Pay-per-Review

The Christian Science Monitor rounds up some industry reactions to Kirkus Reviews’ decision to allow authors to pay $350 to have their books reviewed by the up-til-now fiercely independent service. Here’s one representative sample.

Teresa Weaver, the book editor at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, is the kind of person Kirkus claims will be interested in its new products, but she has strong reservations. “Charging publishers for reviews seems to cross a really important, indelible line. Will reviewers truly have the freedom to pan a book by a publisher who has paid $350? Or even $95? Money taints the process, no matter how sincere the motivation behind the plan.”

The article doesn’t, however, quote any self-published authors, for whom this new pay service is at least partially intended.