TopTenReviews.com Hardly Impartial When It Comes To Reviews
Periodically I search for the term BookLocker to see what’s being said about us on line. I recently ran across this “review” of our services:
I remember giving this interview, but I can’t believe what this guy wrote. In particular, this:
“But, the downfall of Booklocker.com is its complete lack of additional publishing and marketing services and the fact that we could never talk to a live person. Not once. All communication had to be made through email. It was hard enough to get the information we needed for this review, we can’t imagine what it would be like to try and publish a book with these people.”
What a load of bull. I keep all emails I send just for cases like this.
On 11/10/2005 I received this email from their reviewer (I’ve blotted out his contact info for privacy):
FROM: *****@toptenreviews.com
TO: help-request@booklocker.com
SUBJECT: HELP REQUEST - none
11/10/05 5:56:27
I am a reviewer for TopTenREVIEWS and am creating a review site on Online Book Publishing services.
Booklocker is a site we’d like to include in our review and I’d like to speak with someone in your company to receive further information and make sure I have all of the right information, so that I might present the most accurate picture of your business.
Will you please contact me either by phone directly or send a telephone number which I can use to contact you?
Unfortunately, I will not be available on Friday, Nov. 11th.
Thanks so much,
B**** C********
(***) ***-**** (I work from home)
*****@toptenreviews.com
TopTenReviews.com
————–
I, as always, promptly replied to him. I told him I can’t do a phone call, but if he emailed me the questions, I’d turn them around in a day. I did.
Three days later he writes me back and says the following:
From: “B**** C********” <*****@toptenreviews.com>
To: “‘richard at booklocker’”
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 09:45:17 -0700
Richard,
Thanks for your prompt response on this.
B****
Notice what it says there - “Thanks for your prompt response”.
It is true that we don’t take phone calls. But we do answer our email promptly. We don’t leave anyone hanging.
So TopTenReviews.com lied in our review. And for what end, I don’t know.
I do know that on 11-30-2005 at 2:00 PM Eastern Time, I received another email from TopTenReviews.com - this time from a VP:
DATE: 2005-11-30 14:00:46
FROM: ****@toptenreviews.com
TO: help-request@booklocker.com
SUBJECT: HELP REQUEST -
Hello,
Does Booklocker offer an affiliate program? We are interested in promoting and selling your products from our review site. Can the appropriate person please contact me directly.
Thanks,
M*** E*******
Vice President
www.toptenreviews.com
****@toptenreviews.com
1-801-***-**** (Direct Office)
1-801-***-**** (Cell)
The guy wanted us to pay a referral fee for people he sent to us. As a policy we don’t pay out referral fees, or accept referral fees for anything we recommend. We want all our business practices to be transparent to our customers.
I can’t help but wonder if we got a bad review because we wouldn’t pay.
If you want an honest assessment of POD companies, I’d suggest getting Mark Levine’s book, “The Fine Print“.
Disclaimer: We sell the ebook version of it for him on our WritersWeekly.com site, but Mark placed it with us after he wrote the book and ranked our service. And he gets no special deals or consideration.
We are sorry this review slipped through the cracks, our review policy does not allow this kind of language in reviews. Our current review team is well educated on what should and should not be included in a review and how to not use offending language. We have looked over your review and have taken out the mentioned text. We also bumped up your customer service score a bit, usually prompt email response is sufficient for most services. We also added a bit more information on the services Booklocker offers. The entire site will likely be updated soon, so there could be more changes.
Here is your new text, to be online soon:
Booklocker offer Print-on-Demand (POD) services as well as ebook and wholesale services. Booklocker takes all of the fulfillment, customer service and sales stress off of the writer at a reasonable price, less than $400. From start to finish, Booklocker has a quick print time of four to six weeks and offers decent royalty rates at 35 percent of the cover price on books sold through its online bookstore (even more for ebooks) and 15 percent of the cover price on books sold through a third-party retailer.
To help sell your book they have affiliations with Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Borders.com, booksamillion.com, chapters.ca and more. Of course, your book will also be distributed through Ingram.
Although they do not offer as many services as some of the higher ranked products they do provide file hosting, ebook conversions, POD setup, cover design services and Ingram Catalog listing. Booklocker can print in both paperback and hardcover with color covers and black and white inside pages. They offer support by email and always answer their emails promptly.
-TopTenREVIEWS
Comment by TopTenREVIEWS — May 10, 2007 @ 5:26 pm
Hey Richard,
What a shame that this happened, especially since it gives peoiple such a FALSE impression of how responsive and easy to reach you guys are. Even when you’re on vacation.
I’ve never, ever had a problem with this, and I hope you take the “review” for what it is. Shame they haven’t gotten around to posting the corrected text…
Take care,
Sue
Comment by Susan Morgan — September 12, 2007 @ 4:21 pm
It’s normal…topTenReviews earn their money from affiliate revenues, every of their ‘buy now’ link is an affiliate link.
I also saw the “learn German reviews” when I was learning German and I was terrified to see that Tell me More German was first when it was such of c***. And nowhere Michel Thomas was mentioned!!!!!!!
Comment by Darren — August 20, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
What did you expect? Like Darren said, toptenreviews make money from affiliate marketing. They usually rank the products by how much the companies are willing to pay to be in first place or how much those companies are paying out through their affiliate programs. The only time they won’t rank a company/product #1 is when the product/service is a glaringly and notoriously bad.
Money motivates everything. I feel bad that so many people regard toptenreviews.com as an actual legitimate source of “objective” information. BULLOCKS! They’re just screwing everyone over to increase their bottom line. And yeah, don’t ever expect to have that poor review changed unless you and many other people raise a ruckus.
Comment by Sal — September 5, 2008 @ 11:36 am