Well, it wasn't as if Two Lips were the New York Times book review before. They'd give a romance by a lizard a good review.
 

Apparently this offer explicitly doesn't guarantee a good review ;)

But I still think charging authors crosses a line from harmless but probably ineffective promo to author exploitation. We have been inching towards this for a while now...
 

em, saw eredsage on google cache, but still down.
 

...Do people besides authors actually go to these review sites? Because when I was reading romance and not trying to write it, I avoided these places because I couldn't trust the reviews.
 

Good question, and I feel the answer for most of these places is no. I know the difficulties. Erotic romance has a higher writer:reader ratio than most. I have the same issues in trying to keep my self-published book review blog oriented to readers (the ratio there is even high).

I do think readers use blogs and sites like Dionne Galace, Mrs Giggles, Karen Scott, Dear Author and Smart Bitches. I suspect the use JERR and maybe Coffee Time. beyond that hmmm.

But directly charging authors is a sign a site is not even trying to orient to readers as main users. A trend that started with the overly positive reviews that have become common.
 

Have you seen the Gay/Lesbian section of Two Lips lately? It's a BA Tortuga lovefest. Sheesh!
 

Well, doesn't that just defeat the purpose then? If a review site doesn't orient itself towards readers then why would authors want it? Its all well and good to have a great review, but if its by someone who is known to write good reviews in their sleep then whats the point?