Should book bloggers be paid for reviews? I've seen so much drama about this before
and I'm really excited to talk about it because I feel like I'm on the unpopular opinion side.
Hiya! So apparently there's been some drama and controversy before about whether people
should be paid for doing book reviews and I don't really understand the controversy
because I don't get why the answer would be no.
As someone who's only been on BookTube for a few months but has been on YouTube for years,
I feel like maybe I'm coming at this from a different standpoint. But I've seen a lot
of people say "Aw, book bloggers shouldn't be paid for reviews because it'll make them
have rose-tinted glasses on when they're reading the book and they won't be completely honest.
They'll be afraid to say bad things about the book and they won't really have- be worthy
of their recommendations just because they're paid."
I don't get that. I feel like if someone's being paid to review something, they should
be completely honest. And when you're getting a book from Netgalley say, or when you're
sent a book from publishers, you're sent an ARC or a finished copy, you're still getting
a payment of some form because you're getting this free gift and you're going to review
it, so that shouldn't affect your review overall – so why would money change it?
I've been really harsh on some of the books I've reviewed from NetGalley, because I just
don't believe in them. I don't think they're any good. So like, there was one where I said
it was like an amateur wrote rape culture – which led to someone finding my blog by
searching 'amateur rape,' which is so disturbing you don't even want to think about it.
I don't anyway. I just don't get why people wouldn't trust someone and their reviews just
because they're paid for it. Like, they're being paid to share their opinion the same
way someone in the newspaper is being paid to review a book. And sure, maybe the publishers
won't like what they're being told, but it's the publishers job and the writers job to
make sure that the book is actually going to be good, and to give it to reviewers who
are going to like it and then they'll make the good review. And even if they pay someone
to do the review, that doesn't mean it's going to be a good review. it just means it's going
to be a review.
I think in general when it comes to book bloggers, something that I have huge problem with on
BookTube is that there are so many people who are nice and it drives me insane, and
this is a rant for another day and I know, but some people are nice and it just feels
kind-of like they're leaving out the bad points because they got the book for free. So I understand
why people would be concerned that if they're being paid to do the review, then they're
going to be even less truthful and they're gonna hide all of the bad points they're gonna
be like "Oh yeah, this is brilliant," and shove the book in your face, and try and promote
it so that it'll get views and get looked at on Amazon and eventually get purchased
by people. But the thing is, if you know that the person isn't great at reviewing, then
you're not gonna trust their review anyway. Maybe if someone does get paid for a review
and they give it a bad review and everyone's like "Aw, don't trust them," well there goes
their trusthworthiness anyway. Nobody's going to watch them anymore. Nobody's going to listen
to them or care what they say because they're not going to be trustworthy.
Let people get paid, and you can figure out for yourself if they're worth listening to.
Personally I think if you've grown a large audience and you've put in so much work to
be able to have lots of people listen to your opinions and take them into account when they're
deciding what they're going to buy, or maybe they listen to them and go "I'm gonna stick
that book onto my TBR," or "I'm gonna take that book off my TBR," - I hate the word influencer
but you are influencing people in a way and I think that goes for everyone across the
board, when it comes to small BookTubers with like 50 subscribers to people with 300 thousand.
And I think at the end of the day, when you have grown a large audience and you are able
to give books a huge platform and you can potentially affect book sales, you should
be paid for that by the publishers because they're going to be making money off it if
you're promoting their book and you're saying how brilliant it is. You should be paid also
for helping them make all that profit.
At the end of the day, it's not easy for BookTubers to get a lot of sponsorships. Like, if you
can't rely on publishers for sponsorship, then where do you go? You have to go to stationary
brands. You have to go to, I saw Christina- I can't remember her second name, polandbananaBOOKS,
she did a book video that was sponsored by a glasses place.
It's easier to be sponsored by a book publisher and they can be like "Here's some books. Review
them please. Yeah. Be honest."
At the end of the day, if you say to a publisher "Yeah, you can pay me to review this book
but it doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to be nice about it. I'm going to be honest,"
then they can say to you "Okay. We want someone who's going to be nice and not honest, and
can take the book back and you can talk dirt about them if you want, if you're like not
professional. Or you can do a video on like BookTube drama. Maybe you don't have to name
them for it, but you can talk about how it happened in general. Or you'll a publisher
being like "Yeah, sure, we believe in this book. We believe that you're going to enjoy
and say nice things and we think it should be read by your audience. So here you go.
Here's some money. Please say that you love it or hate it, or whatever you think of it."
Because even if you say something bad about it, you're still bringing it to peoples attentions.
You're still bringing the author to peoples attentions, and yeah sure, maybe a lot of
them will go "I'm not going to give that a go," but some people might hear about it and
they might hear what the story is and go "You know what? They didn't enjoy it but it seems
like the type of thing I would enjoy," and they'll still end up being aware of the book
and buying it.
I don't get why this is any different to people who review beauty products or food products
or anything else, because at the end of the day it is still a review that people are being
paid for. Especially when it's make-up, loads of people get paid for that and I don't get
why that'd be any different. Maybe it's because books are more of a personal thing. Makeup
is, you apply it and it might work for your skin, it might not. But books are personal
nd you're reading it and you're experiencing it, and your experience might be completely
different to someone elses even though it's the same book.
Maybe it's because books are usually written by one person and then they just have a team
who help make it unless it's self-published. Maybe that's it? I don't know.
If you think book bloggers should or shouldn't be paid, please let me know why you think
that because I just don't understand why they wouldn't be paid if you have a big audience.
Obviously if you have like fifty subscribers, like you're not going to be paid. And I don't
– you know what, I don't mean to be mean but I find it so funny when people are like,
they stick it in their description or they say it in the video, "This video was not sponsored
by any brand and is my honest opinion," and they have like 20 subscribers. I'm like, nobody
thought that that was going to be sponsored by the brand because nobody knows who you
are. Nobody trust your opinion, other than your friends. So.
Was that mean? I feel like that was mean, but I don't know. That's my personal feeling
on it. Obviously I'm just saying people should be paid so that when I have like 300 thousand
subscribers, I can justify it, being like "I always thought they should be paid." Haha.
I'm only 299,800 subscribers away from being a millionaire, yo! Because obviously every
YouTuber is a millionaire.
Yeah, if you like this video, you can subscribe to me up here anyway. Eh, I talk about books
and stuff on this channel. And down here I do mental health and feminism and dating and
stuff. So thanks very much for watching. I hope you are well. If you're not, then I'm
sorry about that. Eh, is that my new catchphrase? I said that in my last video as well. Thanks
very much for watching though. Slán!