RIP Harriet Klausner

[Hilarity_N.Suze]

Someone just sent me a link. Harriet Klausner was a top Amazon reviewer. I think for a number of years she was number one. She reviewed like 1000 books a year, and liked everything. Or I guess if she didn’t like it, she didn’t review it.

I hadn’t seen any reviews from her lately.

I am sad about this because even though she often mangled the plots and got the characters’ names wrong, she got the reviews out there and probably helped a lot of us in the mystery world.

Apparently she died 10/15 but I only just heard. Apologies if there was already a thread.

[Baker]

I’m the DeatnMistress of the SDMB’s Deathpool, also of a deathpool on another message board. Nobody had Klausner over there, but one poster did mention her. I’d never heard of the person. This is their quote. I doubt anyone had Harriet Klausner. She was famous for her thousands of book “reviews” – Amazon’s #1 Reviewer for several years – and then famous again after a backlash caused Amazon to revamp its reviewer ranking system.

[ralph124c]

She was probably a pseudonym or created character. fake reviews are a big problem now…who reviews the reviewers?

[LSLGuy]

@Hilarity_N.Suze

Someone just sent me a link. Harriet Klausner was a top Amazon reviewer. I think for a number of years she was number one. She reviewed like 1000 books a year, and liked everything. Or I guess if she didn’t like it, she didn’t review it.

I hadn’t seen any reviews from her lately.

I am sad about this because even though she often mangled the plots and got the characters’ names wrong, she got the reviews out there and probably helped a lot of us in the mystery world.

Apparently she died 10/15 but I only just heard. Apologies if there was already a thread.

Assuming she was in fact a real human …

I’d never heard of the lady and it’s always sad when anyone dies, but …

How does a reviewer who processes 3 or 4 books per day, confuses them all up and likes all of them “help a lot of us in the mystery world?”

Unless you mean the “lot of us” are low-ranking authors anxious for anyone to notice your work. It sure doesn’t sound like she did the readership any good.

[Sattua]

No, she did no one any good, but getting “Klausnerized” became a sort of rite of passage.

She also sold the unread review copies and made something close to $20K a year doing it.

[Hilarity_N.Suze]

@LSLGuy

Assuming she was in fact a real human …

I’d never heard of the lady and it’s always sad when anyone dies, but …

How does a reviewer who processes 3 or 4 books per day, confuses them all up and likes all of them “help a lot of us in the mystery world?”

Unless you mean the “lot of us” are low-ranking authors anxious for anyone to notice your work. It sure doesn’t sound like she did the readership any good.

Well, you’re looking for something new to read. And here’s a book by an author you never heard of and it has a five-star review.

I think she may have done a lot of reviews even before amazon.

People noticing your work is how you get from a low-ranking author to a high-ranking author.