Pubby

A scam run by lazy, shady, rude people. First off, it can get you banned from Amazon. So don't do it. I didn't know that because these scammers falsely represented themselves as legit. But even if you want to risk it, know that Pubby is horrible to deal with. Bruce and Co. are too lazy to track reviews (literally their only job), so they routinely take away your earned points until you find and deliver the review yourself. I turned in only 5 stars and only on time, but I was constantly harassed about lateness or failing to complete projects. Dare complain about being mistreated and you'll be subjected to even more harassment. Lastly, many of the other "authors" are scammers too. They have AI write garbage books, intentionally misprice their offerings to cheat the point system, and have AI write your reviews, which will flag your account. What does Pubby do about all this? Absolutely nothing so long as they get their monthly $.

It isn't what Pubby advertise but that's not the worst. The people don't actually read your book and it's evident by the reviews. Everyone is just trying to get reviews for their own book and if you read one and give it an actual review beware, it better be good or when you want yours reviewed again they will trash you. Terrible experience. Quit after two weeks!

Most of the reviews that I received for my books over the subscription period of one year were deleted by Amazon and the remaining reviews are being slowly deleted - like 3-4 reviews deleted every week!
Even the reviews that gave are being deleted by Amazon!
The customer service is very rude and respond very late with some UNRELATED ANSWER!
Subscription is expensive and getting a refund is a hassle.
Even if you get reviews on pubby now, there is no guarantee that those will stay.
Stay away from PUBBY!

I have never worked with a LESS professional group. After signing up with Pubby I received no Email verification, no Emails at all until I complained that I was not seeing any of there guaranteed results. Then I was told by a snarky employee my book was rejected for a bogus reason ten day previously. Since I had worked with other promotional services and hadn't had a problem I knew Pubby were lying. I assumed that was it and told them to drop me, but found out they were still charging me for their services months later. Do not use them!

Pubby's prices are through the roof. Pubby didn't tell me that international reviews aren't accepted, even though they show up on the. Com marketplace - I awaited further discussion on the issue, then the auto-billed a YEARLY subscription priced at $250.

Things started out fairly fine... even though I was billed the $240 before I agreed to it... I objected to Pubby's acceptance of one line, no justification reviews that were condemnatory. If a reviewer is reading subject matter Pubby don't like, then that is no reason to give the book a one or two rating. The reviewers know what they are going to read. I'm thinking they read maybe one chapter and condemn the book but they've gotten their snaps, for basically doing nothing. Have had assignments taken from me without notice. Have submitted reviews, accepted by Amazon, and still no "snaps" credit. Really poor customer service.

I was happy with the reviews I was able for receive through the service. It's easy to get the hang of and once you do, the reviews are done promptly and the staff makes sure each review is posted for you. When anything went wrong with a reviewer, Pubby were able to find a new one for me without any problem.

Absolutely horrible. Pubby did not deliver on ANYTHING they promised. The members did not read my book before posting reviews, so the reviews were off sounding and weird. It was easy to tell that the person was guessing his or her way through the review. One Pubby member even made up scenes that were not even IN my book and then miraculously... these made up scenes popped up in future reviews. So a whole lot of copying. Amazon deleted most of them except for a few poor quality ones! I also paid extra for verified purchasers but most did not buy the book because you can see that on Amazon. In addition... l paid extra for "recommended readers", meaning readers who like my genre (historical romance). Instead l got college age boys. I finally cancelled and they will not refund me. Avoid this company like the plague.

Pubby delivers as advertised providing endless unbiased reviews. Customer support is always prompt and helpful. Highly recommended!

First, we will have several reviews deleted by amazon. Also, Their support team dont respond to you and Pubby may cancel your assignment without telling you about it even if you reviewed it but they can't see it.

The Pubby business model seemed to be a good one: you pay for a yearly membership, which is not cheap by the way. And then your book goes into the pool for other members to read and review on Amazon. If you read someone's book and do a review, Pubby do not have access to your book, so there's no "exchange" of reviews. Seems good when you first think about it.
However, let me start by saying their customer service is absolute garbage. I don't know who put together what they call their "team" but it is the worst customer service I ever got from anywhere. Their system sometimes doesn't work properly and they accuse you of not posting a review when you were supposed to, and then you go and look on your Amazon account and your review is right there for all the world to see.
So I guess they use that as an excuse to penalize you when they want to deactivate your account on and off. Not sure what the motive would be but it's happens all the time. Every single review I ever did for a book is still on Amazon to this day, but I've been accused of not doing my reviews multiple times. How hard is it for them to go to Amazon and look and see that the review is there? Why would they even need to bother the reviewer for that?

The next MAJOR problem with Pubby is that MOST of the readers that chose my book DID not read one word of it. The very first review I got from this company was from someone who had no idea what happened in the book and just made up a review as he went along. NONE of it was accurate. He called someone a main character who was actually killed off in the first chapter. He called the book a "cross between Romeo and Juliet and Wuthering Heights." There were absolutely NO similarities whatsoever between my storyline and either of those famous tales. He went on to make other ridiculous statements leaving me to wonder what book he actually read, if any. After THAT, the next NINE reviews I got from Pubby members were nothing more than rewrites of that first review. So they clearly did not read the book either, because if they HAD, they would know that that initial review contained inaccurate information.

So instead of getting legitimate reviews from people who read my book, I got one nonsensical review from someone who didn't read it, which was then copied again and again and again by other Pubby members. I actually tracked down one of the people on Facebook and asked him to please remove the review since he clearly didn't read the book, and his response was "but I gave you five stars so what are you complaining about?"
Well, of course we all like to get five stars, but I'd rather have NO review than a five-star review that contained incorrect information copied from other reviews written by people who did NOT read the book. So you see what I'm saying. They also have another thing that I would consider an outright scam, and that is paying extra for a "recommended reader." I fell for that at the beginning, and would request recommended readers, which are supposed to be people who prefer your genre. Well, my book is a historical mystery-romance set in the 1600s. However, most of the Pubby members who were supposedly "recommended readers" were college-age boys. I find it hard to believe that men in their teens and early twenties are interested in historical romance. Hence the goofy reviews left by kids who never read the book because they would rather be reading sci-fi or fantasy.

There is also a problem with reviews being taken down. Amazon is obviously over the top with the militant way they police reviews and rip down anything they think is not up to pare. How they determine that is whacked, but anyway, I had approximately 15 reviews from Pubby members taken down, so a lot of this is paying for nothing. Some of them I can completely understand why they were removed, such as one that was written in English that was so poor it would be obvious to anyone that that person could not have read my book. If you can't even write a review in proper English, how on earth did you read 380 page book in English? But other reviews were just normal reviews and Amazon removed them, so maybe they are catching on to Pubby. There was also one review that said "this is a good book if you have nothing else to do," yet he gave it five stars.? That one was taken down and I knew why, because I had looked up this reviewer's profile, and he gives every book 5 stars and says "this is a good book if you have nothing else to do." Well, you can't do that, because Amazon will detect a pattern and know it's a bogus review. So overall, if you want your book actually READ, Pubby is not the place for you.
Secondly, if you want QUALITY reviews, Pubby is not the place to get them. If you want good customer service, run as fast as you can in the other direction because you will NEVER get it from Pubby.

Customer service (particularly by Mary) is embarrassingly bad. There is no FAQ on the site so you're forced to use the chat. Admittedly, she did respond quickly but with a snarky tone to a simple question.

It's also designed for only US citizens. She stated that you can simply "create an account, make a purchase, and leave a review". Amateur hour - it's not that simple.

Just. Stay. Away.

I absolutely love PUBBY! I have 5 books on the platform all of which have received verified reviews as a result of the PUBBY platform. I also am a 5x Amazon Bestselling author and an author coach and I recommend PUBBY to all of the authors I work with to help them get eyes on their books and get some REAL feedback from readers.

To be honest, if I had initially experienced the issues described by other reviewers of Pubby, I would not have remained with it, however my experience has generally been extremely positive. I began with one novel and now have three with Pubby. Between them I have had over one hundred reviews and have had no issues with any of them. Most have been extremely positive but with plenty of constructive criticism which I am happy to take on board. A few have been quite basic with little comment or information. I choose to ‘pay' extra Snaps to have the reviewer purchase my novels, so all appear as ‘verified purchases' on Amazon, which Pubby are. I do admit I have experienced some of the issues mentioned by other reviewers of Pubby, when the system seems to get backed up. When that happens, reviews take longer to be passed, so it is not possible to choose another book to review for quite a few days or reviews of my books may take longer to appear and the response from customer services may not be very prompt. This may be because a lot of reviews have come in, a reviewer has had to cancel, or a review has not been accepted for some reason. I always give an honest review of the books I read and try to be positive and constructive. I have learned to be patient; any issues I have experienced have been sorted quite quickly. My books, and reviews, can be found on Amazon.com under the names, Joanna B McGarry and Alicia Mayberry-Fitch so you can see this is a genuine, unsolicited review of Pubby, by a genuine author and reviewer.

I signed up, but in the end this review service wasn't quite what I really wanted. No problem. I told them so, and Pubby refunded my money with no hassles. It can't get any easier than that. A well-designed site, easily navigable, lots of fun and supportive people. Give it a try.

See attached screen grab from my account. Note the item circled in red. This is all you need to know about the lack of legitimacy for Pubby reviews. The site has to WARN reviewers to WAIT at least 6 hours after purchasing a copy of your book to post a review. That kind of caution would not exist, if people were reading your 500 page book. My experience with Pubby was highly unsatisfactory, and their customer service is the worst I have encountered. The site is run by just one person and unable or unwilling to deal with all the complaints. Each review I received, even the ones where the reader had to purchase a copy of my book from Amazon in order to get a verified purchase tag, was pulled down within two months of the review. I had to read 75 books (and post reviews) to get those 38 reviews and now Pubby are gone! I suspect because after satisfying the terms of Pubby in order to gain SNAPs for their own reviews, the author/reader returned my book for a refund, and the review would come down. Which is explains why the reviews were posted so quickly, otherwise the Amazon time limit for returns would expire.
And the reviews never contained anything more than the information that is available in the sales page content or a reiteration of what another reader posted. Authors know their work, and can tell the difference between someone writing a review based on actual knowledge of their book versus someone making something up based on the promotional content. In the end, using Pubby was an expensive mistake and a waste of time. Buyer beware.

I've used the Pubby service and, for the most part, the users are on the up and up. Very rarely do I suspect a reviewer hasn't read the book. ALSO, it's not like the authors just blow each other all day, giving each other five-star review after five-star review. To my own frustration, I've received a number of 3 and 4-star reviews, but usually the review shows that the reader was an idiot. For example, one of my books is titled "... BOOK FOUR..." and the reader didn't realize it wasn't a stand-alone book until she was half-way through and got mad about it and gave me a full star penalty because she was hoping to read a stand-alone book. She also didn't understand a certain grammatical rule that's actually quite common, and counted a point against me because I "kept getting it wrong" (though I was actually doing it right, she was just a moron, like one of those people who don't know the difference between "then" and "than" or "their", "there", and "they're".).

HOWEVER... I will say that I'm ending my pubby subscription because their customer service is absolute garbage. I once asked a question that all it took was for the support person to look at my account to resolve, but she was being lazy and didn't feel like bothering to look, so she just gave me a quick BS answer and tried to get rid of me. Also, Pubby seem incapable of verifying when you post your reviews to Amazon, and when they can't do their job properly, they lock your account so you can't get more reviews until they can finally figure out what they're doing. I've had to send them screenshots of my last dozen or so reviews to prove they've been posted, and my account is still currently not allowing me to be reviewed.

Overall the service would be good, and I find it to be as ethical as possible given the setup, the problem is that the staff is lazy and incompetent and penalize their paying customers for their own failings. Also, as with all reviews (I suppose), you're still subject to idiots giving you bad reviews because they're not bright enough to know what they're doing.

Pubby is a site where you can get reviews from other authors. It's kind of an exchange, but not really. It just allows you to find people who can actually give your book the time of day; because Pubby want the exact same. And it's enforced quite nicely, so it all works as intended, without having to rely on the goodwill of people (highly unreliable). Me like.

Pay fee to use site, then have to review 3 books to get enough points for review, then Amazon takes them down anyway... all my time &money for nothing.

Great resource for authors to kick off their book launch! It's quick and easy and the platform great.

I like Pubby in that I can upload a book, share it with people and Pubby have to give a review. I say have to because if you don't review other books you don't get the snaps (points) to have your own book reviewed.
Some people don't read the book as is clear by the review they leave. And some other people are simply a critic no matter what. Why choose a book you know you will clash with and then give a bad review when all you want is a good review for your own book.
Basically, it's a great way to get a bunch of reviews for your book on Amazon. Usually they are good, so I will keep doing it.

I'll go ahead and address the customer service issues upfront. Yes, too often the response is canned, copied, and pasted. I'm okay with that. For the small monthly fee, I am not expecting a dedicated customer service rep. Each time I have pressed Pubby on a missing review or been dinged when an Amazon review I posted did not go live, the Pubby team honored my effort.

I have used Pubby since the fall of 2019. I have reviewed hundreds of books through Pubby and received over a hundred reviews in return.

Not all the reviews of my books are favorable. I have received 1 star reviews that came close to personal attacks and 3 star reviews from those who didn't read the book, but I have also received many 4 and 5 star reviews.

Any review service is only as good as those reading the books and writing reviews. This includes NetGalley. Pubby does seem to attract a lot of self published authors, so that needs to be figured into your review expectations. If an author cannot get published by a traditional house Pubby may not be able to recognize quality writing when they read it.

But overall I have found that for great books, books traditionally published or professionally edited and proofed, Pubby is a good option.

The ability to get reviews is crucial for any independent author. Pubby provides a platform for authors to review other books and get snaps (points). With enough points you can put your book up for review. I have only one complaint, Pubby doesn't require a minimum number of words for a review. It is obvious that the public as a whole cheats. I submitted my 100,000 word book for review and the person doing the review submitted it to Amazon within a few hours. Some reviews are only 10-12 words long! I suggest that Pubby make it a requirement to write at least 150 words so you can semi-believe the reviewer actually read the book. People where is your integrity?

I've used pubby for about 2 months, and so far my experience has been decidedly positive. Most of the reviews I've seen are detailed and include information about the book being reviewed. I don't think it violates the zon's policies since these aren't direct review exchanges.

I have used Pubby for one year today and will renew for an additional year. The service has worked well for me getting my two books about 35 reviews. I can tell that the majority of reviewers have read my books because of the details in their reviews. In my opinion, all have been reasonable and honest reviews. Nearly all of the reviewers have purchased my book.

Besides getting my books reviewed, I have read about the same number of books from the Pubby library. Most have been good, earning 4 or 5 stars. There have been a few that were not so good and earned 2 or 3 stars. These books have typically had glaring grammatical and errors. I have purchased and read all of the books that I have reviewed. The best part of reviewing books for Pubby authors is that I found a half-dozen books that I thought were excellent.

I have found Pubby to be a wonderful way to read a wide array of books being published and to receive reviews of my book. People can certainly not take the task seriously and make half-hearted efforts in their reviews, as Pubby do in every realm of life, but I've found, almost universally, that people on Pubby take the task of reviewing seriously and provide sincere and very helpful critiques of books. For me, writing these reviews has been a great way to think about books and hone my skills at appraising them. It has become very clear to me that all the people who have submitted their work for review at Pubby have given their hearts to their projects and this feeling also emanates from their reviews as well.

Almost every review I received on PUBBY was outright fake or highly suspect. The fakes are quite obvious to spot, For example some members will download a book of 100,000 words, then submit a review in a matter of a few hours. The reviews are either one liners or a patchwork cribbed from other posted reviews.
PUBBY has a great chance here but failure to curb the abuses will ultimately ruin it for them. Maybe it's time for Amazon to step in.

I've been on Pubby for over 10 months and have found their system to be a fair and fast way to get genuine reviews on Amazon. The site is super easy to use, the customer service is good, and nearly all of the reviews I received so far were honest and detailed.

So I have been using Pubby for a short time now, under a month and I took the monthly subscription because I wanted to be able to change my mind if things started to go badly but so far I am very happy. In the 10 day trial I was able to get 9 reviews and Pubby were all detailed and did not give me the impression that the book was not read at all. In addition, I read several books that I really enjoyed. I found the quality of choices to be really good for me and I can say with great honesty that I have reviewed each of these books after carefully and fully reading them. So if this site is only as good as the people who are on it, I would like to represent some of the honest and real readers out there. As far as customer service goes, I ran into two issues that were quickly resolved. First, one of the reviews for my book was supposed to be posted in 3 days. It was late and when I reported this to customer service via the chat, my snaps were very quickly refunded. Second, I had one of the reviews come off of the amazon page for my book. Again, I reported this to customer service and within and hour those snaps were refunded. I know its only been a short period and an application like this is going to have its share of issues because it is at the mercy of the people who sign on but so far I am happy and if I had to end my subscription after this month, I would feel as though I got my money's worth. So staying positive and hoping for the best!

I had some success with Pubby at first, but soon discovered that the luster fades quite quickly. To start: customer service is atrocious. If Pubby do respond to you right away (normally it takes several days even using the chat function) there are few answers provided, but most answers are generic and rehearsed. I often wondered if "Mary" was a bot since the rest of the system is heavily automated. My second issue is the inconsistency of pricing and plans. Three times I had to address my membership in the lower-cost "essential" plan because Pubby changed the price or services offered within the plan WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE. This is what eventually sealed the deal for me and led me to cancel my membership. Another huge problem and red flag for authors to stay far, FAR away from Pubby is the fact that they refuse to remove uploaded content from their servers even after your membership has been canceled. I removed everything I could of my work from my dashboard, but who knows what they have access to and what they might do with it. Thankfully my work is all copyright protected. BUYER BEWARE. Pubby is a waste!