/

Matthew, Pete - that is just incredible! I had a look at the Facebook page but after scrolling down for ages realised that Ihad only got as far as posts that were 28 minutes old.

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http://jimsteel.wordpress.com/

Wow.

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Theaker's Quarterly Fiction

It's worse now, with new posts appearing on facebook as fast or faster than you can read them.

The magazine's website has disappeared.

I suspect it was the 'you should be grateful' slant that got up everyone's nose.

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http://trumpetville.wordpress.com
http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/casenotesblog/

If I were her I'd claim it wasn't me but someone hacked the website and posted that answer.