Oops- Reviews Aren't For Sale!

A funny story from the magazine Inside Higher Ed: Elsevier, a publisher of textbooks, recently had to backpedal when someone in its marketing division seemed to offer to pay for favorable reviews of the book on Amazon.com.

The textbook, "Clinical Psychology", recently went to print, and its contributors got an email from the publisher offering $25 giftcards in exchange for favorable Amazon reviews. One of the contributors quite rightly had a problem with the deal, and called the publisher out on the practice. Elsevier stated that the email did not reflect its policy, and that it was a "poorly written email" by one employee.

Oops!