Got this email from Brigid Alverson and thought it was interesting enough to share.  I went in and looked at the remaining reviews and they make interesting reading: Hi Paul,I write about digital comics, and I'm a big fan of Teleread. I just ran across this on Amazon and I thought you might be interested:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005VRAZOS/ref=cm_cd_asin_lnkLong story short: The book had something like 250 5-star reviews, all of which were apparently planted by the author or his surrogates. He even took the time to leave feedback on his reviews. People started complaining and Amazon took them down. There are now six reviews...

Jailbait Justice, by Danny Hogan, is one cracking good read.  23,000 words of pure pulp fun and at $2.99 on the Kindle, a pure steal.  Imaginative without skimping on the blood or the story. I will tell you this, hand on heart, I ain't good for much at all.  I can cook a meal fair enough and, when a nice tune kicks up, I have been known to dance in a way that'd attract the fellas like bees around honey.  Thatwas bout it except, of course, for killing.  And, in these wretched times, where a girl's only chance is her old...

  An unexpected phenomena begins to occur once a writer signs on to be a book reviewer. Not at first, mind you, but around the mark of one’s first year at reading and rendering of opinions on prose, something almost magical takes place wherever one posts on the hills and dales of the vastly diverse Internet. No matter the forum, platform, group or board that a reviewer happens to be visiting, the writers thereon seem to sense the presence of a willing Other Eye and seize upon the opportunity to get their work...

Occasional TeleRead contributor Robert Nagle passed me a link to a review he lately posted of our founder David Rothman’s small-press-published novel, The Solomon Scandals, which recounts a journalist’s investigation of a scandal in 1970s Washington. Nagle quite liked the book, giving it four stars, though noting that the tone could get a little preachy at times. Ars Technica reports that Google will release the first e-ink reader optimized for Google Books in about a week. The iRiver Story HD, apparently a revision of iRiver’s 2009 Story e-reader, will include wifi and a qwerty keyboard, and cost $139.99 suggested retail when...

The email publication, Shelf Awareness, is starting to do book review issues.  Here's what they say: We are so pleased to present the first issue of Shelf Awareness: Enlightenment for Readers. This new version of "The Shelf," a publication beloved by booksellers, librarians and publishing industry insiders, is targeted at readers--and really, if you're in the book business, you're a reader, too. That's why we're sending this to you, our faithful subscribers. You're some of the most avid readers we know.Like Shelf Awareness: Daily Enlightenment for the Book Trade, this newsletter is free--and that means you can  share it with the other...

I ran across a story the other day that made me think about the way that parts of our online activities can affect other parts, and the risk that you take doing anything that could draw negative attention to you if you’ve also got a book on Amazon. Published writer T. Michael Murdock also reviews video games on Joystiq. Recently, he gave a one-star review to a game called Conduit 2 (which he called “more like Con-don’t-do-it 2”). After he wrote that review, one-star reviews started appearing on his Amazon book listing—and it turned out that Conduit 2 developer...

From the press release: Library Journal announces today that it will accept review submissions for romance e-originals through NetGalley. Starting immediately, Library Journal will consider for review book-length romance e-originals, with plans to expand to book-length e-originals in other popular genre fiction and, eventually, novellas and original nonfiction works. This expansion of review coverage is necessary to address the skyrocketing popularity of ebooks in U.S. public libraries (72 percent currently offer ebooks, according to Library Journal 's 2010“Ebook Penetration Survey”). Library Journal will use NetGalley to give editors and reviewers access to secure digital galleys of said e-originals. At this time, simultaneous print/ebook titles are...

Recently, on a discussion forum, the question was asked: “Would you trust a paid book review?” Most commenters declared an unambiguous “no,” but I’m not sure the answer is so easy or should be so emphatically given. We start, of course, with what constitutes payment for a review. In the forum, the answers began with as little as receipt of a free review copy and moved on from there. What was never really addressed, although I did try to raise the issue, was the reviewer’s credentials. The consensus in the forum was that the most trustworthy...

I recently had the opportunity to pick up a pair of David Weber books I had not yet read. (Well, “pick up” in a figurative sense, as I read them as free e-books from the Mission of Honor CD on The Fifth Imperium Baen CD repository.) I found them to be quite exciting page turners, with only a few minor drawbacks. The books in question make up the “Multiverse” series: Hell’s Gate and Hell Hath No Fury. As with all Baen titles, they are available in multiple, DRM-free formats. The books are actually co-written between Weber and Linda...

I am delighted to welcome a guest blogger for this week's review: my sister Tammy! Tammy is a paralegal, a published freelance writer with more than 300 newspaper and magazine credits to her name (including The Writer, Rangefinder, Paralegal Today, and others) and an as-yet unpublished mystery novelist. Tammy has been a fan of e-books since they first emerged on the PalmOS platform a decade or so ago and just got a Kindle 3 graphite for her birthday. She says she believes it is finally starting to realize the promise of e-books and she dearly loves it! Tammy also reads...

The Bad Seed is a paranormal-themed small press title by a veteran Australian author. It is set in Australia, at a spooky run-down house in a 'spa' town which is purchased by a gardening columnist seeking an escape from a life in tatters after the disappearance of her daughter several years before. The writing is top-quality and the atmosphere and mood of a small tourist town is captured very well. But I found the plot tended to wander a little. Agatha's job as a magazine columnist is very prominent as the novel begins, then fades away and comes back again several...

I needed a short one this week; I am recovering (hopefully) from bronchitis and spent most of the weekend sleeping. Capable of Murder by Brian Kavanagh was just the thing---just barely novel-length, and a fairly inoffensive cozy that made for a quick and easy read. The story involves a young woman who inherits an old cottage near Bath, England from her aunt and goes to live there. She meets several sinister characters who all seem to have an interest in the cottage and grounds, and as the body count climbs, she wonders what secrets her aunt---and the old cottage---contain... The story was...