The Ties that Bind Klausner (Financial Ties to the Publishing Industry

TheWall Street Journal (WSJ) Magazine reports that Harriet Klausner receives compensation from her “book reviews for periodicals like Affaire de Coeur, I Love a Mystery, the online 'zine Baryon, and from her work as an advance reader for the Doubleday Book Club.”  The article did not mention that Harriet is paid by Porthole Cruise Magazine.

Klausner is also employed as a staffer for the Washington Times, where each one of her reviews is followed by this notice:

This article is the copyrighted property of the writer and Communities @ WashingtonTimes.com. Written permission must be obtained before reprint in online or print media.  REPRINTING TWTC CONTENT WITHOUT PERMISSION AND/OR PAYMENT IS THEFT AND PUNISHABLE BY LAW.

When this blog entry was first posted published on October 4, 2012, the webpages for WillowTree Press (a small, independent publishing house)  contained syndicated Harriet Klausner reviews on its website and provided direct links to BookReview.com which is well known for its “pay to play” policies.  Additional links on the Willow Tree site redirected the reader to syndicated Harriet reviews on harstan.wordpress.com and merrygenregoroundreviews.wordpress.com.  It appears in that in one day, Willow Tree Press has gone out of business and has taken most of its website down.  The credits to BookReview.com, Harstan.wordpress.com, and merrygenregoround reviews.wordpress.com are no longer available.  However,  BookReview.com still contains the book reviews with Harriet's name on them.

Publishers like MacMillan, Vinspire Publishing, Robert D. Reed Publishers, and a host of authors use Klausner reviews from bookreview.com.  Juno Books, a subsidiary of Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, and Bardsong Press feature Harriet Klausner reviews on many of their webpages.  A number of writers credit Mainstreamfiction.blogspot.com and booksnbytes for the use of Klausner’s reviews.

There are several definitions for the word “syndicate”, but the definition that fits is “a business concern that sells materials for publication in a number of newspapers or periodicals simultaneously”.  Klausner has syndicated herself under the names “Harstan”, the owner of her wordpress blogs (click on the "syndicated revewer" link by Harriet's name and it redirects to merrygenregoround.com through Harstan.wordpress.blog), and Harriet's Book Reviews.  These three sites are owned by the Klausners.  In light of the tens of thousands of uncopyrighted and unsyndicated reviews on Amazon, there is absolutely no reason to syndicate Harriet’s reviews other than to be able to charge for them.  If bookreview.com charges fees for those reviews (which it does), Klausner obviously receives payment for them. 

On bookreview.com, first-time authors are required to fill out an application form and submit a $35.00 fee.  This fee is characterized as a “membership” fee.  If authors want expedited reviews they can pay a fee of $175.  A bulk review schedule shows prices ranging from $110 through $150 per book, depending on the numbers submitted.  This is the information that is available to the public.  It is not known how existing authors work once they become members, because those pages, if they exist, are not public pages.  Willow Tree Press's former webpages demonstrated that they used bookreview.com to obtain book reviews from Harriet Klausner.  This is an author's webpage with  a review from Harriet Klausner at BookReview.com.  Klausner is not listed on the webpages for bookreview.com’s reviewer webpages, but she reviews countless books on their website.  Harriet is far too savvy a businesswoman to give away the rights to her reviews so that someone else can be paid for them.

Harriet’s activities with epinions.com a known paid review business, went dormant in 2000 after she had posted more than 300 reviews. 

Klausner and her husband Stanley own and operate a minimum of seven reviewing websites and Harriet herself is affiliated with at least 35 other online reviewing sites.

Hattie’s dishonesty has been proven time and time again.  No reason has been stated for Harriet’s vastly different profiles and many different business names under which her reviews are posted and websites are owned.  There are several reasons why this could happen, but the top two are:  (1) to avoid liability; and (2) to hide the business trail.

The question of the day is whether or not Amazon has paid Harriet for any of the 28,076 reviews she has posted to date. A clear connection can’t be made.  Amazon allowed, at one time, advertisements on its website that solicited people to write Amazon book reviews for $10 apiece.  While the ads are no longer allowed on Amazon's pages, the advertisements can be found all over the internet.  No direct connection between the advertisers and Amazon can be proved.  The problem is that Klausner hasn’t shown any reluctance to pass up an economic gain (as indicated above), especially if it can be hidden.  Paid reviews would highly incentivize someone like Harriet who can, and frequently does, post more than 200 reviews per month.  This could be one explanation for the hastily posted, poorly disguised, rewritten dustjacket language in her reviews.  It could also explain why Amazon protects Klausner in spite of her blatant violations of its review policies and in spite of countless complaints about the violations.  Rather than fix the Harriet problem, Amazon has limited voting capability on the helpfulness of her reviews, deleted comments, and banished some people from commenting at all.  Whether right or wrong, this only adds to the suspicion of a tidy little business arrangement between Amazon and Klausner.

In the final analysis, Harriet is employed for her services by none less than one publisher and six magazines.  A minimum of another five publishers each feature many of her reviews on their websites.  She additionally receives payment for her syndicated reviews through bookreview.com, harstan.wordpress.blog, merrygenregoroundreviews.com, Harriet Klausner Reviews.  Klausner has syndicated her reviews on websites that she and her husband own.  She has been a prior member of at least one other pay-for-review entity.  She resells free early review copies of books that she receives from the publishers.  It can’t be proven that she receives income from her position as a print editor at PaintedRock.com or from Mainstreamfiction.blogspot.com and booksnbytes.com, two blogs that authors credit with allowing them to use Harriet's reviews.  It’s not clear whether the other websites that Klausner owns generate any income.  The relationship between Klausner and Amazon is inconclusive.  Many of these relationships raise serious questions, nonetheless, because there is plenty of room for financial dealings within the murkiness.

*  Unfortunately, within 24 hours of first posting this article, Willow Tree took down almost all of its webpages, leaving only 2 Klausner reviews with the notations of "syndicated reviewer." The Klausner connection to Willow Tree through BookReview.com is still evident on BookReview.com.

Sources:

Wired Magazine Time Magazine WSJ Magazine The Washington Times Dayton Daily News NY Times Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Magazine Washington Times Dayton Daily News I Love a Mystery.Com Books N Bytes.com BiblioTravel.com pnr.thebestreviews.com www.eclectica.org amazon.com barnes and noble.com genregoround.reviews themysterygazette.blogspot.com sfreview.com www.allreaders.com www.reviewcentre.com bookcrossing.com boatlinks.com Harstan CreateABlog.com harrietklausner.wwi.com alternateworlds.com paintedrock.com Garreau.com

harstan.bookpress.com blether: the book review site bestsellersworld.com worldsofwonder.blogspot.com bookreview.com ferashare.wordpress.com thebaryon.blogspot.com mainstream fiction.com FMAM.com FollowtheClue.wordpress.com www.openbdb.com sfrevu www.sfsite.com www.sffmeta.com junobooks.com theromanticposts.blogspot.com thebestparanormalromance.com www.aaaamonmouthchapter.org bookbrowser.com midwestbookreview.com Reader’s Robot The World of Romance