Proof positive Klausner is selling her review copies?

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Thu October 11th, 2012, 1:47 am

Nice detective work, curious to see where this all goes.

SonjaMarie · Post by **SonjaMarie** » Thu October 11th, 2012, 2:42 am

Wow, someone had a lot of time on their hands, impressive.

SM

parthianbow · Post by **parthianbow** » Thu October 11th, 2012, 9:50 am

Nice work there - very suspicious indeed! Thanks, Misfit.

Justin Swanton · Post by **Justin Swanton** » Thu October 11th, 2012, 11:38 am

Has anyone worked out how much she makes on average per month selling review books? Working on an average of $1.75 per book (worked out from her son Eric's prices on half.com), and presuming she 'reviews' 4 books a day, that comes out at $7 a day or $210 a month. A nice little sum but not exactly a road to riches. Why then does she do it?

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Thu October 11th, 2012, 11:49 am

[quote=""Justin Swanton""]Has anyone worked out how much she makes on average per month selling review books? Working on an average of $1.75 per book (worked out from her son Eric's prices on half.com), and presuming she 'reviews' 4 books a day, that comes out at $7 a day or $210 a month. A nice little sum but not exactly a road to riches. Why then does she do it?[/quote]

No one really knows the answer. Is she a little old crackpot churning them for the glory? Hard to believe now she's lost the #1 reviewer rank and unlikely to ever get it back. Considering she's such a laughing stock, you'd wonder why her husband/son lets her continue with it.

I do know there's a Klausner listed on Midwest Book Review's website as one of their reviewers, and somewhere in internet land there's an interview with MWBR's owner admitting she's one of their reviewers. I'm too lazy to google and find it.

There are lots of theories out there in Amazonland. No matter that she is (or was) a real person/real reviewer at the start, but I believe they are farmed out overseas. There are just too many of them, and the English and grammar are too garbled for someone born, raised and edjumacated in the US. We don't say "peninsular" we say "peninsula" unless we are talking about the peninsular wars.

MLE (Emily Cotton) · Post by **MLE (Emily Cotton)** » Thu October 11th, 2012, 3:13 pm

[quote=""Justin Swanton""]Why then does she do it?[/quote]
People tend to start down a road, and then they get obsessive. If they don't have forces to apply balance in their lives, it can go beyond reason. Like Imelda Marcos and her shoes (anybody remember that?) or people who start with a kitty and end up with 87 feral cats they cannot take proper care of.

annis · Post by **annis** » Thu October 11th, 2012, 5:07 pm

Brilliant bit of detective work! I suspect Harriet gets some sort of personal validation from seeing her name in print, and the sales are just a nice sideline, though the other question might be- does Harriet also get paid by any publishing agencies for writing her spurious reviews?

LoveHistory · Post by **LoveHistory** » Fri October 12th, 2012, 2:09 am

Amazing that she uses her real name and has given out so many personal details.

Divia · Post by **Divia** » Tue October 16th, 2012, 4:13 pm

To be so obsessed about someone is just creepy. Why this woman would spend all that time trying to find this out is beyond me. Hey, put your unused hours to good work and how about volunteering.

Good god.

Mythica · Post by **Mythica** » Tue October 16th, 2012, 7:13 pm

[quote=""Divia""]To be so obsessed about someone is just creepy. Why this woman would spend all that time trying to find this out is beyond me. Hey, put your unused hours to good work and how about volunteering.

Good god.[/quote]

I agree creating an entire blog about her is obsessive. But I am glad someone went to the trouble to find out more about what's going on. Many people were already suspicious that Harriet is a fraud, sockpuppet or malicious in some way. Personally, I think either her reviews are fake or she farms them to others to publish under her name because it just doesn't seem realistic that she could average 4 normal length books everyday. And the fact that she never responds to criticism or questions about how she's doing it makes me think she has nothing to say that could defend herself. To not want to defend yourself at all seems very bizarre to me - if people were accusing me of being a fraud, I'd want to prove otherwise.

And now we know she's receiving ACRs and not disclosing that fact, which is not only deceptive and shill-like but also against the law (for the very reason that it's shill-like). Plus, apparently the books coming from her do not appear to have been opened or read which suggests the reviews are fake. Those kind of things bother people when all they want is to see honest reviews. Sure, I accept there will be false reviews out there but to see one account with thousands of potentially fake reviews and Amazon does nothing about it, it's very frustrating and I would like to see her account and all her reviews deleted.