Hello All...has anyone been approached to become an online book reviewer for a mainstream academic publisher - where the 'remuneration' is a free eBook (ie the one they have asked you to review) and "perpetual access" to that eBook? Is this standard practise? Is it ethically sound?
Thanks as ever for the responses. There's a really useful article in WAYB 2014 on the subject - including maintaining an independence when paid to review. Would be good to generate a full discussion on here, involving publishers, authors and reviewers.
I love reading so have no issues with free books for review.
After all, it's free books!
I think I'd feel more uncomfortable being offered payment for a review because then I'd feel as though I had to say only nice things rather than giving my honest unbiased opinion.
I suppose other things to consider are
- the book itself - is it actually one that you would like to keep?
- could writing the review for free lead on to paid work?
- do you know (and like) the author? (After all, no one gets paid to write reviews on amazon - or do they!?)