Review Policy
This is the page that decides whether BookOrbit is a legitimate service or a scheme, so it is the one we are most careful with. What this service asks of you is honest feedback, given here, on the platform. A book’s points are credited when you take it and stay yours for feedback written here in time, whatever the rating. A review published anywhere else is never required and never rewarded: it moves no points, and the only thing it can do here is add one to a private count on your own profile.
What the service asks of you
You take a seat on a book, read it, and write what you honestly thought about it — here, before your deadline. Feedback needs to be at least a hundred characters, enough to be an opinion rather than a receipt. The book’s points are credited when you take it and stay yours when your feedback arrives in time, whatever it says. That is the whole deal: read it, and say what you thought.
The rating changes nothing
Two stars count exactly as five do. This is not a policy we promise to follow — the function that decides whether a submission goes through is never given the rating at all, so there is no code path by which a low rating could cost you anything. We built it that way on purpose: a platform that quietly rewards praise is a platform that buys reviews, and that is the thing that gets authors’ accounts suspended by retailers.
Publishing elsewhere is entirely your own choice
Nothing here requires you to post a review on Amazon or anywhere else, and nothing here rewards it. If you did publish one, you may tell us within a week of sending your feedback here — a link, or a screenshot of it; a link replaces a screenshot. We may remind you that you can, and you can switch those reminders off in Settings. It is an invitation and never a condition: giving one moves no points and changes nothing about your feedback, your deadlines or your standing, and refusing costs you nothing at all. One member of staff looks at it, and both the link and the screenshot are deleted the moment they have — a lasting record of who published where is the evidence in the accusation this service is built to avoid, so we do not keep one. The moderator who decides your feedback never sees either, and neither does the author. A screenshot nobody gets to is deleted unread after seven days, and a link after thirty. What survives is one number on your own profile — how many of your reviews have been confirmed — which cannot say which book, which shop, or when. You can also take it back yourself at any point before somebody has looked. Whether you publish, and what you say if you do, stays between you and the retailer.
The automatic checks
Before a person reads a submission, four objective checks run on it: is it at least a hundred characters, was it submitted at least two hours after you took the task, does it use enough distinct words to be prose rather than filler, and does it overlap eighty percent or more with feedback you yourself wrote earlier. They decide nothing — every submission waits for a person either way — they mark the ones worth looking at first. They are deliberately crude and explainable, and notably absent from that list: the rating, the author, and anything at all about a retailer.
Every submission goes to a person
Nothing you write reaches its author by machine. A moderator reads it and releases it, and if they reject it they must give a reason of at least ten characters, which you see; the book’s points are taken back and the seat returns to the author so someone else can read it. Tripping one of the checks above is not a refusal and not a mark against you — a slow reader who writes tersely is not a cheat — it only tells the person reading what to look at first.
What a moderator cannot do
A moderator may not decide their own submission, because nobody should be the one who releases their own work. A moderator may not decide feedback written about their own book, because rejecting it would delete criticism of their own work and hand the seat to someone who might be kinder. The software enforces both — it refuses the action rather than merely hiding the button.
Financial interest
Do not give feedback on a book you have a financial interest in: one you wrote, co-wrote, publish, ghostwrote, are paid to promote, or profit from in any way. The software blocks the obvious case — you can never take a seat on your own title — and nobody you have given feedback to can ever take yours, but it cannot see that you are someone’s co-author or publisher. That one is on you, and if you find yourself holding a task on a book you have an interest in, hand it back and tell us.
Reciprocity is prevented, not discouraged
The moment you submit feedback on someone’s book, that author can never take any of your books — every book you will ever shelve is hidden from them, on the page as well as in the library. You may go on reading theirs; they will never be offered yours. So between two members feedback only ever flows one way, and a swap cannot be completed. It is read from the feedback itself, so it is in place the moment you submit, and it is never lifted: not if a moderator rejects the submission, not on request, not by closing your account. A task you took and let expire does not create it — that only bars you from the title itself. This is also why authors are never told who read their book: the shortest path from “I liked your feedback” to a private arrangement is a name, so we do not show one.
If you do choose to post to a retailer
That is between you and the retailer. Following their rules — including Amazon’s Community Guidelines, which prohibit reviews written in exchange for compensation and reviews of books you have a financial interest in — is your own responsibility, and you should read them before you post. BookOrbit is not affiliated with Amazon, Kobo, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Google Play or Smashwords, and we cannot restore an account that a retailer suspends. This page describes how the system actually works today; it is not legal advice.
How to reach us
Write to [email protected], or use .