# Hidden Gems ARC Service



## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

The Hidden Gems ARC service has been sending out books for review since October 2015 and since then has just continued to grow into what we believe is one of the premiere ARC services around. We now have over 5000 reader/reviewers and send out hundreds of books a year - on average more than 1 per day.

While we did start off by exclusively servicing the romance community, we have since branched off and begun to ARC books of ALL Genres. All of our subscribers have selected the genres that they are interested in reading, and they only get offers to read and review books of those genres. That means we aren't going to send your Horror novel off to someone that is only interested in Young Adult novels, for example. And even within those groups, all readers only choose the books that most interest them (based on the book info you provide prior to us sending out your book), which means that we are ONLY sending your book out to subscribers that at least THINK that they will enjoy it based on that info. So again, that means that we wouldn't send a BDSM Romance to someone that only likes Sweet Romances, for example.

One of the thing that sets us apart from other ARC services is our review rates. While all reviews are voluntary and there are always reasons why some readers that sign up choose not to review a particular book after being sent it, we do keep a close eye on things to make sure there are no abusers of the system. Our service is for book lovers who enjoy reading and leaving reviews on what they read, not for people just looking to get a load of free books and never offer anything in return. As such, we have an average rate of reviews left by readers of over 80%. That means if we send your book out to 100 readers, you will usually get more than 80 reviews back. Many sites need to send your book out to many hundreds of readers to get those sorts of numbers, which means your book is going out for FREE to far more people than it needs to - potential customers!

And to be clear, these are voluntary reviews from real readers - nothing fake or phony about these reviews. That's why we can't make any guarantees as the the number of reviews you'll get back (and be wary of any service that does!) and we also can't guarantee any sort of average star rating. While many of our reviewers choose not to review a book they didn't like (by far the #1 reason why reviewers choose not to leave a review), that is up to them completely. We do all of this to ensure compliance with Amazon and their ever changing rules regarding reviews. As such, we don't believe we are in violation of their rules. Readers are real and never compensated for their reviews beyond getting the book for free, and are instructed to note in their review that it was voluntary and based on a review copy. Authors pay us for the service of sending their books out to our curated list of readers that love leaving reviews, authors are not paying for the reviews themselves (which is also why we charge per reader, not per review returned). Again, be wary of services that do things in a way that may violate Amazon's rules!

While we have thousands signed up for our service, because they are segregated into different genres and only choose the books to read that they are both interested in and have time for, the number of readers interested in any given book may vary greatly. Authors choose how many readers they want their books sent to, but depending on those factors we may not always be able to meet those needs. However rest assured, we will only ever charge for the number of readers we do find, regardless of your original order. If you ask for 100 and we only find you 20, you will only be charged for 20. Romance typically gets the most interest - and we can often deliver hundreds of readers for a contemporary romance novel, while some genres like Young Adult or Science fiction might only get 20-50 readers signed up. But we're doing our best to improve those numbers, and much of our income goes to increasing our reader base in order to continue to improve our service.

Also note that for romance ARCs, booking is recommended at least 3-4 weeks in advance as we only book 1 book per genre a day, and our romance category usually sells out that far ahead. For other genres there is more availability for now, since we only started doing those other genres recently and are still getting the word out.

For a lot more info and pricing, please see our FAQ - or just go directly to our booking calendars.

We hope to help many of you with your novel launches in the future, and if you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact us (or reply below). Thanks!

The Hidden Gems Team


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## Red Riley (May 28, 2017)

Bookmarking for when I have my release date set, thanks!


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

I'm interested in scheduling your service but I don't see anywhere listed your business name and location.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

555aaa said:


> I'm interested in scheduling your service but I don't see anywhere listed your business name and location.


Hmm, did you try clicking on the links in the email above? That should take you to our website which has all of the info needed for scheduling. We're Hidden Gems, and can take bookings from anywhere in the world since we only deal with ebooks (not physical novels), so everything is digital.


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## SA_Soule (Sep 8, 2011)

The only problem I personally foresee is if you pay $300 for the max amount of reviewers/readers, but only get, let's say, 10 reviews posted, than it is not worth it. 

Plus, a writer is paying for reviews without any guarantee of getting reviews posted and...did I mention paying for reviews? Which is against Amazon's TOS, right? And if it is a violation of the TOS, then there's a strong chance the reviews will be removed from sites like Amazon. But maybe not from goodreads...

A reviewer that I've known for years, started charging on Fiverr for reviews (I just sent my ARCs to her blog email and never paid her) and she told me that she had all 5k reviews that she posted removed and she is banned from leaving reviews on Amazon now. I guess there was this big review crack down where Amazon removed thousands of so-called "paid reviews."


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## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

Just subscribed for a Fantasy book (no Romance) - let's see what comes of it!!!


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

I love Hidden Gems! I use the ARC service even though I have an ARC team that will get me 50-100 reviews during release week. The Hidden Gems reviewers just leave better reviews on average--they're more detailed and specific. Sure, not all of the reviews are positive, but I find the reviewers are pretty open minded.


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## Queen Mab (Sep 9, 2011)

Sounds interesting. How LGBT-friendly is the service?


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## JacquelineSweetDesign (Jul 6, 2017)

I've used Hidden Gems before--last summer--and they consistently delivered a TON of reviews for my books. I don't recall the exact numbers, but it was 50-75 reviews that all seemed like honest reviews, not just a one sentence "I liked it!" or something like that.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

SA_Soule said:


> The only problem I personally foresee is if you pay $300 for the max amount of reviewers/readers, but only get, let's say, 10 reviews posted, than it is not worth it.


As I mentioned, our average rate of review is over 80% so that just doesn't happen. When people get below that average, it is not THAT far below.. but generally there is a very obvious reason why - which is usually that the book has problems and a lot of the reviewers chose not to leave a review rather than a negative one. The stronger the book, the higher the percentage. We have some books that have hit 100%. A large number get in the 90s. So a MAX order is at least 150 readers (if not, then wouldn't get charged $300). You would never get 10 reviews from that. Not in the 2 years we've been doing this, anyway.



SA_Soule said:


> Plus, a writer is paying for reviews without any guarantee of getting reviews posted and...did I mention paying for reviews? Which is against Amazon's TOS, right? And if it is a violation of the TOS, then there's a strong chance the reviews will be removed from sites like Amazon. But maybe not from goodreads...


Again, as I mentioned you are not paying for reviews. You are paying us to send your book out to our list of book lovers that tend to leave reviews. We DO NOT require them to leave reviews for every book - and in fact we provide a spot where they can leave a reason for not reviewing instead. This is also why we can make no guarantees on the number of reviews - because that is not what you are paying for. You are paying us to send your book out to a specified number of readers, that is all. We just maintain a list of readers that also very often leave reviews for the books they are sent.

We've been doing this for 2 years now and sent out about 500 books and have never once heard from any of our authors that have gotten any reviews removed or had any issues with Amazon over it. That's not to say that Amazon one day may change their tune, but we read their TOS carefully whenever they are updated and do our best to stay within their guidelines as far as we understand them (they are not always crystal clear, unfortunately).



SA_Soule said:


> A reviewer that I've known for years, started charging on Fiverr for reviews (I just sent my ARCs to her blog email and never paid her) and she told me that she had all 5k reviews that she posted removed and she is banned from leaving reviews on Amazon now. I guess there was this big review crack down where Amazon removed thousands of so-called "paid reviews."


Yes, and that example is a clear violation of their service because that is a reviewer charging for their reviews. Our readers are not paid anything by you OR by us. They get no compensation at all. They all do it because they love reading and this is a great way for them to have access to free books.

Authors sending free ARC copies out for early reviews is a tradition that goes back as long as there have been books, and that is why when Amazon recently cracked down on reviews for unverified purchases they did it for everything BUT books. They know that this is a common practice and as long as you follow the rules and play fair, they seem okay with it. What we are providing here is no different, really, than an author sending out their novels to their own list of fans. But what about authors without that fan base? Why should they miss out on reviews? That's where we come in and help. In fact, I've actually heard more stories about Amazon cracking down on fan ARCs like that because they are more obviously biased (friends and fans of an author are more likely to give positive reviews and some authors boot off people that give them less than 4 or 5 stars).

At any rate, everyone has their own comfort level so a service like ours might not be for everyone. All I can say is that we will always do our absolute best to make sure we are working within the rules that Amazon sets out, as far as we understand them. And so far that's been working.

Thanks so much for your feedback and good luck with your releases!


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Gabriella West said:


> Sounds interesting. How LGBT-friendly is the service?


Are you talking about LGBT Romance? We do a few of those - probably about 5 or so a month? Generally we'll get at least 50-60 signups for those books.

If you're talking about non-romance then you'll have to be more specific, although I don't think we've had any LGBT non-romance novels come through that I can think of.


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## RRodriguez (Jan 8, 2017)

From looking over their website and my understanding of Amazon rules, I feel like this is a pretty legitimate service  As an (hopefully soon) new author, I know that ARC's are common and popular tools to help boost a recently published book. But for a new author with zero following, it's a huge struggle to get ARC readers to sign up organically. In the future I would like that to be the case, but for a first-timer I'm not opposed to having a little help along the way.  With a service like this I also like that there's a better chance I'm being set up with readers who actually WANT to read my book as opposed to someone just wanting a free book with little intention of actually reading it. As has been stated, no one is being paid to do anything except the service itself which merely sets authors up with eager readers.


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## AriadneBeckett (Jun 29, 2017)

Do you have a separate LGBT segment? For example, for a gay romance/crime drama? Or would copies potentially be going to people who would find gay themes offensive?

Why haven't we heard of you? In my experience so far, successful promotion and ARC services tend to get talked about.



> The only requirement for membership in the ARC program, as a reviewer, is that when you do ask for a book and are selected for that ARC, that you both LEAVE A REVIEW on Amazon, AND LOG THE REVIEW in our form. Many of you are missing that second step, and as such, we have no choice but to drop you from the program. Our authors are looking for a certain number of reviews, and it is unfair to them if we have reviewers not leaving reviews. And logging your review in our form is the only way we know that you have left one.


Is this current? Because my understanding of current amazon policy is that reviewers may *not* be required in any way to leave a review, or feel that their ability to receive future free stuff depends on their leaving a review.

One final question: why did you dodge the previous question about your business location? That poster didn't ask about info needed for scheduling; they asked about where they could see your business name and location.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

AriadneBeckett said:


> Do you have a separate LGBT segment? For example, for a gay romance/crime drama? Or would copies potentially be going to people who would find gay themes offensive?


The way that we have genres set up now is basically a bunch of checkboxes.. so people would select things like Science Fiction or Romance. Since technically you could have ANY genre of book feature LGBT characters, I don't think it would make sense to have a separate genre for each possibility.

Instead, what we do is provide a "Categories" field on our sign up form which is where authors enter this sort of Sub Genre info. So in your example, they would put LGBT or GAY or MM or whatever in that field, and then readers that don't like that sort of content can just skip that offer and wait for the next one.



AriadneBeckett said:


> Why haven't we heard of you? In my experience so far, successful promotion and ARC services tend to get talked about.


Interesting question. I suppose I could counter by saying that since we sell out weeks in advance, clearly SOMEONE has heard of us - and we also have a testimonial section in our FAQ that lists out some of the comments we had from our previous customers. Not to mention a few of our previous customers have shown up in this thread, which was a pleasant surprise, so they've heard about us as well.

In all honestly, we haven't really done any big marketing aside from a few (non-kboards) author message boards that are mostly private or semi-private where we got our start, because as soon as we launched we were getting enough business through word of mouth alone. But that was mostly romance centric - where we got our start. Now that we've branched into other genres, we're getting the word out a little more aggressively. Soon, hopefully, we'll be a household name. 



AriadneBeckett said:


> Is this current? Because my understanding of current amazon policy is that reviewers may *not* be required in any way to leave a review, or feel that their ability to receive future free stuff depends on their leaving a review.


Thanks for bringing that to my attention. As you can tell by the date, that was an old blog post (from a year ago) that we wrote and things have changed a lot since then. Our reader FAQ has much more current info, and when you quoted that I searched that FAQ to see where I had wrote that, but couldn't find it - although the words sounded familiar. I actually had to google it before realizing it was from an old blog. Of course, the next bit that immediately follows the part that you quoted is also pretty relevant, so I will quote that here since you left it out.



> Missing a few reviews is fine and unavoidable, which is why we also have the REASON field in our form...


We've always included that field and always will because we understand that life happens sometimes, and even the best reviewers will miss some reviews or simply choose not to review a book. But membership in our program is for book loving readers that also like to leave reviews. We'll never remove someone for missing a review or two, and the more books they read, the more they can miss without it being an issue. But if someone is basically just reading and never reviewing, then they don't fit the membership criteria of the list that we maintain. Having a list full of people like that is unfair to both the authors that work with us and the other readers in our list. If someone wants a list like that, to either use for their ARCs or to be a reader for, there are plenty of other ARC services out there that will happily take them to swell their numbers and make themselves sound more valuable.

Anyway, thanks again for pointing that out. Even though our FAQ is more clear about all of this (I hope), I will definitely remove that old blog and replace it with a newer one sooner rather than later.



AriadneBeckett said:


> One final question: why did you dodge the previous question about your business location? That poster didn't ask about info needed for scheduling; they asked about where they could see your business name and location.


I don't think I dodged that question at all. I think our business name is pretty obvious - Hidden Gems. And I just don't see the relevance of providing a physical location for a web-based business that deals exclusively in digital content. Are you asking about where our server is located? Where we physically live? Where our business is incorporated? And why does it matter? Maybe I'm missing something here?

Anyway, thanks for the questions.


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## Helen_Christian (Jan 17, 2017)

Shifted Sheets is a direct competitor to Hidden Gems and I can find ZERO bad things to say about them. I used them as an author and I continue to suggest their services in addition to our own.

Many romance authors have heard of them in the groups/messageboards/forums that we frequent. They've never given anything but great customer service and value.


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## MajesticMonkey (Sep 3, 2013)

Helen_Christian said:


> Shifted Sheets is a direct competitor to Hidden Gems and I can find ZERO bad things to say about them. I used them as an author and I continue to suggest their services in addition to our own.
> 
> Many romance authors have heard of them in the groups/messageboards/forums that we frequent. They've never given anything but great customer service and value.


+1


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## RRodriguez (Jan 8, 2017)

Helen_Christian said:


> Shifted Sheets is a direct competitor to Hidden Gems and I can find ZERO bad things to say about them. I used them as an author and I continue to suggest their services in addition to our own.
> 
> Many romance authors have heard of them in the groups/messageboards/forums that we frequent. They've never given anything but great customer service and value.


That's strange, is it usually polite to post about direct competition on someone's sales page? And from what I can tell, there hasn't been any "bad things" said about Hidden Gems either, only that it's fairly new and people have some questions about their services. By the name Shifted Sheets, I also assume it's only for Romance authors/readers.


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## Mylius Fox (Jun 2, 2014)

HiddenGems said:


> Are you talking about LGBT Romance? We do a few of those - probably about 5 or so a month? Generally we'll get at least 50-60 signups for those books.


Hi HiddenGems, how many signups do you generally get for the thriller genre? Do your thriller readers respond well to military/political thrillers? I've got a new release next week and I really like how your service sounds.


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## raminar_dixon (Aug 26, 2013)

Helen_Christian said:


> Shifted Sheets is a direct competitor to Hidden Gems and I can find ZERO bad things to say about them. I used them as an author and I continue to suggest their services in addition to our own.
> 
> Many romance authors have heard of them in the groups/messageboards/forums that we frequent. They've never given anything but great customer service and value.


Same.

Hidden Gems is also a competitor to Hot Stuff Romance and I have to say that they are a valuable, stand-up operation. They do what they say they will, charge a fair price, and work hard to make you happy. I've used them for my own book promotions and for ARC several times and I have always been pleased with the results. My Promo Stacker clients have also used them to great effect. If you need honest reviews, they are a fantastic resource.



RRodriguez said:


> That's strange, is it usually polite to post about direct competition on someone's sales page? And from what I can tell, there hasn't been any "bad things" said about Hidden Gems either, only that it's fairly new and people have some questions about their services. By the name Shifted Sheets, I also assume it's only for Romance authors/readers.


Yes, I'd say it is polite, as long as the feedback is not malicious. If you do such a great job that even your competition praises the quality of your services, you're doing something right. HG offers a good service and I don't mind letting people know about it, even if they are technically a competitor to one of my businesses.

Shifted Sheets is also great.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

RRodriguez said:


> That's strange, is it usually polite to post about direct competition on someone's sales page? And from what I can tell, there hasn't been any "bad things" said about Hidden Gems either, only that it's fairly new and people have some questions about their services. By the name Shifted Sheets, I also assume it's only for Romance authors/readers.


Helen *is* Shifted Sheets. I read her post as saying that even she has used Hidden Gems as an author, and likes them, and recommends them. That's how I read it, anyway...

But...that being said, let's keep the focus on Hidden Gems, thanks!

Betsy

/edited for clarity


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Welcome to Kboards!

You're welcome to promote your relevant business, service, product or website here in the Writers' Cafe!

Now that you have an official thread, you'll want to add your listing to our Yellow Pages Listing, found here:http://www.kboards.com/yp/. The listing is free to KB members and is completely self-service; you can add and edit your listing from the page. More information on our Yellow Pages listing can be found here.

In your thread here, we ask that the same basic rules be followed as we have for authors in the Book Bazaar: you may have this one thread about your service and must post to it rather than start a new thread each time. New threads about the service will be removed. Please bookmark this thread so that you can find it again to post to. *And, you may not make back-to-back posts to the thread within seven days.* If someone responds (such as this post), you may reply but otherwise must wait seven days, thanks! Also note that very short or one/two word posts with no meaningful information, are discouraged and may be deleted at the moderators' discretion.

*Note that members are allowed to provide civil and honest feedback about your service to this thread, and you may respond in a civil manner.* In particular, members may have questions about how the service works, what you get for your money, as well as concerns about whether or not it might violate Amazon ToS.

Disputes between you and clients should be handled off site.

Ann
KBoards Moderator

_(Note that this welcome does *not* constitute an endorsement or vetting of a service by KBoards. Members should do due diligence when considering using a service.)_


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## RRodriguez (Jan 8, 2017)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Helen *is* Shifted Sheets. I read her post as saying that even she has used their service as an author, and likes them, and recommends them. That's how I read it, anyway...
> 
> Betsy


OH, I see. Since you explained it I see what you're saying. When I initially read it I thought it was like going onto someone Book Cover Sales Page and telling people to go somewhere else instead because their covers are better, and it gave me a bit of a start. Thanks for clearing it up


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

RRodriguez said:


> OH, I see. Since you explained it I see what you're saying. When I initially read it I thought it was like going onto someone Book Cover Sales Page and telling people to go somewhere else instead because their covers are better, and it gave me a bit of a start. Thanks for clearing it up


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Mylius Fox said:


> Hi HiddenGems, how many signups do you generally get for the thriller genre? Do your thriller readers respond well to military/political thrillers? I've got a new release next week and I really like how your service sounds.


Hi Mylius - So far we've only run a handful of thrillers and the signups are a bit all over the place. For example, we ran 2 at the end of last month and got 50 sign ups for them, but then we ran one early this month and only had 20 sign up. So I guess it depends on the book and how you sell your ARC to our audience for sign up, but the readers are there...

Remember though that you only pay for the readers we can deliver on, so even if you ask for 50 and we only send 20, then you only pay for 20. So there's little risk in that regard.

In terms of military/political I can't speak to that as the ones we've run so far haven't been those type. But again, if you are clear and upfront in the meta data that we send out to readers, then only ones interested in those types of books will sign up.

Hope that helps, but let me know if you have any other questions or concerns.


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## Marishka (Jul 7, 2017)

Hidden Gems is truly a hidden gem! Their service is fantastic, especially for the romance genre, but they're branching out to other genres as well. They provide a platform to connect authors with readers who are responsive and want to engage with the authors _and_ the books and leave reviews. The readers post both good and bad reviews, I should add, because the readers are real and their reviews are honest. I've used their service for a recent launch of my book and I have to say, I was very impressed!


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## IntoTheAbyss (Mar 20, 2017)

Do the reviews tend to be posted on Amazon or Goodreads or both?


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Michael-Allen said:


> Do the reviews tend to be posted on Amazon or Goodreads or both?


Our focus is on Amazon. That's where we ask reviews to be left, as that's where the vast majority of authors want their reviews. But some readers do also post links to goodreads.


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## SA_Soule (Sep 8, 2011)

> Authors sending free ARC copies out for early reviews is a tradition that goes back as long as there have been books, and that is why when Amazon recently cracked down on reviews for unverified purchases they did it for everything BUT books. They know that this is a common practice and as long as you follow the rules and play fair, they seem okay with it. What we are providing here is no different, really, than an author sending out their novels to their own list of fans. But what about authors without that fan base? Why should they miss out on reviews? That's where we come in and help. At any rate, everyone has their own comfort level so a service like ours might not be for everyone. All I can say is that we will always do our absolute best to make sure we are working within the rules that Amazon sets out, as far as we understand them. And so far that's been working. Thanks so much for your feedback and good luck with your releases!


I appreciate the time you took to address my concerns. Thank you!


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## Nicholas Erik (Sep 22, 2015)

This is the best review service in the business, hands down. Used them for an urban fantasy book that was was sent out to 25 reviewers ($50). I got a minimum of 13 - 15 reviews that I can personally verify came from Hidden Gems. The owner indicated that 20 - 21 of the people submitted a review link to them, but I only went by how many people left the standard "I got an ARC copy" text. So consider my estimate very conservative.

The reviews were in-depth - e.g., the reviewers clearly read the book - and they send you selected comments from their reviewers. A mix of 3, 4 & 5 stars, which I like - some review services are legit, but everyone gives you ten word 5* reviews and it just looks kind of silly.

For comparison, with most services I'd expect _maybe_ 2 - 3 reviews. Hidden Gems gets my highest recommendation.

Nick


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## Huldra (Nov 7, 2013)

.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Huldra said:


> My first run was amazing, with an ~85% review rate. My second only hit about 60% (and no, there wasn't a problem with the book) which made me hesitant on using them again due to the cost. Regardless of that, HG delivered the service they promised, with excellent customer care. I also don't know if they have managed to improve their ARC list since my last run with them in the autumn.
> Part of what makes services like this follow Amazon's rules is that there is no way of guaranteeing how many reviews you'll get. Please do keep this in mind when reading statements of "generally 80% rates, unless there's a problem with the book."


Hi Huldra - When you say last year, are you talking about literally last calendar year? If so then it is possible because our overall review rates have been climbing steadily month by month, and we didn't start making the 80% claim until a few months ago when we were regularly hitting that number. Prior to that we were advertising a lower overall average. Still, it is an average and sometimes books are lower than that, and sometimes higher.. but if you are interested in having me look into it a bit deeper, feel free to shoot me a PM with your book name and I'll take a peek at what went on with that one in particular and see if I can shed any light or if it was just one of those things where we somehow sent it to a load of readers that just couldn't get to reviewing for a variety of reasons.

If you ran it in 2016 then I can say things have definitely improved. For example our Average for December 2016 was only 79% of reviews left, and I can see a few in the 60s. But for May 2017 it was actually 89%. So depending on how long ago you ran your books, that could definitely be the case.

I do appreciate your kind words about the service though, and definitely your recommendations. And I am very serious about looking into your particular book details if you care to share, but if not no problem. Either way, shoot me a PM if you're interested in giving us another try.


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## Ebook Itch (Mar 3, 2015)

Another "competitor" here to say Hidden Gems is the real deal. We don't really offer ARC services anymore because Hidden Gems is doing such a great job.  

They were even able to deliver reviews on a book in a small sci-fi subgenre - LitRPG. 

Good stuff. Recommended.


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## Huldra (Nov 7, 2013)

.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Huldra said:


> Unrelated btw - do you/can you ask reviewers to post on other vendors for wide books, as well as Amazon?


I never have, but I have had the request once before. Most authors are very Amazon centric so that's what we've always asked of our readers. I'm not opposed to putting the request out there when we ask for reviews, but I haven't a clue how many would do it. It would require them to have accounts on the other vendors, which I don't know how many of them have, and then to take the time to write the reviews on those vendors - and that may also then lower the number you get on Amazon, as some readers may not want to post on more than one... so it would be tough to judge the success of it after.

I'm not opposed to it, but it would be very experimental.

I think if I start to hear the request more and more, though, I may look to figure out how best to go about it. Maybe build in a way for reviewers to indicate which stores they can leave reviews so that I can choose from them specifically if we get the request for reviews on other stores? That's one though, anyway, but I think we'd need to build our subs list out a bit more before we'd do that. And we did just launch a brand new backend system for sending books and logging reviews about a week or two ago, so I need to let that settle a bit first before we go and add any big changes. But it is something I would think about formalizing, if the demand for it grows.


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## Travelian (Jun 1, 2017)

I'm interested in using your service for a launch months down the road. Are your reviewers fine with receiving a Book Funnel link? Or do they need a printed book?


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Travelian said:


> I'm interested in using your service for a launch months down the road. Are your reviewers fine with receiving a Book Funnel link? Or do they need a printed book?


We don't do printed, but we also don't use Bookfunnel. We host the book files directly and send the links only to those selected to read/review them, and then remove them once the ARC is completed. So prior to your date, you would just need to send us MOBI and PDF files, EPUB as well, if possible.


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## kninemark2 (Mar 22, 2016)

So do these reviews all go as unverified?


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

kninemark2 said:


> So do these reviews all go as unverified?


They'd have to, but I can't think of any ethical way to get around that. One of the review services I used in the past allowed Amazon gifting as an option for giving reviewers their free copy, but those don't show as verified purchase, either.

I haven't used Hidden Gems yet, but I'll try it for my next release. I figure ARCs I could generate myself wouldn't be verified, either.


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## Gwen Hayes (Apr 24, 2011)

I used this service to help launch a new secret pen name last month and was very pleased with the quality and enthusiasm of the reviews. I have and would rec to my author friends. A lot of the reviewers signed up for my newsletter, too. I can only speak to the romance/new adult genre, but it was worth it. I chose max and got about 250 reviews. It really helped jump start the new pen.


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## Queen Mab (Sep 9, 2011)

After reading all these great reports, I'm planning to use it as well. Gotta get the book done first!


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## kninemark2 (Mar 22, 2016)

Bill Hiatt said:


> They'd have to, but I can't think of any ethical way to get around that. One of the review services I used in the past allowed Amazon gifting as an option for giving reviewers their free copy, but those don't show as verified purchase, either.


I agree with what you are saying but i am just putting myself in reader mode and wondering if i would trust a book with say 150 unverified reviews.


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## NeilMosspark (Sep 30, 2016)

Signed up. Lets see where this goes.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

kninemark2 said:


> I agree with what you are saying but i am just putting myself in reader mode and wondering if i would trust a book with say 150 unverified reviews.


Yep, unless a reader goes and buys the book themselves before leaving the review (which I have seen a couple people say that they did in their comments to the authors), they will show up as unverified. But that is true of any ARC program and even the ARC copies that authors send out to their own lists. There's no way around it.

However, here's my 2 cents FWIW. First, even reviews from borrowers (through KU) show up as unverified, so personally I don't put a lot of stock in that label. I mean, you pay for a KU membership and you borrow all the books you want to read... the author still gets paid for the pages you read, just like a sale, so why shouldn't THOSE reviews be verified? But more importantly, when I put myself in the mind of most readers (myself included long before I started this service), when I look at a book (or any product) and consider the reviews I just really look at the overall count and score. So like, 120 reviews with an average for 4.3. Or 56 with an average of 2.9. Those are the important numbers to me.. oh, that many people read the book and liked/didn't like it? More often than not, that's enough for me to make my decision (to the extent that reviews were helping make it, at least). It is on only the rare occasions where I bother to scroll down and actually read the reviews. I mean, I did it sometimes, but not most of the time, and I imagine that's similar for many buyers. And it's only when you do THAT, that the verified/unverified numbers come into play.

Anyway, take that as you will. That's my view on it, but others may agree or disagree - or maybe even consider me biased. Truth is, I AM biased, but that honestly is MY experience.


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## Tstarnes (Sep 25, 2013)

I recently used this service.  I will say that it seems their number of 70% of the estimate they give for the number of reviews looks right.  They delivered exactly what they said they would.

I will through out one caveat.  In my test at least, a high % of those reviews were a single sentence or just a couple of short sentences, followed by "I received an advance reader copy for an honest review" or something like that.  In some cases the "i received a copy" line is longer than the actual text of the review. (although I will say in their favor the one sentences do show the person actually read all or most of the book, so there's that)

If this is your sole outlet for reviews, I would caution what that would look like if that is all you have.

(Again, this was a single test.  I might try them again for a book in a different genre when my sci-fi book comes out and see if that gives different returns.  It could just be something with Thriller/Suspense readers)


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## Guest (Jul 18, 2017)

There is a difference between paying for reviews and paying someone to administer your review program. Paying a reviewer for a review is unethical and not only a violation of Amazon's TOS, but potentially a violation of FTC rules regarding endorsements. Paying someone to identify potential reviewers for you and send out the review copies for you is an administrative function, no different than if I had a clerk in my building hand mailing books to reviewers. 

That said, my primary gripe here is the same gripe I have with most review services. It isn't really a review service so much as a "pay us to give your book for free to thousands of mostly unqualified people who aren't actually recognized reviewers but will probably leave a one line review on Amazon."

With a service like NetGalley, I know who the reviewers are. I can visit their blogs or websites, read their other reviews. I can make sure I am sending books to people who actually fit my target demographic. (Disclaimer, I also happen to be a NetGalley reviewer and went through the approval process). With the vast majority of these services, the only real qualifier is "I want free books and double pinky swear to leave reviews."  It is nice that this service says that it culls inactive reviewers, but at the end of the day the only real "benefit" to these services is a volume of low-content reviews specifically on Amazon. And considering the enormous pushback consumers are starting to have when they see hundreds of unverified one-line reviews on books, I don't know how much of a benefit this is.

Part of the problem for me is that I guess I am "old school" and I differentiate between "customer reviews" and "editorial reviews." I don't see most ARC programs are reaching reviewers but instead just giving away thousands of free books in the hopes for Amazon customer reviews, which really only mean anything on Amazon. And I honestly feel this fixation with QUANTITY of Amazon reviews is the root of the majority of scam issues on Amazon now. (No, I didn't call THIS service a scam. I am talking about the relentless need for quantity of reviews in the minds of too many authors). 

I just personally wish there was a service out there like a NetGalley for indie authors, where I knew that I was reaching actual reviewers with online presences and their own followers who provided real editorial reviews that serve a purpose outside the Amazon ecosystem.


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## Tstarnes (Sep 25, 2013)

I will say this service isn't, or at least doesn't seem like 'Pay to give your book to thousands'.  Before I sent them a copy, they told me 20 people had agreed to read the book after they reached out with the cover, blurb, etc.

Of those 20, 13 so far have left reviews.  So I'm not sure this is a 'thousands of free copies'.  Also, not all of them were 1 line, with the bulk being a couple of short sentences (maybe 50 to 100 words if you include the disclaimer text).  I will say they were shorter than I expected.

It would be nice if I they had web pretenses and were putting out reviews on blogs, but the reviews are, for the most part, not that type of review.  even the longer ones are much shorter and less detailed that the full review you'd see on most book blogs.

If you already have some good reviews, this is a good way to fill out with more reviews however.


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## Gwen Hayes (Apr 24, 2011)

I suspect it depends on the genre you write in also. The reviews I got for my other pen name were very enthusiastic and much more than one line. They def. talked about what made them like the book. My book was contemporary new adult romance. And I got well over 200 and most of them posted the first few days of my launch. The bonus was that a lot of the reviewers signed up for my mailing list as well, and followed me on social media. 

But I have noticed that the new adult genre reader is very vocal and excited. Most books in that genre have happy reviewers. It was very much worth it for me, as a new pen name, to get in front of all the new eyes.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

Very interesting... I must live under a rock because I've never even heard of a review service. 

That said, when I published my first novel back in 2013, I used a blog tour for the cost of $150 bucks and got a half-dozen (maybe a few more?) really long, thought-out reviews. Most were very positive, some not so positive.

Also, those reviews were cross-posted to GoodReads at the prompting of the Blog organizer. 

The pro's of blog tours over this (please correct me if I'm wrong), is that the bloggers are followed by readers. So if they review your book they also post it up on their blog for the readers to see the book and their review, which could result in sales (and for me, it did!). 

The cons of a blog tour versus this service seem to be less reviews for the money, and that few weeks where they're reading your book you're sweating like bullets, cuz when they post a bad review, it's a doozie   and they usually have HUGE followings on GoodReads.


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## Tstarnes (Sep 25, 2013)

Silly Writer said:


> The cons of a blog tour versus this service seem to be less reviews for the money, and that few weeks where they're reading your book you're sweating like bullets, cuz when they post a bad review, it's a doozie  and they usually have HUGE followings on GoodReads.


Also review blogs have gotten less and less readership as more of them spring up. I've done one blog tour and was not wow'd by the response I got. I ended up with a small handful of reviews but little else (including little change in sales). For the money they charge, it just isn't worth it.


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## N. D. Iverson (Feb 1, 2016)

I've just used this company for the first time. They said 35 people signed up to receive my new UF book.

The book was just released today (finally!) and so far I've gotten 6 ARC reviews directly from their service. Almost all good, except for the one just posted. It's for a completely different book! The reviewer must have so many ARC reviews going that she posted it to the wrong book  I've reported it to Amazon, but I have a feeling they won't be removing it...


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## Tstarnes (Sep 25, 2013)

A person can remove their own review.  Couldn't you contact Hidden Gems, and have them reach out to the person and fix it?


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## N. D. Iverson (Feb 1, 2016)

Tstarnes said:


> A person can remove their own review. Couldn't you contact Hidden Gems, and have them reach out to the person and fix it?


I just contacted them now, but that's a lot of reviewers to sift through to find one person.


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## Tstarnes (Sep 25, 2013)

They have the reviewers log the reviews with them so they know how many submitted, so I bet they'll be able to track it down.  And my experience with them so far was a fairly quick and responsive customer service.  I guarantee you'll have better luck going through them than Amazon, who rarely ever get back to anyone for anything.


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## N. D. Iverson (Feb 1, 2016)

Tstarnes said:


> They have the reviewers log the reviews with them so they know how many submitted, so I bet they'll be able to track it down. And my experience with them so far was a fairly quick and responsive customer service. I guarantee you'll have better luck going through them than Amazon, who rarely ever get back to anyone for anything.


You are 100% right. Hidden Gems has already replied and will send off an email to the reviewer asking them to remove their review and put it on the correct book. Great customer service!


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

N. D. Iverson said:


> You are 100% right. Hidden Gems has already replied and will send off an email to the reviewer asking them to remove their review and put it on the correct book. Great customer service!


Did they end up fixing the review? If not I'll reach out to them again. They never responded to me but they may have gone back and removed or fixed it.


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## N. D. Iverson (Feb 1, 2016)

HiddenGems said:


> Did they end up fixing the review? If not I'll reach out to them again. They never responded to me but they may have gone back and removed or fixed it.


They did, thank you.


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## quiet chick writes (Oct 19, 2012)

Is this only for pre-published books? I am interested in finding reviewers for my most recent novel, but it's been published for a few months now. 

Also, for your women's literature genre, would that be closer to literary fiction or chick lit?


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Laura Rae Amos said:


> Is this only for pre-published books? I am interested in finding reviewers for my most recent novel, but it's been published for a few months now.
> 
> Also, for your women's literature genre, would that be closer to literary fiction or chick lit?


We do prepublished or already published, completely up to you. Some authors just like to get more reviews for a book that is already published. It's very common.

As to the genre - we can always send it to more than one list if it fits in more than one. People that are interested will sign up. So it could go to both - just mention that in your order or shoot us an email after ordering or something and we'll make it happen.

Thanks!


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

I've been very satisfied with my Hidden Gems run on an already published book. The most important things about review services are honesty and productivity. HG scores well on both.

HG reviewers seem to be reacting honestly and definitely produce a range of rankings rather than an artificial looking five-star clump. Some of them are very brief, but others take the time to explain their reasoning. They have about the same variety I've seen in  organic reviews for high-selling books.

HG reviewers also do produce reviews. Every single potential reviewer who asked for a copy hasn't left a review so far, but that's never going to be the case with an honest operation. I started with 22 reviews and now, with reviews still trickling in, I have 45. Considering that HG is still building its reviewer list in fantasy, that isn't bad! It's also possible that more will come in over time.

I've tried other review services. There are some other honest ones, but in recent times (after the $50 purchase before reviewing requirement), others haven't been producing very well. I suspect a lot of the people in their review pools were people who interacted with Amazon primarily by posting reviews on books for which they'd received free copies. (These days, it doesn't take that much to hit $50 in total purchases.) Obviously, HG has managed to pull in reviewers who are also regular Amazon customers.


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## DougLawless (May 31, 2016)

It is inspiring to me that competitors of this company stepped in to offer words of encouragement. That is the kind of "rising tide lifts all boats" philosophy that pops up every now and then and reminds me that not all people are terrible monsters.

I'm just getting my feet wet in self-publishing and have not considered spending money on these kinds of services. I'm getting a little impatient with the organic approach however, so I expect I'll give these folks a try soon.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

DougLawless said:


> It is inspiring to me that competitors of this company stepped in to offer words of encouragement. That is the kind of "rising tide lifts all boats" philosophy that pops up every now and then and reminds me that not all people are terrible monsters.
> 
> I'm just getting my feet wet in self-publishing and have not considered spending money on these kinds of services. I'm getting a little impatient with the organic approach however, so I expect I'll give these folks a try soon.


Reviews are kind of a chicken-egg problem. In my limited experience, organic reviews accumulate fast when a book is selling well. If a book is selling slowly, as most of them do, reviews tend to accumulate much more slowly. My first book had ten reviews after its first year. My most recent novel had 22 after three months--because it was selling much more quickly. The problem is that readers are more likely to take a serious look if the book has some reviews. That's not necessarily true of new books, but if a book has been sitting there for two years and has none, that does send a message.

That said, on a limited budget, the first priority is book quality: editing, cover design, that kind of thing. Second is advertising, of which review accumulation is only one component. If you have the money to encourage reviews through an ethical middleman, it's definitely worthwhile, but with a very limited budget, it's not the first place to start.


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## DougLawless (May 31, 2016)

Excellent advice, I've no doubt. Thanks Bill!


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## skylarker1 (Aug 21, 2016)

I sent my latest young YA fantasy book to Hidden Gems. It's not one of the popular categories, so they only found 10 reviewers for me, but nine out of ten have already posted reviews! A better proportion than I'd dared anticipate.


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## Jake Decker (Jul 27, 2012)

Anyone do zompoc with HG? Get many reviews?


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Brian Tormanen said:


> Anyone do zompoc with HG? Get many reviews?


Hi Brian - So I can answer that, since I've seen all the books that have come through. We've actually never had a Zombie Apocalypse book offered before.

I would say, though, that the way our service works the number of reviews you get back should still fall within the same general percentages that we usually get - on average, which is around 80%. So even if we only sent it out to 10, that would hopefully get you back at least 8 reviews. The question is - how many could we find for it??

That I can't answer. But on the positive side, there's really not much risk for you. Even if you book the minimum of 50 readers - if only 10 sign up, that's all you pay for. So really, it's just figuring out which book genre to offer the book to. My guess would be something like Science Fiction? Or maybe Thriller? Both? I mean, as long as your description of the book is obvious what it's about, even if the genre list we send it to isn't exactly perfect, only people that are interested in it will sign up - so it shouldn't matter that much.

Anyway - let me know if you have any other questions. Happy to help, and always interested to try out a new type of book on our readers!

HG


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## Jake Decker (Jul 27, 2012)

HiddenGems said:


> Hi Brian - So I can answer that, since I've seen all the books that have come through. We've actually never had a Zombie Apocalypse book offered before.
> 
> I would say, though, that the way our service works the number of reviews you get back should still fall within the same general percentages that we usually get - on average, which is around 80%. So even if we only sent it out to 10, that would hopefully get you back at least 8 reviews. The question is - how many could we find for it??
> 
> ...


Thank you. Good to know and will keep you in mind.


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## Kay7979 (Aug 20, 2016)

Could someone describe the mechanics of how this works? I understand Hidden Gems hosts the file on their site and then distributes the book to potential reviewers. In what format does one submit the book? PDF? MOBI? etc. Do they convert it to other formats according to what the reviewers need?


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

Kay7979 said:


> Could someone describe the mechanics of how this works? I understand Hidden Gems hosts the file on their site and then distributes the book to potential reviewers. In what format does one submit the book? PDF? MOBI? etc. Do they convert it to other formats according to what the reviewers need?


You upload a PDF and a mobi. They also ask for an epub if you have it. They don't do conversions, which kind of makes sense, because checking that the file converted correctly creates a whole extra process.

For the PDF, I just used the one I used for my paperback. For the mobi, I used the file I downloaded during the preview process on KDP. For the epub, I created one via Vellum. Scrivener also does flawless epub conversions. If you have neither, there seem to be online mobi to epub conversion services for free, but I'd check the output before uploading to Hidden Gems. You can open epubs in the free Adobe Digital Editions.

Apparently, mobi and PDF are there most popular requests, but not having an epub might eliminate a few potential readers.


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## Kay7979 (Aug 20, 2016)

Bill Hiatt said:


> You upload a PDF and a mobi. They also ask for an epub if you have it. They don't do conversions, which kind of makes sense, because checking that the file converted correctly creates a whole extra process.
> 
> For the PDF, I just used the one I used for my paperback. For the mobi, I used the file I downloaded during the preview process on KDP. For the epub, I created one via Vellum. Scrivener also does flawless epub conversions. If you have neither, there seem to be online mobi to epub conversion services for free, but I'd check the output before uploading to Hidden Gems. You can open epubs in the free Adobe Digital Editions.
> 
> Apparently, mobi and PDF are there most popular requests, but not having an epub might eliminate a few potential readers.


Thanks so much. That's exactly what I needed to know. I'm considering doing this but I'm not sure which book. Book 2 only has a dozen reviews and book 1 has 35.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Kay7979 said:


> Thanks so much. That's exactly what I needed to know. I'm considering doing this but I'm not sure which book. Book 2 only has a dozen reviews and book 1 has 35.


Hi Kay - if you only want to ARC one of the two, and they're standalone (despite being a series), then I would probably go with book 2 for a variety of reasons. PM me if you'd like to discuss more, I'd be happy to give you some more indepth reasoning or answer any other questions you have. Thanks!


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## Crime fighters (Nov 27, 2013)

In January or February, I'm planning on launching the first three books of a series on the same day. It's a series of standalone novels in the same small town with overlapping characters. If I wanted to use Hidden Gems for all three books, would it be better to schedule them as close to possible? Perhaps the same day if possible, or schedule them with a little bit of a break in between? I'd imagine the first two will appeal to a broader audience and the third, being M/M would appeal to a slightly different audience with overlap.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

K.B. said:


> In January or February, I'm planning on launching the first three books of a series on the same day. It's a series of standalone novels in the same small town with overlapping characters. If I wanted to use Hidden Gems for all three books, would it be better to schedule them as close to possible? Perhaps the same day if possible, or schedule them with a little bit of a break in between? I'd imagine the first two will appeal to a broader audience and the third, being M/M would appeal to a slightly different audience with overlap.


I take it you aren't releasing them as a bundle, right? If you were, that would be easiest - just 1 ARC for the whole bundle. If not, then it's hard to say as I haven't done something like that before - I can see pros and cons with doing them close and spreading them out. First of all, all on the same day won't work as we generally only schedule 1 book per genre per day. On rare occasions we may run 2 if there is enough disparity between them (like one is MM and one is contemporary, for example), but I try not to do that very often and even less now that we are running so many genres (because it means we're already doing more than 1 book a day and a lot of people are in multiple genres, so I don't want to split the audiences too much so that we have enough readers for everyone's book).

So if you were to do them all on successive days, for example, I can see that being ideal because you want all your reviews as close to publication date as possible, but the problem with that is that not everyone reads that fast, so will some people just not sign up for all 3 because they don't think they can read the whole set that quickly and all at once? Ideally, I would say you wait at least 4 or 5 days in between, but then that means by book 3 your reviews won't come in until almost a couple weeks after publication (if people wait until the due date).

And if people miss the first book, will they want to read the 2nd or 3rd? Depends on if they're stand alone or not. If not, what I sometimes suggest is that people include the earlier books in the same file with the later ones, for people coming into the ARC midway through the series. So the ARC for book 2 would include book 1, and the ARC for book 3 would include books 1 and 2. Just for people to catch up. Less important if they're standalone, though.

Anyway, if you want to PM or email me and discuss further, I'd be happy to. Thanks!


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

Kay7979 said:


> Thanks so much. That's exactly what I needed to know. I'm considering doing this but I'm not sure which book. Book 2 only has a dozen reviews and book 1 has 35.


If it were me, I would do both. I'd do book 1 first, even though it has more reviews, and then do book 2. I say this because I've done something similar with other services. Books in an even remotely sequential series benefit from having reviewers who've read the first book as reviewers of the second. Running both books through the service increases the possibility of book 2 reviews from people who've read book 1. (That also reduces the chance of those "I didn't understand what was going on," kind of book 2 reviews.) Readers who liked book 1 are particularly likely to request book 2 when it comes up.


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## JsFan (Dec 22, 2014)

Bill Hiatt said:


> They'd have to, but I can't think of any ethical way to get around that. One of the review services I used in the past allowed Amazon gifting as an option for giving reviewers their free copy, but those don't show as verified purchase, either.


Is it unethical to make a book free and then direct interested reviewers to its Amazon page? I don't like having to click two or more times to read unverified reviews.


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## Kay7979 (Aug 20, 2016)

Bill Hiatt said:


> If it were me, I would do both. I'd do book 1 first, even though it has more reviews, and then do book 2. I say this because I've done something similar with other services. Books in an even remotely sequential series benefit from having reviewers who've read the first book as reviewers of the second. Running both books through the service increases the possibility of book 2 reviews from people who've read book 1. (That also reduces the chance of those "I didn't understand what was going on," kind of book 2 reviews.) Readers who liked book 1 are particularly likely to request book 2 when it comes up.


Very good advice, Bill, and that's what I did. I started with book 1 and may submit 2 later, and eventually 3 this fall.


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## Kay7979 (Aug 20, 2016)

I took the plunge. It's now day seven since submitting my book, and reviews are pouring in. I have a number of good things to say about this service. The owner is extremely helpful and responsive. The service is totally on the level. You will get reviews that run the gamut from 2 star- this book didn't hold my interest, to 5 star, this book is fabulous and so original! Some reviews are super short, others are more comprehensive, but out of the pile you're sure to get some useful feedback. One of the best things is that Hidden Gems is FAST. If you have an upcoming book launch, and you need a few reviews so you don't launch to crickets, this is the way to go. I have a handful of my own ARC folks, and I give them a month to review. Even so, some struggle to finish. 

As far as I am concerned, this is money well spent. If you're on the fence, give it a try. I doubt you'll regret it.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Kay7979 said:


> As far as I am concerned, this is money well spent. If you're on the fence, give it a try. I doubt you'll regret it.


Thanks Kay, it was a pleasure working with you and hopefully we can run your future books. I know our reviewers would love to read them.


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## Mylius Fox (Jun 2, 2014)

I'd just like to chime in to say this service is amazing.   My only regret is not having found out about it soon enough to have the reviews appear on launch day.  I'm really looking forward to using them again with my next novel. The reviews were nearly all comprehensive, honest, and thoughtful. I think maybe only one came in which was just an obvious rewrite of my blurb, which kind of gave it a bad vibe until the other reviews came in, but I understood my genre is new to their services, and that it takes time to see which new reviewers are actually reading and reviewing on their own or not. 
I was also happy to see at least one reviewer sign up for my mailing list, simply because they liked the story for its own sake and wanted more in the future. 

So thanks, HiddenGems, you're really onto something here!


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Mylius Fox said:


> I'd just like to chime in to say this service is amazing.  My only regret is not having found out about it soon enough to have the reviews appear on launch day.


Well, glad you found us eventually. Better late than never. But really, although we've been doing ARCs for about 2 years, we only started doing non-romance ARCs recently, so word is only just starting to get out about us.

Thank you for the kind words and we look forward to working with you on your next book - for launch day.


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## kspen (Aug 12, 2017)

I'm curious about the 50 review minimum. I'm working on my first novel and I'll confess that I'm attracted to the idea of having a few reviews available at launch if for no other reason than to show that what I've written is at least coherent enough for someone to read all the way through -- but I shudder at the thought of having 40+ unverified reviews all posted at once on a product that has no organic activity whatsoever. There are diminishing returns on each additional review, and that's doubly true for reviews such as these which are inherently low quality. My instinct is that each unverified ARC review beyond the tenth probably has little value, and quite possibly negative value. Am I wrong about this? I've only stumbled across one book that's used this service, and it's not selling hardly at all. And FakeSpot flagged all of its reviews as unreliable, meaning that it will likely be stuck with an F grade in perpetuity. I'm not sure I'd want to deal with that downside even if I could get the reviews for free.

Also, this is on your website:



> Influence your Amazon rank - Amazon's exact algorithm for determining book rank is a closely guarded secret, but there are many that believe that the number of reviews a book has, how quickly they came in, as well as other factors, have a direct influence on rank. An increase in rank means more visibility as you get onto top lists, and more visibility leads back to more sales


Is there any basis for this claim? This is the first I've heard of any suggestion that the bestseller rank takes into account anything other than actual sales activity, and what I've quoted is written in a particularly weaselly way. I do respect the way that you guys have operated your business in general, but that line in your FAQ strikes me as dishonest (unless I'm missing something).


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

kspen said:


> I'm curious about the 50 review minimum. I'm working on my first novel and I'll confess that I'm attracted to the idea of having a few reviews available at launch if for no other reason than to show that what I've written is at least coherent enough for someone to read all the way through -- but I shudder at the thought of having 40+ unverified reviews all posted at once on a product that has no organic activity whatsoever. There are diminishing returns on each additional review, and that's doubly true for reviews such as these which are inherently low quality. My instinct is that each unverified ARC review beyond the tenth probably has little value, and quite possibly negative value. Am I wrong about this? I've only stumbled across one book that's used this service, and it's not selling hardly at all. And FakeSpot flagged all of its reviews as unreliable, meaning that it will likely be stuck with an F grade in perpetuity. I'm not sure I'd want to deal with that downside even if I could get the reviews for free.


Kspen, the comments below are based on my experience with the service and may not be the same experience everyone has.

Unless you're in romance, you probably aren't going to get 50 reviews anyway; you're only charged for the number of people who actually requests the book, and the other genres generally don't yet have big enough lists.

Also, there will be a burst of reviews for sure, but they don't all appear at the same time, and some will trickle in long after. I think it would be more of a problem if they were all five-star--that would really look suspect--but they aren't. Kay and I both had the same experience, which is that they range from two-star to five-star. My average was about four-star. Yes, some of them are brief, but so are some of my verified purchase reviews. Some of them are also longer. I found the nature of the reviews closely mirrored the organic ones I'd gotten on the same book. (I used for the relaunch of a slightly revised book, not for the initial release.)

As for fakespot, it's guesstimating disguised as science. Some authors on these boards have said they leave exactly the kind of reviews that fakespot assumes are fake, I guess because of brevity. Anyway, I doubt very many readers are going to check on fakespot unless something looks really fishy.

The line you drew from the FAQ about reviews affecting ranking is somewhat suspect. It is true that no one knows the formula for sure, but the statistically minded among us who have studied the issue have generally not seen a correlation between reviews and ranking. It probably would be better if they dropped that line.

That one line aside, Hidden Gems appears ethical to me. Their ARCs are very similar, both in quality and in ranking spread, to my organic reviews for the same book.


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## kspen (Aug 12, 2017)

Thank you for your reply. I think my main question may have gotten lost -- what I'd really like to know is if those additional reviews actually help generate sales. Putting myself in the shoes of someone who doesn't know anything about where the ARC reviewers came from, I think I'd be pretty skeptical of those reviews... unless they are negative. So to some extent, it almost seems like a no-win situation for the author. But I'd like to keep an open mind, since people don't always behave the way I expect.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

kspen said:


> Thank you for your reply. I think my main question may have gotten lost -- what I'd really like to know is if those additional reviews actually help generate sales. Putting myself in the shoes of someone who doesn't know anything about where the ARC reviewers came from, I think I'd be pretty skeptical of those reviews... unless they are negative. So to some extent, it almost seems like a no-win situation for the author. But I'd like to keep an open mind, since people don't always behave the way I expect.


I don't think anyone knows for sure whether/how reviews help sales. Whenever we debate that point, people take a variety of positions. The one certainty is that a number of promotional sites won't accept books that don't have a minimum number of reviews, so getting reviews right after release can allow a book to be promoted more vigorously before it hits those no-longer-new cliffs.

Your earlier point about reviews not factoring into rank is correct (unless things have changed recently). I wouldn't go so far as to slap "weaselly" and "dishonest" on there as descriptors. There's a lot of misinformation and rumor floating around when it comes to reviews. It's easy just to be mistaken.

Welcome to KBoards, BTW.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Hi Kspen - thanks for your email. I'm happy to talk about all of these points honestly here, but I know that there will be a perception that I'm biased so I understand that you may or may not take my opinions seriously. I completely understand that. It's the internet and no one really knows anyone, however I think that most people that have dealt with me have probably (hopefully) come away with the feeling that I'm always being up front and genuine.



kspen said:


> I'm curious about the 50 review minimum. I'm working on my first novel and I'll confess that I'm attracted to the idea of having a few reviews available at launch if for no other reason than to show that what I've written is at least coherent enough for someone to read all the way through -- but I shudder at the thought of having 40+ unverified reviews all posted at once on a product that has no organic activity whatsoever.


Mostly, that's a business decision. There is a lot of work and cost that goes into running an ARC program like this, and each book requires a certain amount of time and resources. For me to do all of that work for only 10 reviews just wouldn't be worth it, quite honestly. I mean, unless I raised prices or reduced my level of service, but those are both things that I would rather not do. So I do understand that that minimum may put some people off and I accept that as a necessary tradeoff. I also have a lot of reviewers subscribed to my service (about 7000 across all genres) and although only a small subset of that sign up for each book (based on interest, time, genre segmentation, etc), even 50 often leaves many readers disappointed in not getting the book.



kspen said:


> There are diminishing returns on each additional review, and that's doubly true for reviews such as these which are inherently low quality. My instinct is that each unverified ARC review beyond the tenth probably has little value, and quite possibly negative value. Am I wrong about this?


I guess this is the biggest point that I disagree with here, but it's also the one where both of us would really be talking more about opinion than fact. I don't agree that our reviews are of low quality, and many other authors that have used our service have posted similarly in this thread and elsewhere. Obviously some reviews will be of higher quality than others - I don't dispute that. Some reviewers are more verbose and enthusiastic about their reviews in general, sometimes about the particular book. You're going to find a wide range and mix. But in my opinion our reviews are very similar in quality, on average, to any other reviews I've seen on other books not ARCed by us.

In terms of your instinct on the negative value of multiple unverified reviews, I disagree with that as well and quite honestly, that's the first time I've heard that assessment. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I don't have an answer but MY instinct is the opposite. It's always been my opinion that with books (because of their mass consumption by individuals and relatively low cost in comparison to other things), readers in general don't pay a lot of attention to whether reviews are verified or unverified. I think the thing that MOST readers pay attention to are the stars directly beneath the title of the book. They look at the total number and the average. Of course there are exceptions, there will always be people that want to dig deeper, but as I said, I think the majority of readers really don't. They might scroll down to read a few of the top rated reviews, but my guess is very few of them go any further than that. But again - just my opinion. I think that if people see a large number of reviews, they likely see that as social proof that the book is worth reading. Assuming that the overall average of those reviews isn't a really low number, at least.

Judging by the number of authors that choose to send their book to more than 50 reviewers (most of them), I think that most authors agree with me on that point. At least the ones looking for help getting those reviews - so that could just be selection bias.



kspen said:


> I've only stumbled across one book that's used this service, and it's not selling hardly at all. And FakeSpot flagged all of its reviews as unreliable, meaning that it will likely be stuck with an F grade in perpetuity. I'm not sure I'd want to deal with that downside even if I could get the reviews for free.


There are plenty of factors involved in whether a book sells or not and simply having reviews isn't going to make or break any book. We've done ARCs for over 500 books at this point. Some have hit top 20 in the store, some have had a rank in the hundreds of thousands. And I take no credit for either of those. Reviews are just one part of an overall marketing strategy that every author determines for themselves. Do I think that they help? Yes, I do. But mostly in a comparison sense. If there are 2 books of equal interest to someone and one has 100 very positive reviews and another has no reviews or just a handful, I think more readers would, at the very least, click first on the one with many reviews to see what all the buzz is about. And getting them to look deeper at your book is the first step to making a sale. So everything you can do to get them there is worth it, in my opinion.

As for Fakespot - I don't know much about them or what they do or how they judge. If they're biased towards verified reviews, as I would suspect is likely, then yes - I expect that any ARC reviewed book would end up with a low score - including those sent out by authors to their own lists. Does that make the reviews fake? Not in my opinion. If Fakespot identifies legit reviews as fake simply because they're unverified, then I think that's pretty questionable. But again, I don't know if they're doing that. All I know is that our reviews are all by real readers, so if Fakespot calls those reviews fake then it would make me question the legitimacy of their algorithms.



kspen said:


> Also, this is on your website:
> Is there any basis for this claim? This is the first I've heard of any suggestion that the bestseller rank takes into account anything other than actual sales activity, and what I've quoted is written in a particularly weaselly way. I do respect the way that you guys have operated your business in general, but that line in your FAQ strikes me as dishonest (unless I'm missing something).


That FAQ was written over a year ago, so I don't know specifically where I heard that at the time, although I have definitely heard it from authors now and again in different forums I frequent as something that some suspect to be the case. I just did a quick google search, actually, and found a number of articles that discuss the idea that reviews may affect ranking however they now say that the theory is that "verified" reviews affect ranking. So it could be that the prevailing wisdom (such that it is, given that it's really just a guess either way) has changed since I first wrote that. Perhaps those changes came after Amazon's latest crackdown on unverified reviews on most products. But given that, I agree, I should probably alter that line so thank you for bringing it to my attention. Sometimes things slip away from me.

I do still think that there can be an indirect cause and affect towards rank, though, based on the idea of social proof of having many reviews leading to a more likely click on your book over someone else's. I have read some theories that this CTR alone can increase your rank but again, I don't know how much basis in fact there is to that. But if those clicks lead to more sales, then that would definitely increase your rank. Still, that's a much more round-about way to increase your rank than what I have in my FAQ now so I do agree it should (will) be changed. Probably tomorrow, as it's getting late.

Anyway, hopefully you don't mind the lengthy response here and maybe I've covered some of your questions/concerns - I'm not sure. Definitely our service isn't for everyone, but I think most authors just figure out an overall marketing strategy that makes sense to them and for some, having a lot of honest reviews is the way to go. For others it isn't. I don't think either way is more right or wrong because I think every book is different, and there is no one right path to success.

We just happen to service those that believe that having reviews on their book is a helpful strategy. But I do appreciate the comments as I'm always open to improving both our service, and our messaging. Thanks.

HG


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## Book Cat (Jan 3, 2016)

Hi

I'm not sure if I just missed it, but what are your prices for this service? I saw the USD $20 deposit requirement, but not the cost of the service. I see through reading the comments in this thread that you par per review left (I understand you're not paying people for the review just for them to read it and hopefully leave a review), is that correct? If so, how much is it per review?

Thanks.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

RileyMorrison said:


> I'm not sure if I just missed it, but what are your prices for this service? I saw the USD $20 deposit requirement, but not the cost of the service. I see through reading the comments in this thread that you par per review left (I understand you're not paying people for the review just for them to read it and hopefully leave a review), is that correct? If so, how much is it per review?


It's in our FAQ, but _you pay per reviewer that we send the book to_, not per review as we cannot guarantee a specific number of reviews since they're honest and voluntary. All we can do is maintain a list of reviewers that are avid readers of each genre and typically leave reviews, and as such our average number of reviews left is over 80% per book. So if we send your book to 100 reviewers, on average you'll get back about 80 reviews. Some get less, some get more. I don't think I've seen anyone get less than 50%, and it's rare to get even near that number, and some books get 100%, but the average is over the 80% mark. Generally most of those reviews will be in within about 2 weeks of sending your book out, with most of them coming in around the one week mark when reviews are "due". But some readers are slower readers or things come up, etc. If your book is live when we send it out we include the links, so faster readers often get their reviews in well before the one week mark. We charge $2 per reviewer but cap the price once you order 150 or more reviewers. However, as Bill stated above, for many genres we don't have as many reviewers so we can't always deliver the number ordered - in which case we only charge for the number that do sign up, even if it's less than our 50 minimum.

We started with Romance so that's our biggest pool, but we're growing all of them now. Unless the book is very fringe, even our smallest genres usually get at least 10-20 people signing up, and lately we've been getting closer to 30-50 in a few of them. Fantasy can sometimes find 100 sign ups, depending on the book, Erotica more than that, etc. We did our first Children's book last week and had I think about 50 sign up for that (marketed to our reviewers more for parents to read to/with their kids).

Each book we send out to a genre includes the cover and info about the book, so all sign ups are voluntary based on interest level and time by the reviewer for that book. That's why even though we may have 1000 people in a specific genre, we might only be able to send out to about 20 if that's all that signed up for it. That helps keep our percentages high, as well as gives you a better chance at finding readers pre-disposed to liking your specific book - not a guarantee of course - but at least you don't have someone in scifi that hates reading about spaceships getting your newest space opera, or whatever.

Anyway, hope that helps but let me know if you have any other questions.
HG


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

kspen said:


> Thank you for your reply. I think my main question may have gotten lost -- what I'd really like to know is if those additional reviews actually help generate sales. Putting myself in the shoes of someone who doesn't know anything about where the ARC reviewers came from, I think I'd be pretty skeptical of those reviews... unless they are negative. So to some extent, it almost seems like a no-win situation for the author. But I'd like to keep an open mind, since people don't always behave the way I expect.


Sorry about not responding to your main question. You could have a point, though I think sometimes we as authors are more sensitive to some issues than the average reader is.

Most of my friends are readers. A lot of them don't even know what self-publishing is. (I don't talk about my own writing with friends unless they ask.) Most of them glance at reviews, but hardly anyone I know seriously analyzes them. People who buy a book with high reviews that turns out to be terrible may become more skeptical, but I think most buyers pay enough attention to product description and Look Inside that they'll spot some red flags despite the reviews.

As I said in my previous post, aside from the disclosure statement, the ARC reviews look pretty much like my organic reviews on the same book, so I don't see an automatically skeptical reaction as being that likely.

As Becca says, no one really knows how much impact reviews actually have. I did read on some forum post a few months back that purchases are three times as likely to click buy on a book with fifty reviews than on one with no reviews, but I'm not sure what the source of that information is. Personally, I don't expect a brand-new book to have a lot a reviews, but if one does that certainly isn't a turnoff for me. It's only when the product description and Look Inside create a different impression that I worry.


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## Kay7979 (Aug 20, 2016)

I just want to point out that those of us in Kindle Unlimited get unverified reviews. I get a lot of KU reads in addition to actual sales, so I will always have a large number of unverified reviews. 

I've just submitted my second book to Hidden Gems, so you can consider that a vote of confidence. Some reviews from this service have been rather brief and not polished. The most recent sounds as if the reviewer is not a native English speaker. But readers who leave reviews, whether organically or through this service, should not be expected to be eloquent writers themselves. Professional book bloggers will obviously write better reviews. The wide range of writing styles and commentary from Hidden Gems reviewers should lay to rest any idea that these reviews aren't "real readers."


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## kspen (Aug 12, 2017)

Thanks again for the responses. I guess the issue for me is that I've come across books where most of the reviews were obviously left by family/friends, and I've come across books with lots of ARC reviews where the reviewers were obviously recruited from the author's fan base. So I always scrutinize the reviews if I see anything out of the ordinary, and I pass on any book where something seems off. And to clear up one point -- when I refer to low quality reviews, I mean it specifically in that sense that they're out of the ordinary and give a reason to be skeptical. I've rarely seen ARC reviews really criticizing a book, so I take them with an extra grain of salt.

But I'm glad to see that I could be in the minority here.


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## JDMatheny (May 7, 2017)

Kay7979 said:


> I just want to point out that those of us in Kindle Unlimited get unverified reviews. I get a lot of KU reads in addition to actual sales, so I will always have a large number of unverified reviews.
> 
> I've just submitted my second book to Hidden Gems, so you can consider that a vote of confidence. Some reviews from this service have been rather brief and not polished. The most recent sounds as if the reviewer is not a native English speaker. But readers who leave reviews, whether organically or through this service, should not be expected to be eloquent writers themselves. Professional book bloggers will obviously write better reviews. The wide range of writing styles and commentary from Hidden Gems reviewers should lay to rest any idea that these reviews aren't "real readers."


I'm on my fifth day of launch for my debut novel. It's been slow, with about six sales a day on average. I'm considering using Hidden Gems to spur on sales, as I'm concerned many people might pass it over seeing that it has zero reviews. Being that my book is enrolled in Kindle Select, I'm worried that it might violate Amazon's policy of not distributing digital copies. I've read some opinions that distribution is considering offering the book to the public and ARC's are okay, but I'm trying to be sure. Can anybody answer that for me?


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## crow.bar.beer (Oct 20, 2014)

Go for it.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

JDMatheny said:


> I'm on my fifth day of launch for my debut novel. It's been slow, with about six sales a day on average. I'm considering using Hidden Gems to spur on sales, as I'm concerned many people might pass it over seeing that it has zero reviews. Being that my book is enrolled in Kindle Select, I'm worried that it might violate Amazon's policy of not distributing digital copies. I've read some opinions that distribution is considering offering the book to the public and ARC's are okay, but I'm trying to be sure. Can anybody answer that for me?


Amazon customer reps have said that offering a limited number of review copies to people is not a violation of the Select TOS. It would be better if the TOS itself stated that, but I've never heard of anyone having a problem with it. You would have a problem with a public link anyone could download from. Having Hidden Gems manage the distribution privately is really no different from your emailing the book to prospective reviewers, and people do that all the time with their own ARC teams.

By the way, six sales a day isn't bad for a debut. You might want to consider scheduling some promos if you haven't already. Some promoters will take debut novels without reviews. Promotion has a bigger impact during the first thirty days than the same amount will later.


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## JDMatheny (May 7, 2017)

Bill Hiatt said:


> Amazon customer reps have said that offering a limited number of review copies to people is not a violation of the Select TOS. It would be better if the TOS itself stated that, but I've never heard of anyone having a problem with it. You would have a problem with a public link anyone could download from. Having Hidden Gems manage the distribution privately is really no different from your emailing the book to prospective reviewers, and people do that all the time with their own ARC teams.
> 
> By the way, six sales a day isn't bad for a debut. You might want to consider scheduling some promos if you haven't already. Some promoters will take debut novels without reviews. Promotion has a bigger impact during the first thirty days than the same amount will later.


Thanks Bill, very helpful, I appreciate it! As for promos, I have scheduled out a fair amount of cheaper promos over the first couple weeks.


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## KeithWardFiction (Jul 26, 2016)

I've used Hidden Gems for the first two books in my fantasy series, and will be using them for the third book soon. I've been very happy -- there aren't a ton of reviewers in that genre yet, but it's building. I also found the reviews to be very solid, and at least 75% of those who asked for the book to review ended up reviewing it. 

I highly recommend the service (and have no relationship with the company other than being a happy customer).


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## SBlake (Mar 23, 2017)

I've used Hidden Gems for all three of the books in my new series. I paid for 50 readers in each case. With book 1 I got 48 reviewers with a 4.1 average. Book 2 I got 50 readers and 50 reviews with a 4.4 average. Book 3 is still taking in reviews and probably will continue to do so for at least the next week; it's at 4.2 so far with 9 reviewers. None of these averages are as high as I would like, but this is my first time out of the gate with this genre and pen name. I understand it's going to take time for me to learn the ropes and write (better) to market. 

I love this service and intend to use them for all of my new releases going forward. Like most, I can't wait for the organic, verified reviews to start coming in, but this service helps to lend some credibility to a new book/pen name, IMO.


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## C. Rysalis (Feb 26, 2015)

May I ask how far in advance of the publication date the ARC copies must be provided? Thanks!


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## Book Cat (Jan 3, 2016)

KeithWardFiction said:


> I've used Hidden Gems for the first two books in my fantasy series, and will be using them for the third book soon. I've been very happy -- there aren't a ton of reviewers in that genre yet, but it's building. I also found the reviews to be very solid, and at least 75% of those who asked for the book to review ended up reviewing it.
> 
> I highly recommend the service (and have no relationship with the company other than being a happy customer).


My book is fantasy and I am planning on using them. I am a little worried though, as mine is epic fantasy. The book is 139k words long and I worry it will turn the ARC reviewers off. An author friend of mine had a good experience with them too for his launch. I just hope they will be ok with my long book...


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## JDMatheny (May 7, 2017)

C. Rysalis said:


> May I ask how far in advance of the publication date the ARC copies must be provided? Thanks!


If you click on the Book Now of their website there's a calendar that shows a start date of when they send the book out to reviewers. After a week they send out a reminder email that reviews are needed (not required). So it's a fast turnaround. I signed up yesterday in the thriller category and my start date was the 20th.


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## Kay7979 (Aug 20, 2016)

RileyMorrison said:


> My book is fantasy and I am planning on using them. I am a little worried though, as mine is epic fantasy. The book is 139k words long and I worry it will turn the ARC reviewers off. An author friend of mine had a good experience with them too for his launch. I just hope they will be ok with my long book...


My first book is around 105K, my second about 90K. After having good results with book one, I decided to try the second book. I sent both books together so readers who didn't want to jump into book two without the backstory necessary to fully understand it had the option to read both, and some did. That means they were reading close to 200K in one shot. It might take a little longer to get some of the reviews back, but I don't think a long book will pose a problem.


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## KeithWardFiction (Jul 26, 2016)

> The book is 139k words long and I worry it will turn the ARC reviewers off.


My next is about 145k; I'm not worried that the length will be an issue. I do think the reviews will (obviously) take longer to come in, but that's fine.


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## 97251 (Jun 22, 2017)

I just wanted to add that I used this service for my first novel. 

It's a difficult genre, cause it's younger YA, almost upper MG. I got 15 reviewers from Hidden Gems. 

Out of that, I think some 9 to 11 people reviewed it. I liked the reviews very much. They were detailed and insightful.

I don't know if people will shy away from long books, but my guess is no. 

These are readers looking for fun, looking for enjoyment in reading, and if they like epic fantasy they'll like long books.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

RileyMorrison said:


> My book is fantasy and I am planning on using them. I am a little worried though, as mine is epic fantasy. The book is 139k words long and I worry it will turn the ARC reviewers off. An author friend of mine had a good experience with them too for his launch. I just hope they will be ok with my long book...


People who like to read won't be turned off by a longer book. It's hard for me to visualize people who don't like to read signing up to be an ARC reader, since the only compensation is free books.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

SBlake said:


> I've used Hidden Gems for all three of the books in my new series. I paid for 50 readers in each case. With book 1 I got 48 reviewers with a 4.1 average. Book 2 I got 50 readers and 50 reviews with a 4.4 average. Book 3 is still taking in reviews and probably will continue to do so for at least the next week; it's at 4.2 so far with 9 reviewers. None of these averages are as high as I would like, but this is my first time out of the gate with this genre and pen name. I understand it's going to take time for me to learn the ropes and write (better) to market.
> 
> I love this service and intend to use them for all of my new releases going forward. Like most, I can't wait for the organic, verified reviews to start coming in, but this service helps to lend some credibility to a new book/pen name, IMO.


Those are actually good averages.

Though reviews can sometimes be useful to authors by pointing out areas of improvement, it's important to keep in mind that book reviewing is inherently a subjective process. It's also important to note that the ARC reviewers may or may not be representative of the general public.

A few things I've noticed with both my organic reviews and those from Hidden Gems:

First, the standards for assigning stars are not uniform among reviewers. I have four-reviews that sound a lot like five-star reviews to me. (One just said "awesome.") On the other hand, I occasionally get five-star reviews that sound a lot like four-stars. The exact star rating may not be as telling as what the reviewer actually says.

Second, reviewers can differ radically about what they like and don't like. I've frequently gotten opposite criticisms on the same book (too much action vs. not enough action). I've also had situations in which the very thing one reviewer damned, another praised. Unless I get a chunk of reviews with the same criticism, I don't worry too much.

Third, not every reviewer is someone who necessarily reads primarily in your genre. With Hidden Gems, I'm sure the reviewers indicate what genres they're willing to read, but that doesn't mean they have equal experience in all of them. That goes double for organic reviews. It isn't always possible to tell, but if the reviewer has reviewed a lot of books, you can tell from the profile. For instance, if someone reviews mostly epic fantasy and just has one review for an urban fantasy, I wouldn't worry as much if the reviewer didn't like the urban fantasy. That sounds more like trying a new subgenre and not liking it than just not liking that particular book. (I mention this because it affects how you weigh reviews if you want to write to market.) One of my organic reviews is a one-star on a book everyone else five-starred so far. When I glanced at the profile, the reviewer mostly reviews things like plumbing fixtures, hardly ever reviews books, and seems never to have reviewed the genre before. I'm not giving that review as much weight as I would one from someone who reads extensively in the genre.


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## Guest (Oct 16, 2017)

Denise, does that mean the reviews only cost you $30? Or do they still charge $100?


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## AA.A (Sep 6, 2012)

I have just booked Max Reviews with them for my Literary Fiction, Drama (Vague I know). It has a touch of romance, and war inside.

It is for "Baghdad: The Final Gathering" that came out exactly a year ago. It has currently 7 reviews on Amazon.com, with an average of 4.5/5. One review in CA, and another in The UK store, and 13 reviews on Goodreads. 

Let us see how many I will get.


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## Guest (Oct 16, 2017)

Good luck, Ahmad! I'm in a similar boat with a YA book (7 Amazon reviews with a 4.5 avg) I released last February and am considering booking with them too.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

kspen said:


> Thanks again for the responses. I guess the issue for me is that I've come across books where most of the reviews were obviously left by family/friends, and I've come across books with lots of ARC reviews where the reviewers were obviously recruited from the author's fan base. So I always scrutinize the reviews if I see anything out of the ordinary, and I pass on any book where something seems off. And to clear up one point -- when I refer to low quality reviews, I mean it specifically in that sense that they're out of the ordinary and give a reason to be skeptical. I've rarely seen ARC reviews really criticizing a book, so I take them with an extra grain of salt.
> 
> But I'm glad to see that I could be in the minority here.


Hidden Gems is legit and IMO currently the only review service that delivers for what the authors pay for in terms of getting actual reviews. Often times authors give out review copies only to have reviewers flake out on them.

Secondly, as an author I'm just so tired of hearing people doubt ARC reviewers. Skeptical about F&F I can understand. But ARC reviewers? We had this whole discussion already on another thread not too long ago. When I have ARC readers, I swear I sit on pins and needles before the reviews come in because I haven't the slightest clue if they'd like my book or not. The idea that ARC reviewers (not incentivized) will automatically give good reviews makes no logical sense whatsoever.

As far as reviews by the authors' fans -- why are those reviews invalid? The fact that an author has fans by itself is indicative that the author's books are quality enough to give him or her a fan base. Fans don't blindly give out good reviews unless they like the book. If the author's next book doesn't deliver, they aren't going to leave a good review for us just because. They're not our disciples. We're not some good looking celebrity like Harry Styles with a lot of starry-eyed fangirls who are in love with us and would say good things about us and our books no matter what as long as we stay single and good looking.

I really can't understand it. There's no logic in discounting the opinion of a fan of a book or author, and somehow the opinion of a reader who doesn't like the book is worth more.

What is really going on is that the human mind is designed to look for the negative because the process of exclusion is how we can make choices in this world of too much information. It's the way our brains are wired. The process of elimination helps to narrow down the choices. That's fine. But it does not logically follow that good reviews by fans are invalid.


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## 97251 (Jun 22, 2017)

Kat M said:


> Denise, does that mean the reviews only cost you $30? Or do they still charge $100?


Only 30$. Very good!

Edit: I want to add that I have a Fakespot score of 90%, or A.

And the low price for less reviewers means that authors in less popular genres can still use the service without risk.


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## Guest (Oct 16, 2017)

Yes, very good! Sounds well worth it.


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## crow.bar.beer (Oct 20, 2014)

Kat M said:


> Denise, does that mean the reviews only cost you $30? Or do they still charge $100?


It's a function of how many reviewers claim your book. It cost her $30 because she had 15 claims, the $100 is if you get 50.


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## Guest (Oct 16, 2017)

Yes, I understand. I just wasn't sure if they were still operating in that same way - that the minimum you can book is 50 reviewers ($100) but they won't charge you for that minimum if there aren't 50. Glad to know this is still the case.


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## kspen (Aug 12, 2017)

AlexaKang said:


> Secondly, as an author I'm just so tired of hearing people doubt ARC reviewers. Skeptical about F&F I can understand. But ARC reviewers? We had this whole discussion already on another thread not too long ago. When I have ARC readers, I swear I sit on pins and needles before the reviews come in because I haven't the slightest clue if they'd like my book or not. The idea that ARC reviewers (not incentivized) will automatically give good reviews makes no logical sense whatsoever.


It doesn't matter what the truth is. What matters is the perception of the average reader. They don't know where the ARC reviewers came from or if they followed any ethical standards. When I come across them, the only thing I can be sure of is that the author was involved in some way and had some reason to expect the reviews to help sell the book. I don't know if that reason is because they have confidence in their product or if it's because they have confidence in their ability to get their product into the hands of reviewers who are predisposed to give a good review. For example, I saw a reviewer on Amazon whose username and info announced that she would review books in exchange for a free copy, and 99% of the reviews she posted were raving five-star reviews proclaiming the books to all be the greatest thing since sliced bread. I've seen authors talk about browsing through reviewers' profiles on Amazon and then emailing just the ones who they think would like their book. With all that sort of nonsense going on, I'm not going to give credence to reviews that could have been manipulated in any way.



> As far as reviews by the authors' fans -- why are those reviews invalid? The fact that an author has fans by itself is indicative that the author's books are quality enough to give him or her a fan base.


It's a form of selection bias. You'll often see that the first book of a series has a much lower average rating than all of the other books in the series. It doesn't mean that the author got better in book two. It just means that book one already filtered out all of the readers who dislike the author's writing. Those reviews may help to compare an author's books against each other, but I've not found them helpful for comparing one author to another.

ETA: And my point about reviews by the author's fans was specifically in reference to ARC reviews, which goes back to what I said in the first paragraph of this post: If the author is involved in picking out the reviewers, then that's a manipulation of the review process. I don't care about endorsements from people who were hand-picked by the author to write a review.


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## Kay7979 (Aug 20, 2016)

AlexaKang said:


> Hidden Gems is legit and IMO currently the only review service that delivers for what the authors pay for in terms of getting actual reviews. Often times authors give out review copies only to have reviewers flake out on them.
> 
> Secondly, as an author I'm just so tired of hearing people doubt ARC reviewers. Skeptical about F&F I can understand. But ARC reviewers? We had this whole discussion already on another thread not too long ago. When I have ARC readers, I swear I sit on pins and needles before the reviews come in because I haven't the slightest clue if they'd like my book or not. The idea that ARC reviewers (not incentivized) will automatically give good reviews makes no logical sense whatsoever.
> 
> ...


Well said. I totally agree with all of this.


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## Kay7979 (Aug 20, 2016)

kspen said:


> I've seen authors talk about browsing through reviewers' profiles on Amazon and then emailing just the ones who they think would like their book. With all that sort of nonsense going on, I'm not going to give credence to reviews that could have been manipulated in any way.


I don't think that's nonsense. I don't use that method, but if I did, naturally I would approach people who like my genre in general and books similar to mine in particular. I write fantasy, so I wouldn't ask a romance or thriller reader to review my book. Nor would I ask a fantasy reader that likes Game of Thrones type violent plots about warring political factions to read my non-violent portal story that features gnomes. Readers who love G-rated fantasy books about gnomes won't automatically love my book. It has to be well written and engaging. But my chances are better than if I used Game of Thrones fans.

Naturally, most readers buy the kinds of books they enjoy. ARC reviewers are no different--they sign up to read books that appeal to them. There's nothing manipulative about that. It's just logical.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

kspen said:


> It doesn't matter what the truth is. What matters is the perception of the average reader. They don't know where the ARC reviewers came from or if they followed any ethical standards. When I come across them, the only thing I can be sure of is that the author was involved in some way and had some reason to expect the reviews to help sell the book. I don't know if that reason is because they have confidence in their product or if it's because they have confidence in their ability to get their product into the hands of reviewers who are predisposed to give a good review. For example, I saw a reviewer on Amazon whose username and info announced that she would review books in exchange for a free copy, and 99% of the reviews she posted were raving five-star reviews proclaiming the books to all be the greatest thing since sliced bread. I've seen authors talk about browsing through reviewers' profiles on Amazon and then emailing just the ones who they think would like their book. With all that sort of nonsense going on, I'm not going to give credence to reviews that could have been manipulated in any way.


In my experience most average readers don't care. They want to see some feedback from people who had read the book. If some readers get all doubtful about it, then oh well. Their loss. I'm just tired of the accusations that authors who use review services are doing something shady. It's not true when the review service is at arms length and there's no special incentive.

The reason we use review services has nothing to do with lack of confidence. As I said I have no freakin clue how the readers from the review services will rate my book. For I l know, they would come back with 1 or 2 star ratings and trash my book for being awful. My confidence has nothing to do with it whether the reviews come from them or organic browsers.

I don't know how reviewers from a 3rd party review services are "predisposed" to giving good reviews. What incentives do they have other than a free copy? A free copy isn't worth a whole lot comparing to the time they have to spend to read and also to write a review. Readers today can go to Instafreebie and get free books gallore to their heart's desire, without the obligation to read and write a review. I don't know what manipulation is involved with a process like Hidden Gems. It's the same process as how traditionally published books have always been given away at launch for many many years before there's such a thing as indie-pub. The nonsense you described don't apply to Hidden Gems or the authors who use HG services.

I can't speak for others but I use them because some promo sites require them before we buy promos. So in that respect, yes the reviews do help us sell books because without them I can't place ads with promoters I want to place ads with. I use them because they're arms' length services so I don't have to go around "handpicking" (as you put it) reviewers myself.

And yes, while some readers such as youself doubt ARC reviews, my experience is more average readers don't care. What they want is some other readers input, or they just want to see that the book has a number of reviews already, to help them decide to buy or not, so in that sense, having more reviews do help us sell. But again, I don't see any manipulation going on. I don't see the author offering a book available for review to unknown readers as manipulation. It's been done in the industry as part of book launches. If I could, I'd love to hand a copy to the NYT the way Harper Collins would send their published books, but unfortunately NYT is not interested in taking a copy by an indie author. But now why is the NYT reviewer's opinion not doubted? He/she got a free copy.



> It's a form of selection bias. You'll often see that the first book of a series has a much lower average rating than all of the other books in the series. It doesn't mean that the author got better in book two. It just means that book one already filtered out all of the readers who dislike the author's writing. Those reviews may help to compare an author's books against each other, but I've not found them helpful for comparing one author to another.
> 
> ETA: And my point about reviews by the author's fans was specifically in reference to ARC reviews, which goes back to what I said in the first paragraph of this post: If the author is involved in picking out the reviewers, then that's a manipulation of the review process. I don't care about endorsements from people who were hand-picked by the author to write a review.


So if the fans really like the author's work and want to support the author they like, that means their opinions and reviews are invalid. That makes no sense to me.


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## AA.A (Sep 6, 2012)

Kat M said:


> Good luck, Ahmad! I'm in a similar boat with a YA book (7 Amazon reviews with a 4.5 avg) I released last February and am considering booking with them too.


 Thanks Kat. Wish you the same!


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## Guest (Oct 17, 2017)

Thanks, Ahmad! I made my booking last night and am excited to see how it goes.


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## Guy Riessen (Mar 27, 2016)

Kay7979 said:


> Naturally, most readers buy the kinds of books they enjoy. ARC reviewers are no different--they sign up to read books that appeal to them. There's nothing manipulative about that. It's just logical.


Exactly!

All you have to do is take a look at ANY popular writer--you'll find that even though it's the actual author's FANS reading the book, if it doesn't deliver the experience they expect from their beloved author, they get low scores--sometimes even lower than what they might give to an unknown author who they are willing to cut some slack for.

Just as an example, I pulled a non-verified review from a traditional author I like, this is from the first author I tried looking at...it's not like I searched long and hard for this example.
"This story seemed almost as if it was an idea for a book that was yet to be developed. It never became exciting and the characters were not interesting. Not one of my favorites."
That's from a reader who's a fan of the author. This is not uncommon--your fans can often be your harshest audience, because they have high expectation for enjoying your work. They are not brainwashed, or even invested in any way in your success.

I rank the validity of reviews as follows:
1. Fans--most reliable. These are people who are presumable similar readers to me. If they love an author, there's a good chance I will. There's always a chance this group can be polluted by friends and family...but those reviews are usually fairly easy to spot because they tend to be written with non-specific fluff superlatives.

2. ARC readers--Fairly reliable. At least these readers tend to be overall fans of the genre. If an ARC reader enjoys a Thriller, and a book I'm interested in is a Thriller, then their opinion is going to be fairly valid.

3. Random Verified Purchaser--By FAR the least reliable. I have no idea what made any particular reader pick up a book to review it, so how can I effectively understand if their idea of a good book is even remotely similar to my own? I can't. You can see this evidence of this problem for yourself by looking at reviews for short stories. Inevitably you'll find a reviewer who's response (Even though the book is titled Johnny Thriller, A Short Story Thriller) is "The book was too short, 1-star." And that's a case where they ARE admitting bias--most reviews DON'T admit biases such as "I normally hate thrillers, but a friend gave this to me for Christmas and hounded me to read it. It was terrible. 2-stars"



kspen said:


> I've seen authors talk about browsing through reviewers' profiles on Amazon and then emailing just the ones who they think would like their book. With all that sort of nonsense going on, I'm not going to give credence to reviews that could have been manipulated in any way.
> 
> It's a form of selection bias.


What? So if you like romance novels you'd trust someone who usually reads horror and happens to stumble across a romance novel that they read and hate? Really? Not me. I'd much rather listen to someone who also likes romance novels, who "Self-Selects" themselves into a romance reader's group. I don't really understand why anyone would put more credence in a blind pool.

All that said, I like the response Hidden Gems seems to be getting here  How big is your current pool for horror readers?


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## kspen (Aug 12, 2017)

Guy Riessen said:


> I rank the validity of reviews as follows:
> 1. Fans--most reliable. These are people who are presumable similar readers to me. If they love an author, there's a good chance I will. There's always a chance this group can be polluted by friends and family...but those reviews are usually fairly easy to spot because they tend to be written with non-specific fluff superlatives.
> 
> 2. ARC readers--Fairly reliable. At least these readers tend to be overall fans of the genre. If an ARC reader enjoys a Thriller, and a book I'm interested in is a Thriller, then their opinion is going to be fairly valid.
> ...


Let me clarify:

If I'm already a fan of an author, then reviews from the author's fans will probably match my reading experience. However, if I'm already a fan of the author, then I don't need to use the reviews to decide to buy more of their books! I'd be doing that anyway. The only way the reviews could change my decision would be to stop me from buying a book.

If I'm not already familiar with the author, then reviews from the author's fans don't help me. Authors can vary a lot in style within a genre, and most authors are relatively consistent from one book to the next, so just reading reviews along the lines of "I love every book by this author" tells me nothing. Each author has a weakness, and the weaknesses are usually going to be pointed out by people who read one book from the author and disliked it and didn't read anything else by the author. The author's fans are the ones who don't mind the author's weaknesses, so they aren't going to point them out in their reviews. And remember, an author's fans are a tiny minority of total readers. Each day Bookbub sends another set of books into the hands of tens of thousands of readers, and maybe 1% of them become fans of the author. So if I see a new release with twenty glowing reviews from people on the author's mailing list, what does it really tell me? For all I know, 99% of people think the author sucks. The way to find out is to look not at those reviews, but the reviews on their most popular books which will have a lot of reviews from non-fans.


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## kspen (Aug 12, 2017)

Guy Riessen said:


> What? So if you like romance novels you'd trust someone who usually reads horror and happens to stumble across a romance novel that they read and hate? Really? Not me. I'd much rather listen to someone who also likes romance novels, who "Self-Selects" themselves into a romance reader's group. I don't really understand why anyone would put more credence in a blind pool.


No. I'm talking about someone going through reviewers in their genre, and then hand-picking reviewers from within that subset who are likely to give five stars.


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## C. Rysalis (Feb 26, 2015)

KeithWardFiction said:


> My next is about 145k; I'm not worried that the length will be an issue. I do think the reviews will (obviously) take longer to come in, but that's fine.


The first in my series is technically 260K...... 

I say 'technically' because I chickened out and split it into two books. But readers complain that book 1 doesn't contain enough story (book 2 does...) so now I have to put them back together as a duology, and make that one the entry point for the series. The joy of 3 POVs that are initially separate, like in Game of Thrones... long books.

I wonder if Hidden Gems would accept a 260K book?


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## Guest (Oct 23, 2017)

Providing ARCs through a service like this seems to be the opposite of hand-picking reviewers. We have no idea who will read the books, just that the reviewer themselves felt interested enough to request it.


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## kspen (Aug 12, 2017)

Kat M said:


> Providing ARCs through a service like this seems to be the opposite of hand-picking reviewers. We have no idea who will read the books, just that the reviewer themselves felt interested enough to request it.


As I said before, when I'm reading reviews that just say "I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review," I don't know how the author found those people. If they elaborate, then I can take that into account. But most of them don't.


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## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

AlexaKang said:


> Hidden Gems is legit and IMO currently the only review service that delivers for what the authors pay for in terms of getting actual reviews. Often times authors give out review copies only to have reviewers flake out on them.
> 
> Secondly, as an author I'm just so tired of hearing people doubt ARC reviewers. Skeptical about F&F I can understand. But ARC reviewers? We had this whole discussion already on another thread not too long ago. When I have ARC readers, I swear I sit on pins and needles before the reviews come in because I haven't the slightest clue if they'd like my book or not. The idea that ARC reviewers (not incentivized) will automatically give good reviews makes no logical sense whatsoever.


Many of us explained to you in the very thread you bring up why ARC readers aren't all that valid to us readers. As was explained, an "ARC team" would not be built up of people who give low ratings for books.

Sure, you might have some new ARC readers give you a one or two star that hates the book but those reviewers wouldn't last long on the ARC team. ARC teams by their very definition search out people that LIKE your books. Very few newsletter subscribers would agree to this task if they didn't like the books, still less would be invited back if they were giving damning reviews.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Herefortheride said:


> Many of us explained to you in the very thread you bring up why ARC readers aren't all that valid to us readers. As was explained, an "ARC team" would not be built up of people who give low ratings for books.
> 
> Sure, you might have some new ARC readers give you a one or two star that hates the book but those reviewers wouldn't last long on the ARC team. ARC teams by their very definition search out people that LIKE your books. Very few newsletter subscribers would agree to this task if they didn't like the books, still less would be invited back if they were giving damning reviews.


You realize you are posting on the Hidden Gems marketing thread, right? Hidden Gems is a third party company offering review services, not an ARC reviewers team builder. There is no ARC team involved in what they do, so I don't know why ARC team is relevant here. I also think this discusion should perhaps be mied elsewhere as it probably isn't fair for HG to keep getting their marketing thread derailed when other service providers' threads don't.

But even as to the ARC team issue, I still disagree. I've explained already why on the other thread. You all think lots of authors are out there pulling shenanigans like we're the pied piper with tons of readers dying to post reviews for us and we get to even handpick only the good ones. I'm saying those days are over. Most authors, except those who had built such a very large loyal fan base during the indie gold rush, can't build ARC teams. Readers aren't interested. They fun and hype is over. More and more you see new authors begging for honest reviews. Many ARC reviewers come from netgalley, where reviewers tend to be harsher. I'm not seeing the kind of easy good reviews infesting the market the way you describe. Especially not from authors who debuted in my year and onward.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Guy Riessen said:


> All that said, I like the response Hidden Gems seems to be getting here  How big is your current pool for horror readers?


Hi Guy - I know you sent me an email about this and I responded to that, but I figured I'd give a quick answer here as well for anyone else that may be interested.

All of our genres are a work in progress and we continue to gather new reviewers daily, but some are stronger than others. The more books we get in a particular genre, the more reviewers we can attract to it - so in some ways it's a chicken and egg issue, but all genres that we cover have SOME readers.

Horror in general usually gets from 10-30 sign ups, so it's one of our lower ones right now but we have only had a handful of straight horror books come through. When there is genre crossover then we can send to a couple genres (say, Thriller and Horror) and often that leads to higher sign ups - as long as you're clear in your description/blurb/sub categories, then you should still get only people interested in your particular content signing up.

But as with all genres and books, regardless of how many readers you ask for, if we can't get that many sign ups you still only pay for the number that we do get. So in that sense, you won't be penalized for our growth problems. It's something we're actively working on though, for all genres.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

C. Rysalis said:


> The first in my series is technically 260K......
> 
> I say 'technically' because I chickened out and split it into two books. But readers complain that book 1 doesn't contain enough story (book 2 does...) so now I have to put them back together as a duology, and make that one the entry point for the series. The joy of 3 POVs that are initially separate, like in Game of Thrones... long books.
> 
> I wonder if Hidden Gems would accept a 260K book?


Absolutely. I think that as long as you're clear in your blurb/description about the length, then you'll be fine. We typically give a week before we start reminding reviewers to leave reviews, but in some cases we can give longer - so maybe that would be something we would discuss. Maybe giving readers 10 days or something.

Thing is, what we find is that the majority of our reviewers are really big readers - the reason many of them sign up for our service is that they read a TON of books and if they had to buy them all, they'd go broke. So this helps give them fresh content and all they have to do is provide their opinion in return. Some readers speed through a regular sized novel in a day or two, so even if we gave them extra time I imagine a bunch would still get their reviews in earlier, but then there are other readers that take longer. Either way, I'm sure you'd have a lot of interest and I don't think the size would put many people off. But I would still recommend being up front about it, just in case it is a factor for some. If so, they'll just skip signing up and wait for the next one.


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## Guy Riessen (Mar 27, 2016)

HiddenGems said:


> Hi Guy - I know you sent me an email about this and I responded to that, but I figured I'd give a quick answer here as well for anyone else that may be interested.
> 
> All of our genres are a work in progress and we continue to gather new reviewers daily, but some are stronger than others. The more books we get in a particular genre, the more reviewers we can attract to it - so in some ways it's a chicken and egg issue, but all genres that we cover have SOME readers.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the email reply, and I'm glad you posted here as well. I think your service sounds great, and the review-ratio is quite solid. For my novella Retribution, my mailing list had 23 people who stated they were interested in reading the ARC, of that 8 left reviews...if you have a response rate of 50% or more that would be cool, even with a 20 person sign-up.

Now, the cynic in me raises its ugly head--is there a way to verify the number of sign-ups you receive? I mean, is there any way to be sure that you don't tell me I had 30 sign-ups when in reality I only had 10?


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## Mylius Fox (Jun 2, 2014)

Guy Riessen said:


> I mean, is there any way to be sure that you don't tell me I had 30 sign-ups when in reality I only had 10?


If they did that, it would make their services look worse, because then it would appear as though a much smaller percentage of readers who'd opted for your book also left a review.


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## Guy Riessen (Mar 27, 2016)

Mylius Fox said:


> If they did that, it would make their services look worse, because then it would appear as though a much smaller percentage of readers who'd opted for your book also left a review.


Good point!


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

So yeah, what Mylius Fox said is essentially it.  

If anything, what I tend to do with a lot of our growing genres is try to send out to MORE than I charge for in cases where I can't make the number requested... so for example, I give 2 days for sign ups and typically I find that most people who are going to sign up do so in the first 24 hours or so.  So if someone asks for 50 reviewers for their SF book and the first 24 hours go by and I only have 15 sign ups, I'll typically just bill for 15 and then if any others sign up during that 2nd day, I'll just throw them in for free.  If any do sign up it's usually only a few, but I'd much rather under promise and over deliver than the reverse. 

I think of it as a form of self-flagellation.  I'm punishing myself for not growing my list of readers for these genres faster.


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## xbriannova (Sep 23, 2016)

I would like to throw in my two-cents for Hidden Gems.

I think they're the real deal. I engaged a previous ARC service, and it resulted in something like ZERO to ONE review for, oh I don't know, $30 - $50. I'm not going to name names. That's despite me following their steps. I think it's bad form to make your customer do half the work anyway.

Hidden Gems did well for me. I get ten reviews at about $30 total, and they're not the kind of scammy reviews but real, true ARC reviews, honest to the core. Hell, I wish I'd get 100% 5-stars. Any kind of author would secretly want that. But the reviewers of Hidden Gems gave me exactly what I'm worth. Some thought my book is a 4-star deal, others 3-stars. Only a few thought I'm 5-star material. They've opened my eyes, confirmed what were previously suspicions and at the same time saw the good in my book where readers getting free books from me were content to see it for what it's worst at, or what my book isn't trying to achieve. Anyway, because of their honesty, I'll be sure to up my game when it comes to writing short stories, or stories in general, long or short.

I have decided to make it my SOP to submit all my books to Hidden Gems for review from now on, and I'd suggest that you guys do it too.


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## IntoTheAbyss (Mar 20, 2017)

Great service. Most reviewers were in depth and talked about what they liked and didn't like. Quite a bit of reviews, but in a more crowded genre than most. Already scheduled next book for January and then will use again for future books. 

Only minor issue is a few reviewers spoiled whole parts of the book, but going get that from organic reviews too. Is what it is.


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## Guest (Nov 17, 2017)

CL, my booking was for the 14th so reviews will be due soon. 25 people signed up to read my YA.


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## Guest (Nov 17, 2017)

Thanks, CL! I'll let you know how it went once it's all wrapped up


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## Queen Mab (Sep 9, 2011)

My experience with them has been great. The first few reviews came in quickly and were a blast to get. They were the super-enthusiastic 5-star ones! I will say that the stragglers have been more lukewarm, but I've learned something from every review. And most readers seemed to really "get" the book. So I stumbled on my target audience, which was a tremendous ego boost  I ended up with about 30 reviews. Totally worth the money.


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## Guest (Nov 24, 2017)

Just wanted to report back on my experience with Hidden Gems. Ten days out and of the 25 people who signed up to review my YA so far 17 have posted reviews on Amazon.com and 1 on Amazon.ca. The reviews range from a 2 star DNF (which I appreciate in a weird way because it's obvious these reviews are authentic and not sponsored raves) to five stars. Hidden Gems were easy to work with and delivered exactly what they promised. I've enjoyed watching the reviews come in and based on my experience would definitely use them again and recommend them to other people.


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## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

xbriannova said:


> I would like to throw in my two-cents for Hidden Gems.
> 
> I think they're the real deal. I engaged a previous ARC service, and it resulted in something like ZERO to ONE review for, oh I don't know, $30 - $50. I'm not going to name names. That's despite me following their steps. I think it's bad form to make your customer do half the work anyway.
> 
> ...


I may have had the same experience as you. I used a service that advertised on the Kboards and then I had to do a bunch of work contacting the potential reviewers and I have zero reviews to show for my 30+ dollars and several hours of work


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## saklopfenstein (Jun 16, 2017)

It says a 50 reader minimum on your Website, at $2 per reader. What exactly does the 50 minimum mean? A lot of people in this thread are mentioning paying about $30. So does that mean they had 15 sign up to receive the book?


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## Guest (Nov 24, 2017)

The minimum you can sign up for is 50 but they'll only actually charge you $2 per each person who signs up to review your book. So I signed up for 50 but only got 25 sign-ups and was charged a total of $50.



> A lot of people in this thread are mentioning paying about $30. So does that mean they had 15 sign up to receive the book?


Exactly.


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## saklopfenstein (Jun 16, 2017)

Kat M said:


> The minimum you can sign up for is 50 but they'll only actually charge you $2 per each person who signs up to review your book. So I signed up for 50 but only got 25 sign-ups and was charged a total of $50.
> 
> Exactly.


Awesome. Thanks for the clarification!


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

saklopfenstein said:


> It says a 50 reader minimum on your Website, at $2 per reader. What exactly does the 50 minimum mean? A lot of people in this thread are mentioning paying about $30. So does that mean they had 15 sign up to receive the book?


Yes. You only pay for the signups you actually receive. Keep in mind that HG started out as an ARC service for romance books, so the number of romance reviewers is large. The numbers in the other genres vary. Also, the reaction to individual books varies.

For my urban fantasy, I got about 35 signups and ended up with approximately 30 reviews from HG reviewers. (Some reviews are difficult to identify.)

I imagine the 50 minimum is in place because the service doesn't bombard the reviewers with too many requests at a time. That means there are a limited number of slots. HG wants to avoid a deluge of orders from budget-conscious indies wanting five. That could mean a lot more reviewers than can be accommodated request a book. HG needs to keep the reviewers happy enough to keep being willing to work with HG. Conceivably in a genre with a small and/or a book that's tough sell, someone might only get five, but most people will get more.

I could be wrong, but HG will correct me if I'm misinterpreting the rationale for the 50 minimum.


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## saklopfenstein (Jun 16, 2017)

Bill Hiatt said:


> Yes. You only pay for the signups you actually receive. Keep in mind that HG started out as an ARC service for romance books, so the number of romance reviewers is large. The numbers in the other genres vary. Also, the reaction to individual books varies.
> 
> For my urban fantasy, I got about 35 signups and ended up with approximately 30 reviews from HG reviewers. (Some reviews are difficult to identify.)
> 
> ...


Thanks Bill, that makes sense about avoiding a deluge of small orders. I write epic fantasy, which I imagine should have a decent pool of readers from such a site.

For those who have used this service, what was your timeline for send out ARCs in relation to your launch? I was thinking maybe a month prior?

Also, did you send eBook ARCs?


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## Guest (Nov 24, 2017)

Thanks, Cindy! I thought that was really good too - 18 out of 25 including Amazon.ca so far and who knows, maybe one or two more might still straggle in


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Bill Hiatt said:


> Yes. You only pay for the signups you actually receive. Keep in mind that HG started out as an ARC service for romance books, so the number of romance reviewers is large. The numbers in the other genres vary. Also, the reaction to individual books varies.
> 
> For my urban fantasy, I got about 35 signups and ended up with approximately 30 reviews from HG reviewers. (Some reviews are difficult to identify.)
> 
> ...


That's exactly right, Bill. Man, the way you answer questions on this thread makes me wonder if I should put you on the payroll! 

Just to add a bit of behind the scenes info - currently I try to limit the number of books I send out in a day to 4, and almost always only 1 per genre (with the exception of Romance which I'll explain below).

The website takes 1 book per genre per day and then blocks the day off when I hit 4. As you mentioned, Romance is my biggest group by far, but readers self select their genres and out of the 15 or so we have active, they can choose as many or as few as they like.

Limiting the number to 4 helps by not spreading the readers too thinly, since most readers have chosen multiple genre preferences but only sign up for the ones they want most. If we give them too much choice, every book just gets less people signing up. Until I can beef up my # of reviewers (something I'm always working on and looking at ways to improve), that number will stay at 4. But in the future perhaps we'll be able to expand it.

The 50 limit is there for the reason you mentioned - for high demand books it means me turning away less reviewers - but also because, to be completely honest, running an ARC properly is a fair bit of work and it's just not worth it if everyone was ordered 10 reviewers. Since I only charge per sign up, I often do books for that number anyway (especially in certain genres where my number of reviewers is lower), but that's more incentive for me to beef up those areas...

And since with romance we have such huge numbers, even with the 50 minimum I'm often turning many reviewers away so in some cases I will double book romances and run 2 in a day - depending on the types and the numbers people want. It's a manual thing someone emails me asking if I have an opening and if they're flexible I'll try to put them in the schedule early - especially since romance's are booked out until March at this point. I know that's way too far in advance for a lot of people, so I do my best to accommodate. But the 4 a day rule still applies in those cases, so 2 romances means only 2 slots left for non romance. I usually won't double book a romance if it's ordered MAX, unless it's a really fringe romance that I'm fairly sure won't get many sign ups in the first place. Then I may schedule another one just to give some variety.

It's all a juggling act to try and satisfy both the authors and the reviewers.

Anyway - hopefully that explains things a bit more for anyone interested in the nitty gritty.

*BTW - speaking of our constant need to get more reviewers - if anyone is interested in advertising our service to your own mailing list (or social media, or anywhere else tbh), please contact me as we have an affiliate program for that sort of thing, where we'll pay you per sign up that we get. Shoot me a message and I'll send you the details.*


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

saklopfenstein said:


> For those who have used this service, what was your timeline for send out ARCs in relation to your launch? I was thinking maybe a month prior?
> 
> Also, did you send eBook ARCs?


Hi Saklopfenstein - we generally recommend a week in terms of the timeline, as that's the minimum amount of time we give readers before asking for reviews. So if we sent a book out today, our default date to ask for reviews would be Dec 3rd. You can do longer, but I wouldn't recommend going too much longer as readers may forget some of the details of your book since they're likely reading others as well. Our readers are pretty voracious, so most of them get done in a week or sometimes a few days longer.

And we only deal in ebooks - so we need a PDF and MOBI version at least, EPUB is optional (but recommended).

Thanks, and let me know if you have any other questions.

HG


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## saklopfenstein (Jun 16, 2017)

HiddenGems said:


> Hi Saklopfenstein - we generally recommend a week in terms of the timeline, as that's the minimum amount of time we give readers before asking for reviews. So if we sent a book out today, our default date to ask for reviews would be Dec 3rd. You can do longer, but I wouldn't recommend going too much longer as readers may forget some of the details of your book since they're likely reading others as well. Our readers are pretty voracious, so most of them get done in a week or sometimes a few days longer.
> 
> And we only deal in ebooks - so we need a PDF and MOBI version at least, EPUB is optional (but recommended).
> 
> ...


Thanks for the clarification. That helps a lot. I am still a ways out from my launch. Hoping for late April - early May, but still finalizing the date. How far in advance do you recommend booking for reviews?


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

saklopfenstein said:


> Thanks for the clarification. That helps a lot. I am still a ways out from my launch. Hoping for late April - early May, but still finalizing the date. How far in advance do you recommend booking for reviews?


For romance, we're booking around March at this point. For all other genres, only because of the 4 book a day limit, we're usually booking out a week or two in advance.


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## baldricko (Mar 14, 2014)

I totally recommend Hidden Gems for the purpose of finding reviewers. 

The reviews are honest and clearly by different reviewers. On the whole, the they are well considered and fair, and they are posted promptly, and they continue to roll in for a while after. What more could you ask for?

Another thing I like a lot about HG is the follow up. You can receive reviewer comments and even requests emailed to you by HG for weeks after the day. I think details like this really do matter.


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## wilsonharp (Jun 5, 2012)

Just another testimonial for Hidden Gems. I had my Epic Fantasy 'The Alabaster Throne' go out last Tuesday. It was 20 reviewers for $40, and as of now, I already have 11 new reviews. Very happy with the quality of the reviews and will be using Hidden Gems for all of my launches from now on.


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## Bob Stewart (Mar 19, 2014)

For those of you who have used this ARC service, how have you timed it in regards to your release date?

If the book's on preorder, readers can't post reviews. So do you have your book listed at Hidden Gems just as the book is going live?

Thanks.


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## Joseph John (Nov 6, 2013)

Bob Stewart said:


> For those of you who have used this ARC service, how have you timed it in regards to your release date?
> 
> If the book's on preorder, readers can't post reviews. So do you have your book listed at Hidden Gems just as the book is going live?
> 
> Thanks.


Hidden Gems recommends sending your ARC out one week before release. So that's what I did. So far so good; the reviews have started rolling in.


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## IntoTheAbyss (Mar 20, 2017)

Bob Stewart said:


> For those of you who have used this ARC service, how have you timed it in regards to your release date?
> 
> If the book's on preorder, readers can't post reviews. So do you have your book listed at Hidden Gems just as the book is going live?
> 
> Thanks.


Put pre-order up for ebook. Put up live paperback at the same time. Have the two linked. Then they can leave reviews on the paperback and when the e-book goes live, the reviews from the paperback will start to show for the ebook.


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## Sam B (Mar 28, 2017)

C L Salaski said:


> I've just had another Hidden Gems review taken down today. Anyone else seeing this problem rise up again?


I've lost three or so. I feel bad for those reviewers who are having all of their work removed, sometimes thousands of reviews.

I get that Amazon doesn't want fake reviews, but I've seen an amazon book review that says "I'm friends with the author!" and that hasn't been taken down... So obviously whatever they're doing, they're coming at this wrong.


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## RRodriguez (Jan 8, 2017)

I haven't had a chance to catch up on the whole issue of Amazon taking down so many HG reviews, but I was just curious if Hidden Gems might consider focusing more attention on Goodreads reviews that hold a good amount of weight and can't be taken down?


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## IntoTheAbyss (Mar 20, 2017)

Both of mine that had been taken down both reappeared, so yeah, your reviews may reappear in time.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

RRodriguez said:


> I haven't had a chance to catch up on the whole issue of Amazon taking down so many HG reviews, but I was just curious if Hidden Gems might consider focusing more attention on Goodreads reviews that hold a good amount of weight and can't be taken down?


Amazon owns Goodreads. The fact that it hasn't gone after Goodreads reviews doesn't mean it wouldn't at some point in the future.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

IntoTheAbyss said:


> Both of mine that had been taken down both reappeared, so yeah, your reviews may reappear in time.


Last time this happened, a number of people reported that the reviews reappear. I've had one disappear and then reappear. That's more likely a glitch than a review purge.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Hi everyone - Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Just wanted to poke in with a couple of comments in regards to the disappearing reviews. As most of you know, it has nothing to do with HG specifically and has affected reviewers from everywhere, whether they used our service, someone else's, or no service at all. As we ARC more books than almost anyone and deal with thousands of reviewers, we're unfortunately going to have the most visibility around the issue.

What seems to be happening is that Amazon is targeting individual reviewers for whatever unknown reason (likely due to a new heavy-handed algorithm) and then blowing away their entire review history - whether the reviews are for ARC books, or for products (books or not) that they have actually purchased - and then blocking them from leaving new reviews on anything. (Which is another reason the problem seems to affect us more, and perhaps seem a big worse than it really is - for example, if a single HG reader reviews 20 different books and has all their reviews removed, that affects 20 different authors who now come out and say they, too, had reviews removed... but it's still just a single account removal affecting all those different authors).

Typically Amazon will send an email with some vague reason, although sometimes not.

From Amazon's perspective, deleting every review is obviously much easier and cheaper than identifying individual reviews since they can do it all automatically instead of paying a rep to investigate or whatever.

Since Amazon doesn't really tell us (or anyone) how they work, some of the above is speculation of course, but it's based on evidence of what we're hearing from readers affected, knowledge of how Amazon typically deals with stuff like this, and more importantly, how they're responding to complaints about it.

*Which brings me to the GOOD NEWS about the situation.*

_*In the VAST majority of cases (over 80%) that have been brought to our attention, reviewers that have reached out to Amazon have had ALL of their reviews restored as well as their reviewing privileges. No questions asked. *_

To me, this means that Amazon knows that they're new algo is hitting innocent reviewers as well as guilty ones, and they are restoring those innocents as soon as they hear from them.

That also explains why many of you saw some reviews disappear and then eventually reappear. That's what's happening there. For others that have been more recently affected, hopefully most of those will return as well but feel free to reach out to me via email or PM here and let me know which book of yours was affected and I can investigate.

We don't have an easy way to identify when previously logged reviews go missing, so we rely on the author or reader to let us know. In every case we have worked with the readers to help them get their accounts restored - mainly by just simply explaining what's going on and giving them the correct email address to contact to appeal their case. It usually takes 2-3 days while Amazon investigates before everything is restored.

Which, by the way, is a counter argument to the belief that some people have that they are targeting ARC reviews. If that was the case, none of our readers affected would have been restored since they all review ARC books. Yet not a single one has been denied yet (that we know of, at least). Anyone from Amazon that investigates them and looks at their reviews would know that they are reviewing ARC books, so if that was the issue then they would have denied their appeal. Plus, if their algo was targeting these types of reviews, we would be much harder hit - as in, we'd have lost pretty much everyone. Yet so far we've only identified less than 20 of our readers that have been affected (again, there may be more but those are the ones we know about) and of the 2 or 3 that haven't been restored yet, I think they either haven't sent the appeal email or are still waiting to hear back.

Anyway, hopefully that puts some minds at ease. That's the way things have been going so far - whether they change in the future is up to Amazon, but as usual we'll keep on top of things as best we can for both our authors and our readers.

Thanks,
HG


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## Mylius Fox (Jun 2, 2014)

Just wanted to say that several months after my launch, I had another ARC review pop up out of the blue.  
Hidden Gems -- the gift that keeps on giving.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

Mylius Fox said:


> Just wanted to say that several months after my launch, I had another ARC review pop up out of the blue.
> Hidden Gems -- the gift that keeps on giving.


I've had the same thing happen. In some ways, that's better than having them all appear at once.


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## Catherine Lea (Jul 16, 2013)

Mylius Fox said:


> Hi HiddenGems, how many signups do you generally get for the thriller genre? Do your thriller readers respond well to military/political thrillers? I've got a new release next week and I really like how your service sounds.


Good to see later on that it worked for you. I've just signed up for one for my latest thriller, A Stolen Woman. So far, 30 readers have opted in, and HiddenGems has billed me $40 plus the original $20, and very kindly offered any further readers for free. I went into this knowing that the readership is mostly romance, so I'm open to the results. So far, they've been great to deal with.


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## AliceS (Dec 28, 2014)

Signed up for a space fantasy for mid-Feb. Can't wait to see how well this works.


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## Rex Jameson (Mar 8, 2011)

I will definitely be talking to you guys in the near future. Thanks for providing what looks like a well-reviewed, impactful service to the community!


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## Adomwrites (Nov 2, 2015)

The earliest ARC booking for romance is in June O_O


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## AliceS (Dec 28, 2014)

My goal was to get enough reviews so I could use some of the better promo services. I had 4 going in and I'm up to 11 now. Since 10 is the minimum for many promo sites, I'm good. The reviews all sound as if the reader actually read the book, so I am very pleased.

The pool for scifi is small. Only 10 people signed up for my space opera. But as I said, that reached my goal. I'll be using them again for a mystery later in the year.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Hey everyone - just want to leave a quick note to say we've moved domains and can now be found at https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com. We've been running our ARC on non romance genres for months, so this move is long overdue. New site is more secure (on https now) and much faster (after a few growing pains during our first week) than our old site, so come and have a look. We also plan on adding a few more services for authors in the near future.

Also, we're doing a big subscriber push for new readers so if you're interested in spreading the word about our service to your own mailing list of readers, or on social media, or whatever, then I'm willing to pay you $1 per sign up (via use of a personalized affiliate link). If you want to give it a try just send me a PM and I'll get you started. In the past I've paid out thousands when I've run this, as authors have access to lots of readers so the response from their lists are usually very positive.

Growing our reader/reviewer group for all genres is the best way for us to combat the growing issue of our long waiting list that I know is frustrating for both authors and us, so we're doing everything we can to make that happen as fast as possible.

Thanks!


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## AlisonSol (Mar 20, 2018)

Hi, hope I'm posting this in the right place. I have a question for Hidden Gems. I have a mystery to be published this summer I'd like to put in for review. While the main genre is mystery, most of the characters are women/lesbians and there is a romance between two women. The book is set in Gulfport Florida, which is a very LGBTQ friendly community. I'm concerned that there will be reviewers who won't want to review, or will give a bad review if they are homophobic. My last two books have been enjoyed by both gay and straight audiences, but I've occasionally had reviews from people who panned them solely because they had lesbians in them.


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## StellaD (Mar 12, 2018)

Hi Hidden Gems,

Your service is clearly awesome. However, since the next available date for fantasy is in June, I have a question. My book will be out by June, and I'm planning to put it in Kindle Select. Would having ARCs distributed by your website put me in violation of Select's exclusivity clause? (I'm thinking yes, but wanted to ask in case I'm missing something).

Thanks!


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

AlisonSol said:


> Hi, hope I'm posting this in the right place. I have a question for Hidden Gems. I have a mystery to be published this summer I'd like to put in for review. While the main genre is mystery, most of the characters are women/lesbians and there is a romance between two women. The book is set in Gulfport Florida, which is a very LGBTQ friendly community. I'm concerned that there will be reviewers who won't want to review, or will give a bad review if they are homophobic. My last two books have been enjoyed by both gay and straight audiences, but I've occasionally had reviews from people who panned them solely because they had lesbians in them.


One would hope that there aren't very many homophobes in the review pool, but with HG, as with any other ARC service, there's no way of predicting that. As far as I know, reviewers are vetted to make sure they can leave reviews on Amazon and will follow the guidelines. I doubt they're asked questions about possible biases. Essentially, that means you get what you get.

I suppose that's true of any review situation. People with biases will unfortunately express them in reviews. However, that may also happen with regular readers just as easily as with ARC reviewers.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

StellaD said:


> Hi Hidden Gems,
> 
> Your service is clearly awesome. However, since the next available date for fantasy is in June, I have a question. My book will be out by June, and I'm planning to put it in Kindle Select. Would having ARCs distributed by your website put me in violation of Select's exclusivity clause? (I'm thinking yes, but wanted to ask in case I'm missing something).
> 
> Thanks!


That's a head-scratcher. Some Amazon reps have told people in the past that the distribution of a few review copies was not a violation of Select rules, but that assurance isn't in writing anywhere, at least as far as I know.

It's clear Amazon would have a problem with you putting up a publicly accessible link and asking for reviews. Whether the same applies to private dissemination is anyone's guess. Some people in Select certainly mail their own ARCs to people.

The easiest way to avoid this potential problem is to sign up with HG in such a way that the copies go out before the book goes live. You can certainly give away prepub copies (which is, after all, what ARCs traditionally were). Do HG early enough, and the process will already be in motion when the book goes live and is in Select. That would be my recommendation.


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## StellaD (Mar 12, 2018)

> The easiest way to avoid this potential problem is to sign up with HG in such a way that the copies go out before the book goes live. You can certainly give away prepub copies (which is, after all, what ARCs traditionally were). Do HG early enough, and the process will already be in motion when the book goes live


That was my original thought, too, but Select's terms specifically say the book cannot be available for free on a third party website while the contract is on. I don't know, it's just a gray enough area that it could go either way. On the other hand, the schedule is so far out, that I could do a three month stint with KS, hop out for a couple days while the arcs are distributed, then get back in. &#128516;


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## Mylius Fox (Jun 2, 2014)

StellaD said:


> That was my original thought, too, but Select's terms specifically say the book cannot be available for free on a third party website while the contract is on. I don't know, it's just a gray enough area that it could go either way. On the other hand, the schedule is so far out, that I could do a three month stint with KS, hop out for a couple days while the arcs are distributed, then get back in. &#128516;


HG doesn't make your book available through a website, though, and Amazon's ToS allows ARC copies to be distributed. You're all set.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

StellaD said:


> That was my original thought, too, but Select's terms specifically say the book cannot be available for free on a third party website while the contract is on. I don't know, it's just a gray enough area that it could go either way. On the other hand, the schedule is so far out, that I could do a three month stint with KS, hop out for a couple days while the arcs are distributed, then get back in. &#128516;


What I meant was that you could distribute through HG before the book goes live in the first place. It isn't in Select until it's actually published. HG distributes at a specific time. Find out when they're distributing your book, and hit publish once it's done. While I agree with Mylius's interpretation, if you're not sure, you can avoid the problem by doing as I suggest.


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## StellaD (Mar 12, 2018)

> What I meant was that you could distribute through HG before the book goes live in the first place. It isn't in Select until it's actually published. HG distributes at a specific time.


Yes, except I'd have to delay publication until June, and I'm ready now &#128516;

But for now I'm trying out an alternate service and will go from there.

Thanks for sharing your advice!


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

StellaD said:


> That was my original thought, too, but Select's terms specifically say the book cannot be available for free on a third party website while the contract is on. I don't know, it's just a gray enough area that it could go either way. On the other hand, the schedule is so far out, that I could do a three month stint with KS, hop out for a couple days while the arcs are distributed, then get back in. &#128516;


Hi Stella - while we certainly can't speak for Amazon in any official capacity, I can say that since we've started going this I would guess that at least half of the books that go through us are already enrolled in KU and it's never been an issue. Some authors have specifically shown me emails they've had with KDP Select reps where they've asked about whether it's allowed and been told it's fine to send out review copies to readers while enrolled. But you know Amazon, so just because something was allowed in the past for some doesn't mean they won't decide to do something about it in the future... my personal feeling is that they don't care. This isn't what they're after when with their exclusivity clause. As has been pointed out already, we don't make the book available for download on our website. We ask for specific sign ups and then only those users are give the download links, and then after the ARC is done the files are removed so even those won't work for anyone that hasn't downloaded it by then.

It's the same as an author running the ARC service on their own lists after publishing, but again, we can't make any promises. You have to participate at your own level of comfort. All we can say is that isn't hasn't been an issue for anyone we've heard about in the last 3 years (knock on wood).


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

AlisonSol said:


> Hi, hope I'm posting this in the right place. I have a question for Hidden Gems. I have a mystery to be published this summer I'd like to put in for review. While the main genre is mystery, most of the characters are women/lesbians and there is a romance between two women. The book is set in Gulfport Florida, which is a very LGBTQ friendly community. I'm concerned that there will be reviewers who won't want to review, or will give a bad review if they are homophobic. My last two books have been enjoyed by both gay and straight audiences, but I've occasionally had reviews from people who panned them solely because they had lesbians in them.


As all the reviewers are real and not affiliated with us in any way, I really can't speak for them officially or make any promises. However, we provide a number of ways to mitigate the risk in that you are free to write a description or blurb that differs from what you have on Amazon - for example, you can leave a note that specifically says that the book contains LGBTQ characters and issues, and anyone not interested in that should pass. Similarly, you can write LGBTQ or other relevant words in the sub category section when you book, which further defines the book within your genre of Mystery. If you do those things, I think the risk of anyone taking issue would be at least as low, if not lower, than any other random person reading it and reviewing it on Amazon.


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## StellaD (Mar 12, 2018)

> All we can say is that isn't hasn't been an issue for anyone we've heard about in the last 3 years (knock on wood).


Great to hear, thank you!


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## Crime fighters (Nov 27, 2013)

I was poised to use your service before but had to pull out. I’m now looking into booking again in the near future, but see that you are booked almost fully until next year. Do you have a waiting list for cancellations? I’m relaunching under a new pen name and was hoping to use Hidden Gems to prop up the relaunch. I should have checked months ago but didn’t think to do it because the last time I had booked, you weren’t so busy. 

Thanks!


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## gilesxbecker (Mar 20, 2017)

K.B. said:


> I was poised to use your service before but had to pull out. I'm now looking into booking again in the near future, but see that you are booked almost fully until next year. Do you have a waiting list for cancellations? I'm relaunching under a new pen name and was hoping to use Hidden Gems to prop up the relaunch. I should have checked months ago but didn't think to do it because the last time I had booked, you weren't so busy.
> 
> Thanks!


Me too. They are booked up until September now. I guess I have to look elsewhere.


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## Deacon Blues (Mar 27, 2017)

K.B. said:


> I'm relaunching under a new pen name and was hoping to use Hidden Gems to prop up the relaunch. I should have checked months ago but didn't think to do it because the last time I had booked, you weren't so busy.


I'm in the same boat, so I'm glad I checked here first - my genre's booked up until September! I told myself I should start my marketing plan further in advance this time around, and I guess this is forcing me to do just that!


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## AliceS (Dec 28, 2014)

Just used them to revitalize an old series. 1st book only had 3 reviews and I am releasing book 3 in August. I wanted more reviews so I could use some of the better promo sites on a book 1 discount prior to the release of book 3. 

It's a mystery which is one of the new genres they are branching out into. They had 20 sign ups on June 11 and as of today I have had 16 new reviews posted. They range from a 2-word (Good read), to longer reviews that even quote from the book. All talk about the book in a way that makes it obvious that they actually read it.

This is the second time I've used them and found it a very positive experience.


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## tulipslip (Jul 30, 2018)

Hi All,

Just wanted to share my very bad experience with Hidden Gems. I wrote a historical fiction novel, with a B story romance. To make this book the best it could be, I hired a former acquisition editor / actual editor from the 'Big 5'. After publication, I sent it out to three of the nations top book reviewers, who gave it two 5 star and one 4 reviews respectively. Up until my submission to Hidden Gems, I had all 5 star reviews. Going into this service, I was confident that while my book wouldn't appeal to everyone, at least it was technically sound.  

There are zero sex scenes in my book, yet one HG reviewer labeled my book as erotica.    Another couldn't figure out if it was YA or not, even though the main characters were all adults, grappling with adult problems.    One complained that my book started out too slow, even though chapter 3 features a shoot out and chapters 1 & 2 are the lead up. Overall, HG reviewers put up short, off the mark reviews that totally killed my rating. I genuinely wonder if some of them actually read my book. 

I'm not sure what happened with HG, but I've used other reviewer services, Reading Deals for one, and while not all the reviews will be 4 or 5 stars, at least the reviewers can articulate why they didn't like the book, provide some constructive criticism, or at least identify the correct genre. 

So disappointed with this service. Would never use it again.


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## SuzyQ (Jun 22, 2017)

I had a great experience with HGs on my last book! I wish there were more spots available though, I am never prepared far enough in advance...


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## MyCatDoesNotConsent (Sep 11, 2017)

Я не согласен с условиями T.O.S.


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## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

tulipslip said:


> Hi All,
> 
> Just wanted to share my very bad experience with Hidden Gems. I wrote a historical fiction novel, with a B story romance. To make this book the best it could be, I hired a former acquisition editor / actual editor from the 'Big 5'. After publication, I sent it out to three of the nations top book reviewers, who gave it two 5 star and one 4 reviews respectively. Up until my submission to Hidden Gems, I had all 5 star reviews. Going into this service, I was confident that while my book wouldn't appeal to everyone, at least it was technically sound.
> 
> ...


I received mostly normal reviews. Some liked the book, others didn't. Review services can't guarantee you the type of reviews you want. That would be review manipulation. They don't need to be long, or have constructive criticism. Reviews are for readers NOT for authors. If you need constructive criticism you should find beta readers not seek it through reviews.

Some may not have read it well...just like organic readers.

Many of the reviews I got went on to BUY books two and three and some messaged me about being on my ARC team (I don't have an ARC team but it's nice to have people asking).


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## 97251 (Jun 22, 2017)

tulipslip said:


> Hi All,
> 
> *I'm not sure what happened with HG, but I've used other reviewer services, Reading Deals for one*, and while not all the reviews will be 4 or 5 stars, at least the reviewers can articulate why they didn't like the book, provide some constructive criticism, or at least identify the correct genre.
> 
> So disappointed with this service. Would never use it again.


Not suspicious. Not suspicious at all. A user who has never posted here before comes and trashes HG while mentioning a review service nobody has heard of. I'm not saying Tulipslip is lying, it's just suspicious. I'm not saying this other review service is bad/good or whatever either. In fact, I wish it had been presented in its normal thread. HG is booked up in advance and other good review services are welcome.

What was the book, tulipslip? Care to share it? I'm just curious to see these reviews. This is the first time I read something like that about Hidden Gems and I'm curious. Yes, suspicious too, but you might be a lurker who used a service and decided to post for the first time because you're so upset.

Edit to add: Ok, Reading Deals has been around for a while. Still, it is suspicious to me. It can be an unhappy HG customer, or some very weird kind of promotion.

http://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=237849.0

http://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=252368.0


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## StellaD (Mar 12, 2018)

Another happy Hidden Gems client here! I used them for my first book, to try and up my review numbers before releasing the sequel in September. I received 30 signups for my "fantasy adventure with strong romantic elements," and currently have received 22 reviews (about two and a half weeks out from when they sent out the book). With luck I'll get a couple more. None of the reviews went terribly in depth, but a majority said enough to make it clear they had really read the book. All reviews were 4 or 5 stars.

And for those using the service for the first time and who, like me, are on pins and needles waiting for the first ones to trickle in, I got my first review two full days after the book was sent out (it went out on a Thursday, and I got a review Saturday night). I then got an average of one a day until seven days after the book was sent out, when I got a bunch. The rest trickled in after that.

I would definitely use this service again! Maybe I'll even be organized enough to get scheduled for the launch rather than three months after


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## C. Rysalis (Feb 26, 2015)

SuzyQ said:


> I had a great experience with HGs on my last book! I wish there were more spots available though, I am never prepared far enough in advance...


Same here. I wanted to use them for my new release but the waiting time is just too long...  if I had a perfect, proofed mobi / epub ready half a year before the publication date, I'd publish the book sooner!


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## Trioxin 245 (Dec 29, 2017)

I have used HG a few times and have always been impressed. Their customer service is top notch, and there was an instance where I was late on my end and they were kind enough to work with me. In regards to their reviews, I have no complaints. And yes, I have had some nasty one stars in the mix and some pretty basic reviews that are one line of text. But that is not their fault and as a matter of fact, it really shows that they have a real mixture of readers on their list.


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## 97251 (Jun 22, 2017)

Haha, Karma hit me.

Maybe that poster was telling the truth (still suspicious, though).

So I'm using HG for a book launch.

Yesterday I got a 3-star review, which was OK, but saying that the novel is for girls. I'm assuming the reader doesn't like novels for girls.

Then I get a one-star review saying that the book is for a youngish YA audience.

I mean, really? It's the second book in my sig. Is it that hard to guess that it's a youngish YA book for girls?

I had only 3 other reviews at the time, and since these two reviews came, *SALES STOPPED*.

Whatever. Frankly, this is the type of book that will never sell much anyway (lower YA, not for market, etc.), and I certainly don't plan to make a living from this series. I don't make a living from my writing and I don't depend on sales to put food on the table. No harm done. Had it been a shot at a commercial writing career, had I spent tons on advertising... clueless reviews like those could have killed my launch.

So, I don't know. Why on earth would a reader who doesn't like lower YA or books for girls sign up to read a book with that cover? I don't understand. Do readers have to reach a quota before they ask for the books they want? There's something wrong there.

And people might say: "oh, don't worry, that review won't affect your sales" . Well, it affects the average and it makes me look really bad, as if I was distributing ARCs to random people. (I guess that's what I ended up doing).

Reviews are still going to come from HG, but still, I really don't appreciate that people who don't like lower girly YA signed up for a novel that's obviously lower girly YA or upper MG. I think HG should tell their readers not to sign up for genres they don't like, and they should certainly tell them not to leave low-star reviews because they don't like the genre, unless the genre is misrepresented. Finally, they should tell their reviewers to be responsible with the star rating they give. Of course, they can't control everyone, and the goal of an ARC service should be honest reviews, so controlling is far from ideal, but some minimum standards should be kept, I think.

Next time I'll work harder on my own ARC team. If ever I get an ARC service again, I'll book it earlier, so that reviews don't drip in. Dripping reviews look more natural, but then a one-star can do a lot of damage.

I emailed HG but haven't gotten a response. Again, maybe it will all even out in the end. It's still disappointing. Well, whatever.


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## MyCatDoesNotConsent (Sep 11, 2017)

Я не согласен с условиями T.O.S.


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## Queen Mab (Sep 9, 2011)

I had one HG reviewer who said stiffly that she didn't care for the physical nature of the romance in the book and gave it two stars. Luckily, almost everyone else was a good sport. The early reviews were the best.

I have a question for the HG team and hope it's OK to ask here. I have an upcoming newsletter promo for a book that's wide. It's now free on all the stores except Amazon. If for some reason I'm unable to get Zon to price-match, will the promo still go ahead? thanks.


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## 97251 (Jun 22, 2017)

I do not accept the new Terms of Service


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## Queen Mab (Sep 9, 2011)

That's interesting, Denise. It's an expensive service, so I can see why you're disappointed.


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## 101569 (Apr 11, 2018)

Denise Leitao said:


> I used HG before and all the reviews were insightful. If I wanted to risk getting trolls I'd just offer the book for free on Goodreads ARC groups.
> 
> I don't mind if people want to read outside of their comfort zone, but don't one-star my book solely because it is exactly what it looks like it is.
> 
> ...


I wouldn't mind superficial reviews One or two lines are perfect. They look like a regular person read my book and commented on it. I never read those long winded reviews because then tend to come from ARC teams and skew towards this book is wonderful zone.


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## randallcfloyd (Nov 27, 2017)

I used to write reviews for a company (granted I only wrote 5 or 6 before I'd had enough), and when I told them what genres I wanted to review, it was very, very broad. I told them I wanted to review YA fantasy, and my list of books was 1 YA fantasy, 2 thrillers, and two memoirs. I thought I'd get some fantasy novels that weren't YA, but I didn't. 

These companies can only review the books that come in the door, and their overhead is pretty high since the reviewers get reimbursed for the book, plus a little bit of cash for doing the reviews.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Deacon Blues said:


> I'm in the same boat, so I'm glad I checked here first - my genre's booked up until September! I told myself I should start my marketing plan further in advance this time around, and I guess this is forcing me to do just that!


When I last checked, they were booked until next February, which really isn't workable. I suppose I could spend the $20 to reserve a spot every month, knowing I'll use half of them, but it would be much better if HG was only booked 2-3 months out. Two to three months is workable. Six to eight isn't.

I wonder if HG needs to open up their contemporary romance spots or increase the cost for a deposit so less people grab spots they won't use.

I'd love to be able to sign up for series reviews too, so I could give reviewers and entire series and get their reviews on all the books. It would be a nice way to add some reviews to my backlist.

I really like Hidden Gems--great reviews and a great price--but I can't really work with a six to eight month lead time, and I'd say I'm more organized than the average romance author.


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## 97251 (Jun 22, 2017)

I do not accept the new Terms of Service


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## thegreenheron (May 2, 2018)

Denise Leitao said:


> Haha, for those of you worried cause it's booked so early in advance, maybe some more negative experiences can help you.


I'm sorry you had a bad experience, but as a newbie author thank you for posting it for exactly that reason. They are booked way, way out for my genre (general fiction) and your experience raises some red flags for me as to whether this would be the best way to go. Ideally, I'd like reviewers to have read my blurb and decided they wanted to read my story versus it gets sent out to a random sampling of people who checked the box for something really broad like "general fiction." General fiction just encompasses way, way too much ground.


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## 97251 (Jun 22, 2017)

Nothing to see here.


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## thegreenheron (May 2, 2018)

Denise Leitao said:


> I believe readers see the cover and read the blurb before choosing a book, so (at least in theory), you shouldn't worry about that.
> 
> The fact is that HG is the easiest way for an author without an ARC team to get a large number of reviews, so I wouldn't say that it's not worthwhile. Still, it's a good idea to try to find other readers, so as not to depend mostly on HG reviewers.


That was my understanding, too. But your post re: readers totally misinterpreting your cover does give me pause. Based on your cover (which is lovely, by the way), I would have said, "Lighthearted and fun fantasy about two adolescent girls," and I wouldn't expect the content to go much beyond a PG-rating. So "youngish" YA, like you said. That's opposed to what I guess I'd call "oldish" YA which is stuff like John Green writes that deals with darker subject matter. But I'm far, far from an expert on YA books.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Denise Leitao said:


> Reviews are still going to come from HG, but still, I really don't appreciate that people who don't like lower girly YA signed up for a novel that's obviously lower girly YA or upper MG


Someone who didn't pay attention to the blurb could have looked at the anime-esque cover and thought they were picking up LitRPG. Though if that were the case, they're absolutely allowed to tell HG they didn't finish the book and give that as a reason why they can't leave a review.


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## 97251 (Jun 22, 2017)

I do not accept the new Terms of Service


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

Denise Leitao said:


> Haha, Karma hit me.
> 
> Maybe that poster was telling the truth (still suspicious, though).
> 
> ...


I've found HG reviewers to be very like reviewers in general. There are some people who carelessly buy something and then ding it for being the kind of genre or subject matter it is--when they could easily have figured that out prior to purchase. Some people almost seem to like to get things they're not interested in so that they can slam them. Personally, if I start reading something that I discover I don't like, not because it's badly written, but because it's a kind of material I just don't care for, I just stop and move on to something else. I wouldn't think of leaving a bad review in that instance unless the book's product page was misleading. Dinging something for being what it clearly states it is is like giving a low score to an Italian restaurant in a restaurant review because it only serves Italian food.

Tirade aside, I'm not surprised HG would have at least one reviewer like that. Now, if there were a fair number of them, that would concern me more.


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## Rex Jameson (Mar 8, 2011)

I think it's pretty normal for the first 2-3 reviews from HG to be negative. My experience is that maybe 15-33% of the reviewers who do the reviews for HG seem to read only 1-3 chapters of your book. I have a couple reviews that claimed my series was YA, which could have only been possible with someone who stopped reading at chapters 1-3. Once you get into the sex, graphic murder, mayhem, and incest, it gets a lot more obvious that you're not reading a YA. I do sometimes worry that people might read these misleading reviews and think the book was actually YA, but there is nothing in the packaging (cover or book description) that would indicate that, and there are even some very good reviews that specifically call out the content warning--which I feel works out well for my marketing/branding for the series.

Anyway, the people who only read the first 1-3 chapters are typically going to review before anyone else. Don't panic. The 3-5 star reviews will come later, from people who actually read the book. Yes, HG is booked far out, but they seem like a good investment at low cost. I think it's almost impossible to use them for any reasonable preorder period of 3 months or less, but for the long run, I would definitely consider using them again. They put your book in front of a group of reviewers, and you definitely get some reviews. In epic/high fantasy, seems like 15-30 is common.


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## 97251 (Jun 22, 2017)

I do not accept the new Terms of Service


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## Little Dorrit (Sep 20, 2015)

I've now used HG three times in the last five months. These were for the first three books in my signature. In all cases, I was told there'd only been a minimum of signups (ca 10) and so I was just charged the $20 deposit.

The first one I did under humor. It's a sort of comic, historical novel. Definitely odd, and probably not like what HG readers are usually offered. HG netted six reviews, all positive (4-5 stars),  one I'd call insightful. Well worth the $20.

The second book is even odder and was also categorized as humor. The intrusiveness of the narrator is taken to the extreme, there's interior monologue, one character's interior monologue intrudes on another character's psyche, an odd typeface is used for some of this, etc. You get the picture. This netted six reviews also, one five star, three four, and two three star, most were perfunctory. This was probably a bad choice to send, I doubt any of those readers appreciated what they had in store, so I can't complain about the results.

The last one was for my new comic fantasy, the closet of the three to a genuine genre book, but even this one is odd. This netted eleven reviews, all but one (2-star) were positive, and all arrived within a few days of the book going live. For $20, I'd say HG hit it out of the park with this one. 

All in all, I found HG about the best value/$ of any indie service I've used, maybe even including BookBub.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

Rex Jameson said:


> I think it's pretty normal for the first 2-3 reviews from HG to be negative. My experience is that maybe 15-33% of the reviewers who do the reviews for HG seem to read only 1-3 chapters of your book. I have a couple reviews that claimed my series was YA, which could have only been possible with someone who stopped reading at chapters 1-3. Once you get into the sex, graphic murder, mayhem, and incest, it gets a lot more obvious that you're not reading a YA. I do sometimes worry that people might read these misleading reviews and think the book was actually YA, but there is nothing in the packaging (cover or book description) that would indicate that, and there are even some very good reviews that specifically call out the content warning--which I feel works out well for my marketing/branding for the series.
> 
> Anyway, the people who only read the first 1-3 chapters are typically going to review before anyone else. Don't panic. The 3-5 star reviews will come later, from people who actually read the book. Yes, HG is booked far out, but they seem like a good investment at low cost. I think it's almost impossible to use them for any reasonable preorder period of 3 months or less, but for the long run, I would definitely consider using them again. They put your book in front of a group of reviewers, and you definitely get some reviews. In epic/high fantasy, seems like 15-30 is common.


Oddly, I've had exactly the opposite experience so far. My first reviews in both cases were five-star, though they didn't arrive right away. The ones in the middle were two or three star. The ones near the end tended to be four or five star again. So I guess at least my two-star reviewers read the book.

I attributed the five-stars near the beginning to people who picked the book up right away and couldn't put it down--but who knows?


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## KMCDERR (Jul 25, 2017)

Little Dorrit said:


> The first one I did under humor. It's a sort of comic, historical novel. Definitely odd, and probably not like what HG . HG netted six reviews, all positive (4-5 stars), one I'd call insightful. Well worth the $20.
> 
> The second book is even odder. The intrusiveness of the narrator is taken to the extreme, there's interior monologue, one character's interior monologue intrudes on another character's psyche, an odd typeface is used for some of this, etc. You get the picture. This netted six reviews also, one five star, three four, and two three star, most perfunctory. This was probably a bad choice to send, I doubt any of those readers appreciated what they had in store, so I can't complain about the results.


Without wishing to derail the thread, this just totally sold me on your books - had to buy them


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## Little Dorrit (Sep 20, 2015)

KMCDERR said:


> Without wishing to derail the thread, this just totally sold me on your books - had to buy them


Heehee. Thanks! I hope you enjoy them.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

tulipslip said:


> Just wanted to share my very bad experience with Hidden Gems. I wrote a historical fiction novel, with a B story romance. To make this book the best it could be, I hired a former acquisition editor / actual editor from the 'Big 5'. After publication, I sent it out to three of the nations top book reviewers, who gave it two 5 star and one 4 reviews respectively. Up until my submission to Hidden Gems, I had all 5 star reviews. Going into this service, I was confident that while my book wouldn't appeal to everyone, at least it was technically sound.
> 
> There are zero sex scenes in my book, yet one HG reviewer labeled my book as erotica.  Another couldn't figure out if it was YA or not, even though the main characters were all adults, grappling with adult problems.  One complained that my book started out too slow, even though chapter 3 features a shoot out and chapters 1 & 2 are the lead up. Overall, HG reviewers put up short, off the mark reviews that totally killed my rating. I genuinely wonder if some of them actually read my book.
> 
> ...


Without knowing which book you're talking about, I really can't comment or tell whether this is a legit complaint or not. In general, when someone has an issue with their reviews and they contact me about it at the time, it allows me to investigate and take action (if applicable) or give some feedback as to what the issue might be. As far as I know, you never contacted me about this so I don't have much to add.

If you are actually someone that has used the service and want to discuss it, please email me and I can look into things. Or post your book title or link and I can look into it and comment here if you would prefer.

As our reviewers are made up of actual people leaving their own reviews, I don't have a lot of control over them or their actions. I can (and do) provide tips around how to write a good review, but I can't really make people follow them. However, if I find cases where people are posting reviews for the wrong book, or leaving blatantly incorrect info or being abusive, etc, then I do send them an email asking that they reconsider their review. It's up to them whether to take action, but most reviewers are reasonable when the issues are pointed out to them, and do make changes to fix whatever the issue is.

Someone that continues to act that way is no longer welcome in the program.

However, I cannot read every review left for every book individually so I rely on authors to let me know if something is wrong and then I can investigate.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Gabriella West said:


> I have a question for the HG team and hope it's OK to ask here. I have an upcoming newsletter promo for a book that's wide. It's now free on all the stores except Amazon. If for some reason I'm unable to get Zon to price-match, will the promo still go ahead? thanks.


Hi Gabriella - sorry, I haven't checked this thread in a while since it hadn't had a post for a long time. Best thing to do is email me directly, I'm much quicker to respond - but I know you did email about this today so I think we're set.


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Crystal_ said:


> When I last checked, they were booked until next February, which really isn't workable. I suppose I could spend the $20 to reserve a spot every month, knowing I'll use half of them, but it would be much better if HG was only booked 2-3 months out. Two to three months is workable. Six to eight isn't.
> 
> I wonder if HG needs to open up their contemporary romance spots or increase the cost for a deposit so less people grab spots they won't use.
> 
> ...


Trust me, the long wait time is a problem for us as well as everyone else. I don't WANT authors to have to wait months to get a slot, but it's not a problem I've figured out how to solve yet. The only real solution is adding a LOT more reviewers - something I spend most of my resources on but it's a slow process. I can't just add more spots without having the readers to support them, or it just means less readers for everyone else.

We do have a waiting list that authors can join when they schedule something, and I've been doing my best to shuffle things around to give as many people better spots as I can but they don't open up that often. I don't think increasing the deposit size would really help - the number of cancellations we get is actually pretty low - although lately there have been a lot of people shifting dates around - wanting LATER spots than they booked - which then opens up a spot to someone wanting an earlier spot. But there's not enough to really fix the problem.

So aside from raising the prices, which I'm not totally keen to do and I'm sure most authors wouldn't like it either, that only leaves me with continuing to try and grow my reader list. But as I said, that's slow going - especially across the 16 different genres we service - so if you have any suggestions I'm all ears!

HG


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Bill Hiatt said:


> I've found HG reviewers to be very like reviewers in general. There are some people who carelessly buy something and then ding it for being the kind of genre or subject matter it is--when they could easily have figured that out prior to purchase. Some people almost seem to like to get things they're not interested in so that they can slam them. Personally, if I start reading something that I discover I don't like, not because it's badly written, but because it's a kind of material I just don't care for, I just stop and move on to something else. I wouldn't think of leaving a bad review in that instance unless the book's product page was misleading. Dinging something for being what it clearly states it is is like giving a low score to an Italian restaurant in a restaurant review because it only serves Italian food.
> 
> Tirade aside, I'm not surprised HG would have at least one reviewer like that. Now, if there were a fair number of them, that would concern me more.


That's exactly right. I have review advice in all the emails and multiple blog posts that say all those things - read all the info about the book before signing up, only sign up for books that you think might interest you, if you don't like a book enough to finish it then you probably shouldn't even review it - but I can't make people follow it. Even reviews from people that buy books and then hate them enough not to finish them often still leave a review - I mean, that's sort of the point to those reviews - to warn others that the book was so bad that they couldn't finish it. So it's hard to argue even those aren't "legit" reviews.

So all I can do is remind reviewers that they don't have to leave those reviews and provide a place on our reader forms where they can note that they didn't leave a review, but whether they use it or not, or leave those reviews or not, is ultimately up to them.

But if I see someone being abusive to an author then I do send them an email. Or if, for example, an author of a mystery let's me know that one of our readers left a review spoiling who the killer was, then I reach out in cases like those as well. If someone has a history of being a bad actor, I have no problem removing them from our program. But it's VERY tough to make a judgement call in a lot of cases. Obviously just because someone gives a book a bad review isn't a reason for me to penalize them. And most authors understand that. But some have reasons why they feel that bad review was unfair or unjust and those are the harder cases for me to really deal with. Most of the time I can only really give my opinion (usually based on my own impartial reading of the review, reading other reviews, reading comments left to ME from readers about the book, etc) and while that sometimes satisfies the author, it doesn't always.

Are there unfair reviewers in the system? We have thousands of readers so yes, I'm sure there are. And as I said, if I can positively identify one with a high degree of confidence that they are being a jerk, I have no problem removing them. Unfortunately, it's not always so black and white and if I always took the site of the author and booted out all the readers that gave negative reviews, I have a feeling Amazon would come a'knockin'....


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## HiddenGems (Aug 19, 2015)

Denise Leitao said:


> Agreed, and it's something I should have considered before. It looked really bad for a while with something like a 2.5-star rating... I had used HG before, and didn't have any review like that, but perhaps it was just luck.
> 
> In the end I'll have to say that my experience with Hidden Gems for this book was positive and that I might consider using it again in the future. I will try to get more ARC readers from my own list, though.


Glad things turned around for you - I know we discussed this over email at the time. Sometimes it really is just luck of the draw in who signs up and who doesn't. I wish I had better insight sometimes, but I don't always.


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## Adomwrites (Nov 2, 2015)

tulipslip said:


> Hi All,
> 
> Just wanted to share my very bad experience with Hidden Gems. I wrote a historical fiction novel, with a B story romance. To make this book the best it could be, I hired a former acquisition editor / actual editor from the 'Big 5'. After publication, I sent it out to three of the nations top book reviewers, who gave it two 5 star and one 4 reviews respectively. Up until my submission to Hidden Gems, I had all 5 star reviews. Going into this service, I was confident that while my book wouldn't appeal to everyone, at least it was technically sound.
> 
> ...


It's funny you said that because that's exactly what happened with my experience with them. Some people complained about it being written for a younger audience even though there are several graphic sex scenes and the two main characters are adults. Some complained about it starting out too slow even though the main character is choke-slammed into a wall by a man she's being forced to marry in the second chapter. Majority of them were 4-stars, however. Even those who said they loved the book only gave me a 4 or 3-star rating.

Overall, I'll be using them again. HG did send out a notification to their readers telling them to read the description of each book before signing up so that their reviews will be fair to the author and readers. I just wish I could have gotten a few more 5-stars. I probably should have put in the descriptions that my paranormal romance had elements of Scifi so they knew what to expect.


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## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

Adomwrites said:


> It's funny you said that because that's exactly what happened with my experience with them. Some people complained about it being written for a younger audience even though there are several graphic sex scenes and the two main characters are adults. Some complained about it starting out too slow even though the main character is choke-slammed into a wall by a man she's being forced to marry in the second chapter. Majority of them were 4-stars, however. Even those who said they loved the book only gave me a 4 or 3-star rating.


And how should they have rated your book? These are supposed to be honest and voluntary reviews. If they say it's 3-stars I'm not sure why you would complain here about it. It's not supposed to be a place to farm 5-star reviews. It's supposed to be real reviews which can run the gamut of 1 star to 5 star.


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## Adomwrites (Nov 2, 2015)

Herefortheride said:


> And how should they have rated your book? These are supposed to be honest and voluntary reviews. If they say it's 3-stars I'm not sure why you would complain here about it. It's not supposed to be a place to farm 5-star reviews. It's supposed to be real reviews which can run the gamut of 1 star to 5 star.


I'm not complaining. I'm just telling my experience with them. Never said I'm looking for a 5-star farm or anything else you mentioned. Not sure why you're getting so offensive about people just explaining their experience with HG service. Overall, I enjoyed their service and will be using them again. I'll just have to note to be more elaborate in my description.


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## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

Adomwrites said:


> I'm not complaining. I'm just telling my experience with them. Never said I'm looking for a 5-star farm or anything else you mentioned. Not sure why you're getting so offensive about people just explaining their experience with HG service. Overall, I enjoyed their service and will be using them again. I'll just have to note to be more elaborate in my description.


The person you quoted was saying she would never use them again and was very unhappy with them. You quoted her and your first sentence was "It's funny you said that because that's *exactly* what happened with my experience with them."

EXACTLY is a pretty specific word.


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## Adomwrites (Nov 2, 2015)

Herefortheride said:


> The person you quoted was saying she would never use them again and was very unhappy with them. You quoted her and your first sentence was "It's funny you said that because that's *exactly* what happened with my experience with them."
> 
> EXACTLY is a pretty specific word.


I said what happened to them review wise, happened to me as well. I said nothing else about their service being bad or that I was unhappy with them. Every time someone says anything critical on this thread you jump don't their throat.

I don't know what the hell your problem is but I'm not even going to argue with you. -_-


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## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

Adomwrites said:


> I said what happened to them review wise, happened to me as well. I said nothing else about their service being bad or that I was unhappy with them. Every time someone says anything critical on this thread you jump don't their throat.
> 
> I don't know what the hell your problem is but I'm not even going to argue with you. -_-


That's not what you said. You said your *experience* with "them" (Hidden Gems) was the same.

No one is jumping down your throat. I'm just stating that review services are going to give you an entire range of reviews good and bad but we often have people complaining that they didn't get the kinds of reviews that they wanted.

No need to attack me for helping you.


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## Adomwrites (Nov 2, 2015)

Herefortheride said:


> That's not what you said. You said your *experience* with "them" (Hidden Gems) was the same.
> 
> No one is jumping down your throat. I'm just stating that review services are going to give you an entire range of reviews good and bad but we often have people complaining that they didn't get the kinds of reviews that they wanted.
> 
> No need to attack me for helping you.


Thanks for all your help....


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## AuthorKCLannon (Feb 15, 2019)

I am an extremely happy customer of Hidden Gems. Since I used the service for my YA fantasy series, with YA being a genre they are still growing, I only had 15 people sign up to read the first two books in the series. However, the 15 people who signed up all left a review! Most of the reviews were great. A couple reviews really stood out and were very detailed and thoughtful.

If you want to use this service for a later book in a series (I used it for book #2), I recommend compiling all of the previous books into a file to send to readers. I sent both books to reviewers, and I found that all of the readers took the time to read the first book in the series before the second one. Some readers left reviews on both books.

I am pleased with this service and I will definitely be using it again.


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## Book Fan (Mar 19, 2017)

Wish I had known about this service earlier. Just checked and they're booked until late November for my genre (and most other genres, which I checked out of curiosity).

Would love to use HG because waiting for organic reviews is painful (especially when you're a new author with no platform or fanbase, whatsoever). Sigh.


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## C.A. Huggins (Jul 8, 2014)

This service really blew up. Most genres are booked until towards the end of the year.


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## Adomwrites (Nov 2, 2015)

AuthorKCLannon said:


> I am an extremely happy customer of Hidden Gems. Since I used the service for my YA fantasy series, with YA being a genre they are still growing, I only had 15 people sign up to read the first two books in the series. However, the 15 people who signed up all left a review! Most of the reviews were great. A couple reviews really stood out and were very detailed and thoughtful.
> 
> If you want to use this service for a later book in a series (I used it for book #2), I recommend compiling all of the previous books into a file to send to readers. I sent both books to reviewers, and I found that all of the readers took the time to read the first book in the series before the second one. Some readers left reviews on both books.
> 
> I am pleased with this service and I will definitely be using it again.


I did this with my Box set and a few of them placed a review on each book in the series on Amazon.


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