Preface: I'm not making a case for why authors should pay book reviewers in the current culture. They shouldn't. It's a violation of the Terms of Service of Several sites.

Rather, I'm making the case that quality book reviewers should be paid.

Recently, I tried the service Book Review Broker which gives writers access to top reviewers on Amazon. They collected data to put writers in contact with some of the top reviewers on Amazon. They don't guarantee responses or reviews.

My results weren't particularly encouraging. I got a grand total of 4 review requests and no reviews yet.

If there was one thing that stuck out in the negative responses, it was the great number of top reviewers who said they were simply overwhelmed with projects that they were expected to review. I've heard complaints elsewhere: On KBboards from one writer and even among Facebook friends. They've written a number of reviews and suddenly every author is beating a path to their door.

As an author, I really sympathize with the authors because I need reviews right now. But I also sympathize with the reviewers. My wife reviewed books regularly for several years for her blog. And I got the idea that after a while, all the reviews became another job-a job she wasn't paid for.

In addition to this, people who review a lot of books, more often than not, read because they enjoy reading. Because not everyone who pays for a review has a truly worthy book. So instead of reading books they enjoy they find themselves reading books they really don't care for.

It's taboo for writers to pay reviewers, not to mention a Terms of Use violation on many websites.

But perhaps, it's time to revisit that. Not everyone's opinion is worth something. But the opinion of a top 1000 reviewer on Amazon certainly is. Generally, this has come from writing a lot of reviews that have been seen as helpful.

Maybe Amazon would be smart to start a paid reviewer program where indie authors could pay Amazon somewhere between $10 and $20 for a review with Amazon taking 30% and giving the rest to the reviewers. The higher ranked the reviewer, the more the pay.

The winners, as I see it:

1) The reviewers---They will be paid for their reviews and since they'll be paid by Amazon they'll not have any specific obligation or conflict of interest with the writer. They could also have a setting so that they could only take reviews when they were able to.

2) The writers--They'll be able to efficiently market their books to get quality reviews. Maybe, they could also be able to browse reviews and find a reviewer who'd be more likely to enjoy their work.

3) The public-They'd get more quality reviews from reviewers who aren't overcommitted.

As long as money doesn't influence reviews, it can really make things better all around.