Using Pubby, Not a Puppy.
For Book Reviews: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
I finally have a handle on Pubby and feel qualified enough to write a post about them. I originally heard about this company when I researched and wrote a post about ARC readers for substack. Still, I blew Pubby off; concentrating on Book Sirens and Book Sprouts and others instead. However, I’m a big believer in second chances and I’ve come around about using Pubby.
Why did I initially dismiss Pubby? To use the service, not only do you have to pay a monthly fee, but you also have to read and review other authors' books. When doing my ARC reviews, I did not think I had the time to do this. Also, how would the person leave a review on Amazon when the book had not yet been released? I decided to give this company a try because I had some books that were over a year old that I wanted reviews on and a newer book on KU that I'd struggled to get reviews for. All my books have reviews, but to keep these books looking relevant to readers, I wanted more current ones. These books were selling, but it was like pulling teeth to get buyers to leave reviews. I went into this with some conflicting reports from authors, and some negative ones, Pubby was a scam, robots read the books, that you would get many one and two-star reviews from other mean authors that would try to sink your books and that it was illegal to use the service; read more here. Not that I don't listen to others, but I feel that you need to have your own experience, and that's what I set out to do. I've used Pubby for almost two months now and achieved what I've set out to do: had my own experience and gotten some reviews for my books, but I've also achieved more.
I first concentrated on getting reviews for my oldest book, Hitman's Honey, and I got twelve reviews. I was thrilled with that. What turned out advantageous for me is that that the most critical review on that book, Hitman's Honey and (later for the Devil I Know,) were replaced on Amazon with ones from Pubby reviewers, which helped define those books. They were also more advantageous for me, replacing more negative reviews. Amazon also picked two of the positive reviews from Pubby and featured them.
If Amazon did not like Pubby, do you really think they would support the reviews from Pubby participants? Nothing happens that Amazon doesn't know about. I also believe that Amazon realizes that many of these reviews better articulate what is happening inside the covers of our books and therefore feature them. They are written by authors, why wouldn't they? How many books are being purchased through Pubby readers that would not be if Pubby did not exist?
My book, Leather Man, a KU book reviewed by Pubby readers, did not go as smoothly as I would wish. That is not to say that the reviews were not fair or reasonable. They were fine. The average review was 4.7, but the problem is that I did not get all the reviews I paid for. I thought that since the book was on KU, I would try an unverified review, and the first one I did unverified, went well. I saw the person reading pages on KU, and they left an excellent, well-written review. I guess it was beginner's luck. From then on for any unverified review the person either did not read the book and/or their reviews never appeared on my author page. I had to contact customer service on Pubby and request my money back. I was told by customer service to pay for verification, and that was the only way to guarantee a review, which is what I did. This cost more snaps as a verified read than any of the other two books because the book retailed at $3.99. More about this later.
Lastly, The Devil You Know is the first book in my Devil Chronicles Series. This one is the second oldest book and had some current reviews on my author's website. Still, I wanted more to appear on Amazon, so I decided to have this one reviewed on Pubby as well, and I achieved my goals with no problems.
There are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to using Pubby, and I am going to try to remain as objective as possible as I discuss what they are so that you can decide for yourself if Pubby is worth your time and money, because it does require an investment of both.
How it works:
You pay a monthly fee to join Pubby, $29.00 a month or $250.00 a year. The monthly fee seems a bit high for what's provided (a platform to list your book and a library to choose books to read.) I mean, the author-readers are doing most of the work. However, Pubby offers a 7-10 day trial; be forewarned you need to cancel before this trial period ends, or you're automatically charged for the whole year. Don’t worry if you are charged the yearly charged you can go into the account and change it to monthly and get your money back. You don't have to have a book published yet to join. If this is the case, you will not be charged any monthly fee. You join for free, start reading books, and start racking up (snaps), and you can redeem them later when you do join. I highly recommend you do this. If you do, you'll amass a ton of snaps, and when it's time to launch, you'll be able to have multiple readers reading your book without any waiting.
You add your book, cover, link to Amazon, price, book description, and answer questions about your book. Please pay close attention to these questions and answer them in as much detail as possible. This guides the reader, especially the corrupt ones. Although most readers will read your book, there are some scammers who will not. These other authors are simply on Pubby to get their books reviewed and do not care about your book. They will buy it, read other reviews, and then read the answers to your questions and craft a review based on that. A sad thing, but it happens. How do I know? Because it happened to me. A copy of my book was sold before the review was due for submission, and then I saw a two-sentence review appear. It was clear that the thing was manufactured from another review and my material. Thankfully, the opposite is also true for Pubby. I was blessed with some wonderfully crafted reviews where the reader fully articulated how my book differed from others and what they got out of it. Thank you to these authors. I probably got one crappy review (I don't mean one slamming my book, I mean one where it was clear they hadn’t read it.)
In addition to your monthly fee, you pay for snaps to have your book read. You earn these snaps by reading other authors' books listed on Pubby. You are charged snaps based on the book's length and cost and whether you want a verified or unverified review. If the book is on Kindle Unlimited and the reader doesn't require you to buy it, then it's unverified. But the KU author may also ask you to purchase the book, which is a verified review.
How do I get snaps? You receive some when you join, but once you have your book reviewed once or twice, you'll need more. You earn snaps by visiting the library on Pubby and selecting a book to read. If you subscribe to KU, you can select the book, then read it and leave a review. The book, therefore will cost you nothing and you get snaps for the review. You can also download some books directly from the site and the book will cost you nothing. In other cases where authors want a verified reviews, you'll have to go to Amazon and purchase the book, read them, and leave a review. Some books are due back in four days and other books are due back faster and other books give you longer time periods.
Use verified reviews for your own books. I experienced a few problems with my one book on KU when I paid for unverified reviews. At least three times, I did not get them. When I pointed this out, they returned my snaps, and I got another review. They suggested I only do verified reviews to ensure I received a review. Even when I did verified there were times I did not see my reviews because the reviewer was in a foreign country.
Disadvantages or Things I did not like:
Book Limit. There is a limit to the number of books you can read simultaneously, and it varies on a whim. On some days, it is two; on others, it’s three. Most likely it depends on availability of readers and books up for review.
The quality of the book you read varies. I read some truly outstanding books on some days, and on others I wanted to commit hari-kari. Many books I've read on Pubby were in the four or five-star range. A couple were terrible, but I could not give them the one or two stars they deserved. I couldn't do that to another author. Typically, if I don't like a book, I don't leave a review, but on Pubby, in order to earn your snaps, you have to leave a review, both on Amazon and Pubby. Since I'd already paid for the book, part of the process is going through the review process. I gave it three stars and wrote an honest description of the problems I saw within the book. I am sure other readers will get the picture if they read the review. I know that's cowardly, but I couldn't handle the star thing, a lousy kindergarten experience, I guess. Thankfully, I got better at picking books after two bad books. Most likely you won’t have the same problem.
The quality of reviews you receive also varies. As I said, you can't control who reads your books.
The turnaround time needs to be longer for reading lengthier books. Four days is plenty of time to read a 40 or 50-K book and write an adequate book review, but some books are 180,000 words or longer on the platform. I've stayed clear because I have other things to do, but try to read a novel that long in a short amount of time.
There should also be a way for the author to designate AMAZON US readers only. Many reviews do not show up if you have readers from other countries; therefore, the author wastes their money. On my Amazon book page, some foreign readers appear at the bottom of the page, and on others, they don't at all. Who wants to pay for a verified read and not have it appear on Amazon US.
Pubby may only return your snaps if you choose a verified review. They usually return snaps for up to two reviews if you are unhappy without too much hassle.
You cannot get rid of bad reviews. This is just like anywhere else. You have to suck it up if you get a bad review, even if it is clear they didn’t read it. Have a drink and move on.
At the beginning of using Pubby, they sent me emails telling me I had not purchased the book as a verified purchase that I reviewed. Therefore, they took my snaps away. In another case, they said I had not posted my reviews. This happened twice. Thankfully, I had records, copies of my purchases, and links to my reviews. It seemed to stop after those two, but it took my valuable time to track them down, and I became so paranoid that I kept a file on my desktop just in case it happened again. Do they not have the technology to track this themselves?
Monthly costs seem high when you add together the monthly fee, the purchase cost of the book you need to buy, and the snaps you pay to get your book read. Often, more than the snaps you earned from reading one book is required to purchase one review for a verified book if any of your books are priced over $2.99.
There is no way to specify US readers only, so you don't end up paying for reviews you don't receive.
If your book is priced over $2.99, you will have to read more books to get yours read. Many books on Pubby are priced at .99, 1.99, or 2.99, so if your book is $3.99 or more, you will have to read more books to get your book read. There should be a way to equal the playing field for a book that costs more, pay an extra fee if an author chooses to, or something like that. Authors only have so much time to write and read.
Advantages:
Fast way to get reviews and keep your book relevant to readers on Amazon.
You can cancel and re-up your membership anytime (they are very good about this.)
You can add new books as you need to.
Customer support is consistently good, meaning they get back to you that day or if it's a weekend within a day or two. They do what they can to assist you, perhaps not what you want, but what they can.
There are many genres to pick from to read; self-help, cookbooks, business, health, romance, erotic, mystery, and coloring books (they also offer some for free in PDFs to download from the site). You can also select books that take little time to read and write about, such as children's coloring books or cookbooks.
Offers a special plan for new authors, allowing them to rack up snaps before releasing their book.
You're increasing sales of your books. Because the book counts as a verified purchase on Amazon.
Conclusion:
Pubby is far from perfect. However, it is one more way for an author to get reviews. After I started using Pubby, I noticed that readers did begin leaving reviews, not in droves, but I got two more. I will shoot for two monthly Pubby reviews on each book every month to keep things current and plan on adding another book. I also enjoyed reading what other authors were writing and putting on Pubby. There were some real gems on the site that I thoroughly enjoyed. Was it worth it? I got 22 reviews, but I spent a lot of money on those reviews, counting my monthly fee, the books I purchased, and the time I spent reading and writing my reviews. At this point, I believe it was worth it, but I'd like to reduce my monthly fee, which is why I'm anxious to check out another company, a competitor to Pubby; Read and Rate.
Read and Rate. Please note I have not used this service, yet. Please research yourself if you are interested in them. The pricing is considerably lower per year and it seems similar: ink drops instead of snaps (LOL). I have no idea about the quality of the books on their platform. They also provide a free trial period of thirty days rather than seven days (but only with the promo code 30FREE); without it, ten days. Here is a YouTube video, from a user, a testimonial, Gary.
If you've used Pubby, negative or positive, please leave a comment and let others know what you think:
I’m still searching for author’s book trailers for next week’s article. If you’d like yours included, drop me a line or leave a comment. Have a great week, peeps!
