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

To do an official 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 only" meaning you are just getting the free book. Typically, you will
not be show paid review opportunities as your first review. You will become eligible for paid reviews after
your first review if the first review adheres to the Review Team Guidelines and you have a
sufficient reviewer score. If you are new to the team, you may only see a few books until you improve your
reviewer score slightly. Very occasionally, a special offer will be sent out that does allow reviewers to be
paid even if it is their first review, which typically happens if it is a self-purchase opportunity, meaning the
reviewer needs to buy the book.

It is required for you to read the description of the book before accepting it for review.

After first clicking to accept a review, you will then choose the format in which you want to receive the
book before confirming. Once confirmed, 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 fit 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 finish 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 first 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 first (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 first instance of even borderline,
debatable, or very minor profanity, and then also take notes of the first 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 first 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 first 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).
[Updated November 9, 2022:] 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 the
full sentence containing the typo or grammar error. Quote the sentence verbatim, without adding
or changing anything even in brackets. Then, separately list or explain the error if it is not self-
explanatory by looking at the quoted verbatim sentence. Do not make corrections directly in the
quoted sentence because then it is not clear what is the original text versus which is your
proposed correction.

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 confirm having successfully
downloaded the book in a readable format OR submit an error report.
 Within 14 days of confirming the successful download, you must put in a status update. You can
either confirm you have finished reading it or submit a different status update, such as an error
report or extension request. You do not need to read the book in only 14 days. Rather, you simply
need to login to give a quick status update, such as letting us know you are still reading it.
 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. You must submit all status
updates via the Update tab of the Review Team page for them to be properly recorded in the
database and count as an official 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 finish reading...

If you dislike reading a book a lot, you do not have to finish reading it. There is an option you can click on
the Review Team Page to say that you do not want to finish the book. You will be asked to give a short
paragraph explaining why you didn't like the book enough to finish reading it that will be given to the
author as constructive criticism. There is no penalty for occasionally choosing not to finish 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 finish reading the book...

If you finish 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 5 stars, with 1 being the worst and 5 being the best.
Use the following guidelines for rating:

1 out of 5 - worst
2 out of 5 - very bad
3 out of 5 - fair/average
4 out of 5 - very good
5 out of 5 - amazing, one of the best books ever.

Basically, if you give it a 3, a 4 or a 5, 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. Official ratings do not use
half-points (e.g. 3.5 stars); rather choose a whole number for the official 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 finished 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 official 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

Justification 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 final 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).

Specific

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

Tip: A review could consist of five 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. Briefly 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

8. What was good about the book? Mention at least one positive point. (If it was so bad that you can
find 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 find any negative point, you must state this explicitly).

10. Support your commentary with specific 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 suffixes (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, 4 or 5 out of 5 stars)

13. Include your rating in the body of the review, using the format "x out of 5", such as with the
statement, "I rate this book 3 out of 5 stars" (with the rating in bold print). You can write the rating
in words such as "two out of five" or figures, such as "2 out of 5". You can include the word "stars"
after the rating or not.

Notes:
1. The following rating formats are not acceptable: "3/5", "three stars out of five", "three
stars of five 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 find more than ten errors,
do not give it a perfect five out of five rating. It is not acceptable to claim a book was
professionally edited and give it five out of five 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. Briefly explain why you gave the rating you did. For instance, if you gave four stars, briefly explain
why you didn't give five and why you didn't give it three. Make sure the rating is justified. As an
extreme example, if there is only one error, that cannot be used as the only basis for deducting
one star.

Recommendation
16. Explain to what kind of people, readers, or audiences you think the book would most appeal. If
there are any specific 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
significant 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.

18. 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:
o The page or location number where the error was found
o The error itself, making sure that enough of the sentence is included for easy
identification
o A description of the error
o 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 first 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 "finished 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 official 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 confirmed 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 first 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 confirmed.

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 fix 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 efficient, 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 first time. It would be inefficient, 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 first 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 first review adheres to the Guidelines, you will be eligible to do paid reviews as soon as that review
is approved.

If your first 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 first review (assuming the first 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 significant 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 finish reading the book if you hate it, but do not review the book as if you
finished it if you do not finish reading it.
6. 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 specific 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 official 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 find 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 finish 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.
8. 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 fit 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 official 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.