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Guidelines & Basics (UPDATED June 6th, 2022) Popularity

Preferences

The Guidelines were updated on June 6th, 2022. It is recommended you

read the entire Guidelines page, not only to be aware of the changes but
also because it is helpful to refresh yourself from time to time on the
Guidelines. However, a summary of the recent changes is available in
this forum topic.

Review Team Guidelines, Policies, and Terms

1. Getting Started
2. Important: Requirements while Reading
3. Basic Process For Doing A Review
4. Important: Guidelines For Writing The Review
5. Posting The Completed Review
V. What Happens Next
7. Important: Other Review Team Rules and Terms

Getting Started

It is advised that you read this whole page before selecting a book to
review.

To do an o[cial review, you start by selecting a book by clicking the

"Select" tab in the "Review Team Subnavigation" above. If there is
payment for the review, the amount will be listed under the "Payment"
column; otherwise it will say "free book" meaning you are just getting
the free book. Your _rst review will not be paid. You will become eligible
for paid reviews after your _rst review if the _rst review adheres to the
Review Team Guidelines and you have a su[cient reviewer score. If you
are new to the team, you may only see a few books until you improve
your reviewer score slightly.

It is required for you to read the description of the book before

accepting it for review.

After _rst clicking to accept a review, you will then choose the format in
which you want to receive the book before con_rming. Once con_rmed,
you cannot change the format. It is important to make sure the formats
you set in your preferences and the format you ultimately choose are
compatible with your device.

Throughout the process of reviewing a book, you are required to use the
"Update" tab to update the status of the review within the deadlines.
That is also the link you need to use to submit error reports if you have
trouble doing the review or need to request an extension. Before
agreeing to review a book, you must carefully read the full description
displayed on the Review Team Page to make sure it is a good _t for you.

For paid reviews, the payments usually range from $5-$60, but can
occasionally be more. The higher payments are reserved for the highest
level reviewers, so you will want to also familiarize yourself with the
reviewer score page. Your level only affects what books you can select
to review. If your level goes down while in the middle of reviewing a
book, you are still able to _nish that review (and get paid if it was a paid
review.)

[Added July 8th, 2019] Important Requirements While Reading

1. You must keep notes of whether or not a book contains any

usage of even just one vulgar or profane word. You must make a
note of the _rst instance of profanity you notice with the
location or page number. You do not need to track or note all
instances of profanity, only the _rst (if any). This is because the
question you will be asked is whether the book has profane
language at all. Some forms of possible profanity may be
borderline or debatable, such that you don't know if it is
profanity or not. In this case, please do take notes of the _rst
instance of even borderline, debatable, or very minor profanity,
and then also take notes of the _rst instance of non-borderline
profanity. In other words, when in doubt, note it as profanity, but
consider it "borderline profanity", and then keep an eye out for
any non-borderline cases of profanity and note that _rst
instance of that too (if present).
2. You will be asked if the book has any sexual content and asked
to rate its intensity on a scale of 0-5. (You will see the details in
a dropdown menu on the post-review questionnaire).
3. [Added December 12th, 2020:] You will be asked about the
religious content - you will see the details in a dropdown menu.
4. When reading, you must take notes with page or location
numbers of any and all typos, spelling, or grammar errors you
notice, up to ten errors. If there are more than ten errors, you will
only be asked for the _rst ten, but you can choose to list more.
After you submit your review text, you will then be also asked to
privately provide your full list of the typos and grammar/spelling
errors, so you do not need to list all 10 errors in the review
(although you can optionally choose to give one or two
examples of the typos in your review as examples if you feel
that is appropriate).
[ClariJcation Added September 24th, 2019:] Generally
speaking, errors in dialog or reported speech are not counted as
countable grammar errors unless the mistake is clearly an
unintended typo. When privately listing the typos/errors in the
form after you submit the review text, you must quote enough of
the sentence containing the typo or grammar error to
demonstrate what the error is; usually it's best to quote the
whole sentence.

Basic Process For Doing A Review

While reading the book...

It is very important that you carefully read the book. Do not speed or
skim read. Take notes while you read, so you can use those notes later
when you write the review.

After selecting a book for review, you need to go back to the Review
Team Page to update the status of the review after each of the
following three events, within the listed deadlines:

Within one hour of accepting the book for review, you must con_rm
having successfully downloaded the book in a readable format OR
submit an error report.
Within 14 days of con_rming the successful download, you must
con_rm you have _nished reading it (or submit a different status
update, namely an error report or extension request).
Within 7 days of marking the book as read, you must submit the
review (or submit a different status update, namely an error report
or extension request).
You can always submit an error report on the Update tab. An error
report submitted through the Update tab counts as a status update
and will automatically extend the deadline for the next update by at
least one week.
Emailing Review Team Support does not count as a status update.

On the update status page, you can also choose to request an

extension or submit an error report. Doing either of those will restart the
clock on your deadline.

If you hate the book so much you don't want to Jnish reading...

If you dislike reading a book a lot, you do not have to _nish reading it.
There is an option you can click on the Review Team Page to say that
you do not want to _nish the book. You will be asked to give a short
paragraph explaining why you didn't like the book enough to _nish
reading it that will be given to the author as constructive criticism.
There is no penalty for occasionally choosing not to _nish a book.
However, if it becomes excessive, it may affect your score. At this time,
failing to complete 30% or more of reviews will lead to a penalty on your
reviewer score.

If you Jnish reading the book...

If you _nish reading the book, you are expected to write a review of it.
We give you a free copy of a book in exchange for a review.

You are expected to rate the book on a scale of 1 to 4 stars with 1 being
the worst and 4 being the best. Use the following guidelines for rating: 1
= bad, 2 = fair, 3 = good, 4 = excellent); basically if you give it a 3 or a 4
you are recommending that others read it, if you give a 1 you are
strongly recommending other people do not bother reading it, and if you
give it a 2 that's sort of ambiguous since obviously you didn't like it that
much but maybe others will. O[cial ratings do not use half-points (e.g.
3.5 stars); rather choose a whole number for the o[cial rating which
must be included in the review and then explain in the review why you
would give or take partial points if that was possible.

The review does not have to be positive. If you didn't like the book (but
still _nished reading it) then give it a bad rating and a generally negative
review. Please be honest. This system won't work unless others can
trust the honesty of our reviews.

Finally, make sure you follow the guidelines for writing the actual review
or your review may be rejected.

[Updated December 12th, 2020] Important: Guidelines For Writing

The Review

Note: Any review could be featured in connection with a book

promotion. Reviews must comply with all of the guidelines below. They
are not merely suggestions. Please follow all instructions in the Notes
sections. The Tips are optional but could be helpful.

Tip: Read several of the o[cial reviews (published on the homepage) to

get an overview of the formatting as well as the tone and content
required. Please note that some of the reviews you will see may have
been produced under the old guidelines, so do not follow them too
closely - ensure that your review is in line with this new version.

Summary of requirements/checklist:

Careful reading

Notes for post-review questionnaire

Originality

Brief summary

Book title

Author's name

Positive aspects

Negative aspects

Rating

Justi_cation of rating

Recommendation

Errors

General

1. Read the whole book carefully. Do not skim read or use any
speed reading technique of any kind.

Note: You are required to read the entire book, not just the
sample.

2. Reviews must be in good English with correct spelling and

grammar. Any variety of English may be used (US, British, etc.).

Tip: Spellcheck and repeatedly proofread the review before

submitting the _nal version.

Note: Spellcheckers may be useful but cannot be relied on.

3. The entire review must be original. Plagiarism of any kind,

including verbatim and paraphrasing, is strictly prohibited. Any
quotes from the book must be used sparingly and their source
clearly indicated. (See also guideline 8).

SpeciJc

Length
4. The minimum length is 400 words, or 300 words for children's
books.
5. The maximum length is 800 words.
V. The review must consist of at least _ve paragraphs.

Tip: A review could consist of _ve paragraphs, as follows:

paragraph 1, summary; paragraph 2, positive aspects; paragraph
3, negative aspects; paragraph 4, rating; and paragraph 5,
recommended audience. You may opt to add more paragraphs,
but do not add lengthy discussions of matters unconnected with
the book.

Summary
7. Brieiy summarize the book but, of course, without any spoilers.
The summary is required but must be less than half of the
review. In other words, it must not be the case that most of the
review is summary of the book. The focus of the review needs to
be your opinion of the book and an explanation of why you
recommend others read it or not.

Notes:
1. Make sure that the summary is original and written in
your own words. Do not copy from the book's published
blurbs or descriptions or from other reviews of the book.
Do not lift sentences from the book (these may be
quoted sparingly only with a clear indication of the
source). Using synonyms to replace words in published
summaries of the book is considered plagiarism, which is
absolutely prohibited.
2. Spoilers are not limited to the book's ending. Major plot
twists, such as the death of an important character or the
revelation of a mystery, also constitute spoilers.

Positive and negative points

k. What was good about the book? Mention at least one positive
point. (If it was so bad that you can _nd nothing good to say
about it, you must state this explicitly).
9. What was not good about the book? Mention at least one
negative point. (If it was so good that you cannot _nd any
negative point, you must state this explicitly).

10. Support your commentary with speci_c examples from the book
(without spoilers). Do not use generic phrases that could apply
to any book. A review consisting entirely or mostly of clichéd,
boilerplate expressions ("the twists and turns kept me on the
edge of my seat") will be marked as not adhering to the
guidelines.

Title and author

11. The title must appear at least once in the body of the review, in
italics every time.
12. The author's full name as it appears on the book cover image
must be in the body of the review at least once. It must be in
plain text (not italics) and spelled correctly. Titles (e.g., Dr, Major,
and Mr.), name su[xes (e.g., Jr., Sr., and III) and credentials
(e.g., PhD, MBA, and MD) do not need to be included, but they
can be. The author's name must be correctly spelled every time
that it is used. Either the author's surname or given name may
be used within the review (as long as the complete name is
mentioned at least once).

Rating (1, 2, 3 or 4 out of 4 stars)

13. Include your rating in the body of the review, using the format "x
out of 4", such as with the statement, "I rate this book 3 out of 4
stars" (with the rating in bold print). You can write the rating in
words such as "two out of four" or _gures, such as "2 out of 4".
You can include the word "stars" after the rating or not.

Notes:
1. The following rating formats are not acceptable: "3/4",
"three stars out of four", "three stars of four stars", "3
stars", and "three stars".
2. Do not use a separate heading, or fragment, for the
rating. Include the rating in the text of the review as a full
sentence.

14. If a book does not seem to have been professionally edited, and
if you _nd more than ten errors, do not give it a perfect four out
of four rating. It is not acceptable to claim a book was
professionally edited and give it four out of four just because an
editor is mentioned in any part of the book. It does not matter
whether the book really was professionally edited or not; what
matters is whether it seems like it to you from reading it.

15. Brieiy explain why you gave the rating you did. For instance, if
you gave three stars, brieiy explain why you didn't give four or
two. Make sure the rating is justi_ed. As an extreme example, if
there is only one error, that cannot be used as the only basis for
deducting one star.

Recommendation
1V. Explain to what kind of people, readers, or audiences you think
the book would most appeal. If there are any speci_c audiences
that you would recommend do not read the book, mention and
explain that as well. Avoid overly general recommendations like
"this book is for everyone".

Notes:
1. Do not write "this book is unsuitable for children" in cases
where it is unlikely that the book could be taken for a
children's book.
2. You are not required to mention sexual and religious
content or profanity unless they are signi_cant to some
other aspect of the review.

Errors
17. You are not required to mention the errors in the book in your
review. You might mention them if they are relevant to the rating,
for example. You may list examples if this supports a particular
point you are making, but this is not required.

1k. However, if you do not notice a single typo, spelling or grammar

error while reading the book, then please explicitly state in the
review that the book was exceptionally well edited. You do not
need to use the exact words "exceptionally well edited"; you can
use your own words.

Notes:
1. Reporting that the book was exceptionally well edited will
go hand-in-hand with selecting "0 errors - rare" when you
submit the rating and typos.
2. "Professionally edited" does not mean the same as "zero
errors".
3. If you select "0 errors - rare" and there are uncounted
errors listed, you do not need to state that the book was
exceptionally well edited.

Post-review questionnaire
19. You are required to report on profanity, and erotic and religious
content, in the Post-Review Questionnaire. However, this is for
internal use. You do not need to mention this information in the
text of the review. You may mention these aspects if they are
relevant to a required component of the review, normally the
recommendation. For example, it's relevant to say that a book is
suitable for a mature audience because it contains explicit sex
scenes.

While you are asked in the private Post Review Questionnaire

about the religious content, you do not need to mention religious
content in the actual review unless it's an especially important
aspect of the book.

Paragraph Formatting

20. Paragraphs must be separated by one blank line.

Tip: Use the preview function to check the formatting before

submitting the review. Check the appearance of your review
against those published on the home page.

After posting the review

21. Use the form provided to report the number of errors found
while reading (up to 10). When reporting the errors, you must
include the following:

The page or location number where the error was found

The error itself, making sure that enough of the sentence is
included for easy identi_cation
A description of the error
Please see under Important Requirements While Reading
above for instructions on how to report errors. These must
be followed exactly, or the review will be marked as not
adhering to the guidelines.

22. Follow the instructions to report the _rst instance of borderline

or non-borderline profanity. The page number and profane term
must be given. This item is strictly for profane language, not
sexual content as such. That has its own section - see below.
23. Follow the instructions on reporting sexual content.
24. Follow the instructions on reporting religious content.
25. On rare occasions, you will be asked to re-review an updated
version of a book that you previously reviewed. When this
happens, you must make a note on your new review that it is a
re-review. Failure to do so can result in your review being marked
as plagiarized.

Posting The Completed Review

Before attempting to submit the text for the review, make sure you have
properly updated the status on the Update tab of the Review Team Page
. Needless to say, you will not be prompted to submit the text of the
review if you have not yet updated the status from "currently reading" to
"_nished reading". You must always keep the status of the review
properly updated as instructed earlier on this page.

When you are ready to write the review, go to the

Update tab of the Review Team Page, and click to use the new
streamlined review submission form. Make sure to read through your
review on the preview screen to make sure it looks good and is
formatted correctly. Once you have submitted the review text, go back
to the Update tab of the Review Team Page to submit the o[cial rating
and list of typos.

When submitting the rating and private list of typos on the Review Team
Page, you may also be prompted to write an additional short private
blurb. The point of this is solely to demonstrate that you carefully read
the whole book. Generally, the review will not be sent to the moderators
for approval until after the private blurb is con_rmed by the author or
publisher who submitted the book for review. If the author does not
respond within a week, there is a button to request the "dispute" be
closed on the "private blurb dispute" page, accessible from your
Review Team History page. Please allow one more week for the
publisher to respond or for the dispute to be closed automatically.

Keep in mind, not all reviews will require the additional private blurb. If a
private blurb is needed, you will be prompted for a private blurb when
submitting the rating on the update tab.

Please allow three weeks for payment to be issued after the editors and
moderators approve the review.

What Happens Next

After you submit the review, it will not be immediately publicly visible.
The review will _rst need to be approved by the editors. This process
can take around two weeks. If a private blurb needs to be approved,
generally the review will not be sent to the editors until after the private
blurb is con_rmed.

If the review is not written according to the guidelines above, it will be

rejected by the editors. If it is rejected, you will not be able to rewrite the
review. While frustrating, that greatly helps protect the quality of the
service we provide authors, which is what brings in quality free books
for review and even money to pay reviewers. You will be given feedback
about why it was rejected. You will need to start over, select a new book,
and follow the guidelines.

The review will be listed in your history. While waiting for the editors'
decision, it will show as "pending". If rejected, it will show as "rejected"
with a link to the editors' comments. If the editors approved it, it will
show as "published". When published, the title and purchase links will
be added to the review by the editor, and the review will be moved by the
editor into the public genre forum. Then what you want to do is share
links to it with your friends via email, Facebook, Twitter and any other
similar networks you use. That will help drive up your reviewer score
(because authors/publishers would rather have their book reviewed by
someone with a bigger audience).

Occasionally, a review will be approved by the editors but will not be

published. In this case, the status will be shown in your review history
as "Not published, but counted as complete". You will be given some
default points in your reviewer score for review popularity to make up
for the review not being published. There are a few reasons this can
happen but it is not your fault. For instance, it can be because the
author/publisher had originally requested the review be delivered as
private feedback. Please note, the authors do NOT get to see the review
before deciding whether it will be published, nor do they have editorial
input on the reviews. It is usually a decision made before you ever even
review the book. In short, if a review is not published because of you it
will say "rejected"; but if it is not published because of some other
reason it will say "counted as complete", and you will get points for it.

Generally, the editors will not correct errors in the review, whether they
are grammar/spelling errors or other issues. They simply rate the review
and provide some feedback to the reviewer explaining their rating and
coach the reviewer to write even better reviews. Likewise, you will
generally not have the option to update the review to _x mistakes after
it has already been sent to the editors. There are two main reasons for
that:

1. The editors generally only provide examples of the errors they

notice on a quick read, not an exhaustive list.
2. To keep the system e[cient, the editors—who are paid—are
meant to quickly doublecheck that the guidelines were followed.
As a reviewer, it's your job, not the editors' job, to make sure your
review is of publication-quality and follows the Guidelines
before you submit it. If you were to be able to change the review
after it was already checked by the editors, it would have to be
sent back to the editors to re-check it which would increase total
editing costs and thus reduce the payouts to all reviewers. It
would be very unfair to the reviewers who do follow the
guidelines and submit correct reviews the _rst time. It would be
ine[cient, expensive, and unfair to have reviews going back-
and-forth from the editors to reviewers who failed to follow the
guidelines.

Paid Review Eligibility

The _rst review you do will not be paid. This acts as a trial run to make
sure you can write a review that adheres to the Review Team Guidelines
(which is the page you are reading now).

If your _rst review adheres to the Guidelines, you will be eligible to do

paid reviews as soon as that review is approved.

If your _rst review does not adhere to the guidelines, then you may not
be eligible to do paid reviews after that depending on your
Reviewer Score. The biggest factor in your reviewer score is how well
you and your reviews follow and adhere to the Review Team Guidelines.
The other factors such as popularity and participation have much less
of an effect on your reviewer score.

Although you are eligible to do paid reviews after your _rst review
(assuming the _rst review adheres to the guidelines), you will still want
to increase your level and score after that to become eligible for even
higher paying reviews. The highest paying reviews are reserved for level
5 and level 6 reviewers. You can become a level 5 or level 6 reviewer in
as little as three reviews, assuming the reviews adhere to the guidelines,
and assuming you put some reasonable effort into improving the
popularity and participation sections of your Reviewer Score.

Important: Other Terms and Policies

1. Deadlines: You must update the status in the required

deadlines listed above. If you miss the deadlines, you will be
sent email reminders. Your reviewer score will be reduced if you
have to be sent these reminders. If you have to be sent multiple
reminders, you will eventually be kicked off the review team.
2. Members of the review team are prohibited from having private
conversations with any authors who have requested a review.
3. It is prohibited to be a member of the review team and submit a
review request.
4. You are given the books only to read them and review them.
Sharing them or signi_cant portions of them with anyone else or
downloading/requesting them with any intent besides reading
and reviewing them is copyright infringement. Giving away
spoilers is also prohibited.
5. You do not have to _nish reading the book if you hate it, but do
not review the book as if you _nished it if you do not _nish
reading it.
V. The review must be original, meaning you cannot plagiarize part
or all of it. The review is exclusive to OnlineBookClub.org,
meaning you cannot post it on another website. If you have a
blog or personal website, we hope you post a link to the review
on your website, or you can feel free to write a different review
of the book on third-party websites AFTER your review is
published at OnlineBookClub.org (if ever). Reviews will be
checked for plagiarism or violations of the exclusivity
agreement, and violations will result in being booted from the
program and revocation of any payments. Please note, you are
being given a book for free that is normally sold for a price (and
in some cases being given an additional monetary payment) in
exchange for writing the review and giving it exclusively to
OnlineBookClub.org, and we may have speci_c arrangements
with the author/publisher regarding when, if ever, and in what
ways we will publish the review, which is why it is important that
this system isn't undermined by the review (or an alternate
version of the review) being published elsewhere whether
because it was plagiarized illegally or because it has been
distributed in violation of this agreement. If you want to publish
a verbatim copy of the review elsewhere, such as on a personal
blog, you can contact us after it has been published publicly
here for permission to be exempt from the exclusivity
agreement, but usually it is best to just post a link to the o[cial
OnlineBookClub.org review. One important reason to not post
the review elsewhere prior to it being published is that the
editors check reviews for plagiarism, and thus the editors will
mark it as plagiarized if they _nd the review published
elsewhere, even if elsewhere happens to be your own personal
website or blog or a post somewhere made by you.
7. Some books offer a payout. This is how much you will be paid
once you _nish the review and it is posted. The review must
meet the guidelines for you to be issued payment, including but
not limited to being at least 5 paragraphs and being properly
spellchecked and proofread. Payments are available via PayPal.
Please make sure to set the correct PayPal email address on the
preferences page to which you want the payment to be sent
when you request payout. Please see the
New Review Approval, Publication, and Payment Timeframes
forum topic
for information regarding the timetable of approving, publishing,
and sending the payment for a review.
k. You are required to carefully read the description and author bio
included with each review opportunity before selecting to review
a book. If you fail to do this you will be banned from the Review
Team. You are expected to only choose to review books that you
think are a good _t for you. For example, if you hate steamy
erotic books, don't choose to review one. That doesn't mean you
are required to actually enjoy the book or only write positive
reviews. Rather, it simply means that you are not allowed to
select a book that you believe or know isn't your type of book.
Additionally, sometimes the special private book description
displayed on the Review Team Page will list special criteria that
reviewers must be. For instance, it might say a book can only be
reviewed by reviewers of a certain age range or such. If you
select a book despite not meeting the criteria, you will be
banned from the Review Team.
9. If you violate any of these guidelines or terms, you may be
banned from the review team, and you will forfeit any
outstanding payments.
10. If payments sent to the PayPal email address do not go through
because either (1) you give us the wrong PayPal email, (2) you
fail to claim the funds through PayPal, (3) you somehow lose
access to your PayPal account or are unable to create one, or
(4) you otherwise have issues between you and PayPal, then the
funds will not be re-sent.
11. If you become aware that someone who lives in the same
household as you (i.e. a roommate) or any immediate family
member (e.g. a spouse, sibling, grandparent, child, etc.) is also
on the Review Team, or is planning to join the Review Team, you
must notify us immediately. You can do this through the
website's main contact form. You then must both work together
to make sure you never review the same book through the
Review Team. The primary reason for this is to make sure
nobody pretends to be multiple people as to get duplicate credit
for writing multiple reviews of the same book under false
identities.
12. If you have a complaint about OnlineBookClub, you must either
(1) send it to us privately, or (2) keep it to yourself. As an o[cial
member of OnlineBookClub yourself, you may not post negative
reviews or negative comments about OnlineBookClub publicly
on third-party websites. It undermines the entire review system
if our own reviewers are leaving negative reviews of
OnlineBookClub on third-party websites or otherwise publicly
complaining about or bashing the company. If you have a
problem, we are very happy to help, but you need to contact us
directly and privately. Violation of this rule can cause you to be
suspended or banned from the Review Team.
13. We reserve the right to modify these terms at any time.

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