What is viable, however, is that the number of helpful votes she gets doesn’t match up with the standing she once had (she’s no longer number one). I’m willing to bet she’s real. I might even think she does speed read. The problem with Speed Reading however is comprehension. Does she fully understand everything she reads? Or is she reading so fast she misses a lot? Her reviews really aren’t that helpful. They’re well written, even charming to a degree. But judging by how many helpful votes she gets, probably not that insightful. She may have achieved about 99,000 helpful votes… but when you look at the percentage of helpful votes it was around 55%.

I was in my early 20’s, had never been out of Texas and, quite frankly was very over-whelmed with the way the project started to snow-ball. After I talked myself into attending a RWA conference in NY and sharing a room with Harriet it became very apparent that in all actuality I had lost control over my newsletter which was just about to “take off” and was being sold in local book stores, and was on its way to bigger and better things. I was introduced around as the editor/publisher, etc., but it was Harriet who seemed to take credit for everything….after all she supplied the majority of the reviews by this time and had become the go-between for myself and the authors. Thinking back, I still can’t wrap my brain around how/when/why I allowed that to happen. But it did. Sure, I might have been doling out
$600-$800 in paper, copier rental, printers, mailing fees, etc….but that was it. In the end it seemed I was just another tool being used to help promote Harriet’s acclaimed reviews and sparkling name.

I’d say long story short about now…but it’s a little late for that! So I will continue on…It was at the writers conference that I decided to pull away from Harriet and gain the much needed and well deserved control over my project that was well on its way to becoming a lucrative business venture. I removed myself from our shared hotel room and into another room with writers I knew, thinking this would be a fresh start for me. I knew I was getting divorced soon and wanted this to be a business venture that might somehow provide an income down the road and well-needed contacts in which to publish my own manuscripts.

Little did I realize being so young and naive that Harriet could or would use her pull in the publishing/romance industry in which to not only ruin the newsletter/magazine but my good name and standing I’d worked so hard to achieve. Authors started pulling ads, publishers and authors stopped sending galleys, review copies and press kits and I started receiving horrible emails from people I’d never had any personal dealing with as Harriet was the go between for awhile handling all reviews and anything to do with reviewing for the newsletter. In fact, thinking back now, I can’t remember when or why I agreed to it but she even talked me into having the publishing houses that would send me boxed of advance reading copies etc. directly to her rather than me. Again..I was young and naive.

In the end, I found myself 23 yrs old with a couple of kids, going through a divorce and starting over while I watched the project I’d worked so hard to create crumble and fold without any way of salvaging it since I was now apparently being blackballed within the industry. My only saving grace was that everything from the logo to the name, tagline and much of the art was original and had copyrights and trademarks pending at the time so she couldn’t just pick up where I left off and totally screw me.

So…yes, Harriet Klausner is most definitely a real person. A VERY powerful real person within the publishing industry.

Does she read all the books she reviews on? I’d like to think so since I put so much trust into her and the opinions she gave way back when. I do know that I would get the same review for The Talisman that she would give to other review publications and authors, etc. changing only the closing paragraph to better fit the newsletter’s reader. But that much is understandable if she’s reading that many books and writing that many reviews.

Does she like every book she reads? No, I very seriously doubt it. In fact I know she doesn’t based on past conversations with her. However, she always told me that if she can find something good or positive to say about a book she will leaving the rest up to the reader. And that really does make sense as everyone’s opinion will likely vary to some degree.

In the end…for me, at least, I buy books based on three things; first, if I haven’t already read a synopsis somewhere online or in RT magazine that interested me enough to learn more, I look at the front cover and title, 2nd I read the blurb on the back of the book. 3rd I read the first page or two of the book. If that doesn’t hook me, then I don’t waste my money and time. Honestly, even now reviews mean very little to me. They are fun to read sometimes informative but in the end have very little to do with whether or not I spend my hard earned money on a book that will probably cost me $6.99 to $20.00.

If you walk away from this post with nothing else that sticks, please make no mistake…Harriet is good at what she does and she will not hesitate to ruin you if you rub her the wrong way. I should know.

Anyway, let’s do some math.

Harriet seems to review roughly 6 books every day. Let’s now assume that her seed-reading abilities are such that she can read a book in just 60 minutes. For a 360 page book, that’s 1 page every 10 seconds- and a lot of books have many more pages than that. Even if she could keep that up, it would take her 6 hours EVERY DAY to read the books, then review them. Plausible? I think not.

In any case, just to confirm, something is indeed up. A quick internet search uncovered these two links:
http://thebestreviews.com/user5
http://harrietklausner.wwwi.com/
Apparently Harriet’s speed reading is not her only demonic power- she can also shapeshift!

The book sitting at the top of the bestseller list at the moment (Birds in My Life) is an interesting case in point of how the entire system is rapidly losing credibility.

H. Klausner is another. It would be impossible for anyone to read and then write reviews for all the books that she churns out. Even the business of writing that many would take several hours a day. Moreover, her unfamiliarity with the content of the books is often obvious. It’s a shame if people are influenced by these reviews, but the website is peppered with seemingly impartial reviews written with arch motivations.

Not that I find her reviews helpful at all. I stopped even listening to her years ago.

A bit of cash perhaps?

Btw, Harriet Klausner is remarkable, but, except for the sheer volume, she’s not unique. Check out reviewing records of other ‘Top’ reviewers on Amazon, for example Robert Morris and W.Boudville. Do these guys read the books they review? I doubt it.

There’s a lot of ‘reviewers’ of this sort on Amazon (and elsewhere, actually). They tend to review huge numbers of books and they tend to rate them all positively, four or five stars. How realistic is that? Think of it, out of, say, fifty books you read most recently, how many were five stars?

Looks like industrial-scale shilling to me. What they stand to gain we’ll never know, but hey… they must be getting something for their efforts.

When I co-wrote a book, we were all asked to go on amazon and write positive reviews and the book publisher even had internal writers. I’ve come to take reviews with a grain of salt. To me, it’s about what other books people purchased in addition to that book. I trust the wisdom of the crowd over independent vocal users. Just me.

I’m more interested in reading a bunch of more subjective reviews and finding a common thread.

Fortunately gaming Amazon’s reviewer ranking system isn’t as dangerous to consumers as the type of gaming that occurs on eBay.

“The problem is articles like this which profile her in a dark light and give the public more reason to mark her reviews as unhelpful.”

This is untrue. The public doesn’t read articles like this. Though it is possible that her amazon-savvy detractors may be “ganging-up” on her reviews, you would need to provide data to demonstrate this claim.

Joshua Porter provides relevant data and asks the right questions about incentives.

This is what happens when Quantity of submissions trumps Quality and you create an associated Leader Board.

Are those the only two options?

What I want to know is, what is the motivation for doing this? Just the perverse thrill of being high on the list? Is there any kind of possibility for monetary gain?

The problem is articles like this which profile her in a dark light and give the public more reason to mark her reviews as unhelpful. In order to attain a helpful rate of 8%, you either have to be illiterate or have a lot of people that hate you… I think we know where this stands.