A British blogger has outed Harriet Klausner for selling review copies of books she gets for free from publishers. Which I guess I should have realized she was doing, given the number of reviews she posts. But she posts 30 reviews per day, on average: she's certainly not actually reading them, and she's making money on the whole thing.
Whether it's illegal is another question, I guess.
Are you not supposed to sell those? I think the place I sell books explicitly says they do buy advance proofs and etc.
The non-disclosure is another story.
Are you not supposed to sell those?
No, you're not. You can give them away, but you can't sell them. Borders used to give away Advanced Readers to employees.
Huh! I've only ever gotten them second-hand, myself. (From friends in publishing, etc.)
Yeah, what's apparently illegal is the failure to disclose. Although I think the publishers should know that her reviews are bullshit, in that she can't possibly be actually reading them all, and in some instances appears to be merely rewriting the jacket copy.
That's a plus to the publisher, no?
As far as I know, no publisher out there takes her seriously anyway.
Are you not supposed to sell those? I think the place I sell books explicitly says they do buy advance proofs and etc.
Huh, Jesse, I would be surprised at that. I know a few bookstores that buy/sell advance copies, but none that advertise doing so, since it's generally prohibited, if not outright illegal.
I will look again! Maybe it says they don't.
I have to say--I love online detective work, when it's used to ferret out frauds and not creepy stalkering stuff.