OnlineBookClub.org Reviews 

At first, I had a not-so-great experience with this website. My rating is 4 stars because I did end up getting paid and my issues were resolved!

I signed up a year or two ago and forgot about it. One day, I received an email with an offer: buy and review a $3 book, get paid $75. Cool! I read the book, took notes, wrote a review, did grammar checks, wrote down errors from the book, and took the quiz. I did all that and thought I followed all the guidelines, but I guess not. My review got a score of 5/100 (I think) for two VERY minor grammar errors. Both were "misplaced" commas that I and Grammarly thought were fine. (They say not to rely on grammar checkers, but I did check it myself too). I was also docked points for forgetting to add page numbers to the book errors when taking the quiz. I thought docking that many points for minor errors was unfair. That sucked because it made my overall reviewer score NEGATIVE. This was my first review so it hurt my account and I stayed on Level 0 out of 6. (Level 6 reviewers get paid more per review. I currently get up to $10 bonuses). I worked hard for days to get my score up to Level 1 by posting on forums and such. I fixed my grammar and quiz errors for a resubmission (which you can do up to 3 times over the life of your account). My score increased to 35/100. I am still Level 0.

The book I read required me to leave an Amazon review. I accepted those terms. Turns out, you have to spend at least $40 on Amazon in a year to be able to leave book reviews. I rarely buy anything on Amazon, but I was planning on making a purchase in September (I accepted the book offer at the end of May). I changed my OnlineBookClub settings to show I couldn't leave Amazon reviews. This voided my review and no opportunity to be paid. This was disappointing and I was very upset. I put hours into reading, writing, and going back and forth with customer service on this issue.

I forgot about this until October, but put it off until November. I spent over $40 on Amazon and changed my OnlineBookClub settings. After leaving an Amazon review, I submitted an appeal for my original OnlineBookClub review. My account once again showed I had esrned/was owed $75. It's now November 11 and I got paid today. I waited about 2-4 days, which was sooner than expected!

I went back and forth with customer service on this issue for a few months. I had a couple issues getting my PayPal set up on the website because my OnlineBookClub username didn't match my PayPal name. I changed my username to my real name to fix the issue. It's a bit annoying to share images and screen recordings with customer service because I had to upload everything to my Google Drive and send them the link. However, they were very kind and helpful. I appreciate it! I will continue to use OnlineBookClub because I enjoy reading and the cash bonus is nice.

I paid for a download of the audio book Minimum Wage Millionaire. My browser was highjacked instead. I contacted them numerous times about the download. I was finally given a link that gave me an error. I was told to submit a video of the problem and verify the purchase. I was told to submit my government identification at another site. This was a simple download. I asked numerous times for a refund. I kept getting the run around.
I have filed a complaint. No one told me that I needed to submit my government identification for a simple download. I still need my refund.
I have been bounced around with the customer service. Yes, it was sent to my email to buy the book. No download after many days, no refund.

I read the book, wrote the review, under what I thought was the guidelines. I paid for said book it was NOT free. The review was all within guidelines minus one thing, I didn't put the star rating in the review, I had assumed as one would, that the star rating would automatically be included.

The other 'errors' were all subjective from one of their little wannabe editor minions. Basically I gave an honest long review without spoilers and it was rejected for being honest on the opinions of one person. I had no idea that it would take so long. A honest review by regular people is what they offer authors but that is a lie. They basically are getting people to buy books in order to promote the authors and finding every which way not to pay the reviewers for their honest opinions.

Having realized this during the first review process I cut my losses having only been tricked into one book and asked repeatedly for my account to be deleted.

First it was please remove my work email address and change it to my personal one, which to no avail I only got the runaround and no one could actually help me.

Then after the start of the review process and me realizing this was a giant scam I wanted all of my personal information removed from the database which is my right since I never and would likely never receive a payment.

I did what I was supposed to in order to permanently delete my account and now over a month later I am receiving yet more emails about my review needing to be rewritten. They have now violated my request to be removed from the system on more than one occasion but since my account is 'deleted' there is absolutely no way to contact them about emailing me and still keeping my personal information on file.

Another huge red flag if you ask me. That unless I make an account I cannot contact them about issues.

So here we are. I had considered making this review when I first discovered the scam but thought it was a waste of time but now in direct violation of not removing my personal information I will make sure this review is seen as a warning to others to not use or trust this website.

DO NOT use this site or allow them your valuable time as they will only waste it.

They do what they say they will. They do have strict rules against using AI and that is understandable. You can get free books and also get paid to review them.

Was happy that some miscommunication was clarified and I received both a partial refund and a promised review.in the end

Amazing to find different books to read and then we have to write about what we wrote and I love that

Writing and illustrating Sandcastles was a wonderfully fulfilling experience. Realizing that growing up today, teenagers may face many challenges, but in today's world, one could become a Michael Phelps or a Lindsey Vaughn if only they possess a vision for the future.

I get to read books for free and get paid to write a review about the book. I get paid regularly and there are processes in place to deal with problems and exceptions.

They lie and have you do a bunch of stuff to be entered into a raffle. I got an email several times saying I was disqualified. Then once I got an email saying I had been blocked and that my review was plagiarized, and it def was not. I belonged for like 4 years and never got a dime and got kicked out for no reason. If you don’t pay them, or give them something they can make money off of for free, you won’t get a thing.

My first experience of Online Book Club involved paying several hundred dollars for an expedited premium review of my debut novel.

The book club makes authors create a profile and then answer questions - the better to match a book with a suitable reviewer. Excellent, I thought to myself. My reviewer will know what to expect. I will get someone who is comfortable with the subject material, and eager to read something in my genre...

Imagine my surprise when months later (well after the expected deadline for an expedited review) I got an absolutely withering three-star takedown written by a reviewer who hated the plot and characters, was deeply uncomfortable with the subject matter (I write about some controversial things, including LGBTQIAPK+ identity) and disliked the slow-moving style (I write litfic, not romcoms - my style is not brisk).

A few weeks after that, I was invited to try informal, amateur reviews for a far lower price. they worked out to $20 per review. Well, why not, I thought. What could possibly go wrong?

It's been several MONTHS since I ordered twenty reviews. Most of those paid amateurs DNF'd and bailed on writing their reviews. Did I get a refund? No. Of the reviews I did receive, fully half were written in a barely intelligible manner, and nearly all the reviewers pointed out "errors" that did not exist in the manuscript and probably appeared as a result of e-reader and/or electronic Hindi-to-English translator incompatibility.

I am living proof that fools and their money are soon parted. Never again. Never.

Oh, by the way - about those ludicrously overprised advertisements you can buy to make your book the featured book of the day, book of the month, etc? Just say no. I did. There is no way I would buy advertising space in a forum for indie readers looking for reviewers. That doesn't seem like a good way to get people to buy my book on Amazon, or anywhere else. A forum that's all desperate indie writers and no casual browsers? Yeah, no.

Give this site a hard pass. It's a ripoff.

It's not a scam, but it is not worth the gobs of money it charges its users.

NO!!!! THIS IS A SCAM. They want you to purchase a book, and they almost never pay you for it. Their "editors" will find anything to give a low enough score so they don't have to pay you. The guidelines are very strict, and you will put in a ton of hours and effort for a few dollars if you're lucky, but most likely you will not ever see any money from this. It is exploitive and should be shut down immediately. Also, the books they want you to read are GARBAGE. Written by weird old people who have no experience or any business writing books, and are paying this website to basically market for them and force people to buy their books. Do not waste your time.

After submitting our book for review and.... as thrilled first time authors..receiving a 5 star review ..we became book of the day on September 14th which has helped us to sell almost 500 books since we published on July 16th this year. We would not have come close without you! We are thrilled!

I purchase a editoria review and was very happy with the results. I was contacted and given information to prove the book was read, then got the review. I like the fact there are offers of marketing opportunities that followed the review.

Based on my personal experience, this is how the platform functioned for me. Authors pay the site to have their books reviewed, and reviewers are encouraged to provide detailed feedback. While the platform states that reviews should be honest, I personally observed that reviews with lower ratings (in some cases , even 4 stars won't pass) often did not pass the internal review process. This gave me the impression that higher ratings were preferred.

Compensation for reviews was minimal, and activity requirements were not always clearly communicated. At one point, I was removed from the review team without prior notice or proper reasons of why. I only became aware of this after receiving an email stating that I was being given a “second chance.” The email included a link for more information, but the link was broken, so I was unable to access any additional details.

Navigating the forum and internal resources was also difficult for me. I work as a technical specialist in a tech company and consider myself very tech-savvy, yet I still found the interface outdated and confusing. This made it harder to understand expectations, policies, and processes.

Overall, this was a disappointing experience for me, primarily due to unclear communication and management practices.

Edit: I revised my original review after the owner requested its removal as “defamation.” This version reflects my honest personal experience and opinions with OnlineBookClub. As an avid reader, I value transparency and fairness, and this platform ultimately did not align with my expectations.

I have been able to learn what I paid for what service. I wanted to choose a service that would show my memoir on the list of recommended books. I paid $500 for this service but was unable to list my book or ascertain where my $500 went.

OMG! SO COMMUNICATIVE AND CARING! When I contacted the wrong department they immediately got in touch with the right one to help me out so quickly! This is how ALL companies should be serving their customers!!!

It really changed my life. I love reading, and it is a pleasure getting up in the morning with an expectation to do what I love. I think it is a well planned organization that enhances the one thing that people tend to ignore in the days we live in. ( reading) I battle a bit because there are guidelines that can so easily be crossed but, I understand that it is necessary to have those in such a huge movement. I do push through and learn something every day because I WANT to be part of it.

Directions are easy to understand and follow.

OBC does a thorough and complete review/evaluation of each book, giving useful and actionable feedback. I recommend them to everyone!