Pubby
Reviews and Complaints

I have been with Pubby for a little while now. I have to say despite a lot of negative reviews I have had nothing but a great experience so far! Let me pin point some things. First the customer service is not as bad as people are saying. Yes you do get a response. Sometimes it is an automotive one, but that is just letting you know someone will be with you shortly. People are getting mad over customer service not getting to them so late in the night. I do not think they work 24/7. If I know I am leaving a review at a late time I know not to expect an answer until the morning. As for reviews, I would say that I have received very honest reviews so far. Yes some are only a few words and some are not as descriptive. Out of all review that have been left maybe 5 have been removed. But I end up getting my snaps back for those. All in all I can not complain. The price for the subscriptions are a little on the high side but totally worth it. I have and will continue to recommend other authors to this site!

I'll go ahead and address the customer service issues upfront. Yes, too often the response is canned, copied, and pasted. I'm okay with that. For the small monthly fee, I am not expecting a dedicated customer service rep. Each time I have pressed Pubby on a missing review or been dinged when an Amazon review I posted did not go live, the Pubby team honored my effort.

I have used Pubby since the fall of 2019. I have reviewed hundreds of books through Pubby and received over a hundred reviews in return.

Not all the reviews of my books are favorable. I have received 1 star reviews that came close to personal attacks and 3 star reviews from those who didn't read the book, but I have also received many 4 and 5 star reviews.

Any review service is only as good as those reading the books and writing reviews. This includes NetGalley. Pubby does seem to attract a lot of self published authors, so that needs to be figured into your review expectations. If an author cannot get published by a traditional house they may not be able to recognize quality writing when they read it.

But overall I have found that for great books, books traditionally published or professionally edited and proofed, Pubby is a good option.

PUBBY is a unique investment of time and money.
I read and reviewed up to the limit of books (7 first week, 7 second week)
This was my first time for all things self-published, so the learning curve was a factor many times.

I had the poor luck to draw a harsh critique my second review, and it really stung for 2 days BUT MY POINT IS on the third day I received a 5-star review that healed my drooping wings and had me smiling again because I truly had achieved my dream of being a self-published author. I now have 8 reviews for my debut epic fantasy, and life as an author sparkles and seems full of bright promise.

You need 1500 snaps for each reviewer PUBBY request for your book, and you are given enough free snaps at the start so that once you've uploaded your book, you can immediately request a reviewer. The books you review have different numbers of snaps, mostly depending on length. You can also earn snaps for inviting friends to read for free and review the books available. When they turn in a review, YOU earn the snaps for the review. Haven't done that. I've reviewed 14 books to earn my 8 reviews, and most of them are 5-star, with thoughtful, encouraging comments. To know that I have readers who honestly like my work is priceless to me.
Happy 2023, and I hope you have a similar experience during the trial period.

For your book, you'll see the STAR value only when the review comes in. This is followed days later by a button that appears on the review near the star value. Pressing the button generates a URL link to the review that has gone live on Amazon.
The 12-month fee is paid as soon as the trial subscription ends, assessed annually.

Pubby suspended my account after taking payment. When I requested a refund, they refused to give me one. When I requested they delete my details, they also refused to do this. I had to contact my bank to dispute the payment. Join Pubby at your own risk!

A scam run by lazy, shady, rude people. First off, it can get you banned from Amazon. So don't do it. I didn't know that because these scammers falsely represented themselves as legit. But even if you want to risk it, know that Pubby is horrible to deal with. Bruce and Co. are too lazy to track reviews (literally their only job), so they routinely take away your earned points until you find and deliver the review yourself. I turned in only 5 stars and only on time, but I was constantly harassed about lateness or failing to complete projects. Dare complain about being mistreated and you'll be subjected to even more harassment. Lastly, many of the other "authors" are scammers too. They have AI write garbage books, intentionally misprice their offerings to cheat the point system, and have AI write your reviews, which will flag your account. What does Pubby do about all this? Absolutely nothing so long as they get their monthly $.

I recently signed up to Pubby to give it a try. Very quickly, I faced many challenges- There weren't any books for me to review, and in addition to the fee I was expected to pay, I had to buy the books to review too.

I contacted the team for help with finding books, but they never answered. I emailed them 3 times and never got a response.

I asked for a refund, and they never answered nor refunded the subscription.

I didn't agree to the yearly subscription and I was charged the full yearly amount.

I am very disappointed at their service and the fact that they are not even responding.

I wouldn't recommend this service to anyone, especially as they are not even responding their support emails- so you are stuck with no answers and money down.

I gotta tell yall, I'm real unhappy with my experience over at Pubby. See, I got this book I been working on for like, a year, and I decided to try and get some reviews for it, you know, build up a little buzz. So I signed up for one of Pubby's subscription plans and started getting some reviews - or so I thought.

Turns out, Amazon - bless their hearts - decided to delete most of my reviews. And not just mine, but a bunch of other folks too. I mean, what gives, right? And it ain't just the ones I done paid for, either. Even the ones I DIDN'T pay for got the boot. Ain't that just crazy?

Now, on top of that, the customer service I got from Pubby was downright rude. I mean, I was just trying to understand what was happening, you know? But they respondin' late and with answers that didn't even make sense. And don't even get me started on tryna get a refund. What a hassle!

So if you're thinking about signin' up for Pubby, I'd say you best stay away. Sure, they might be gettin' some reviews now, but who knows if they'll stay - or if you'll even get 'em in the first place. It just ain't worth the trouble.

I gotta say, I was pretty disappointed with Pubby. I saw all these good reviews and was excited to give them a try. Got my first review in the first day, which was pretty impressive. But when I actually read what the reader had to say, I was pretty let down. It seemed like they barely even skimmed my book, let alone read it carefully. And that's not really what I signed up for.

Look, I'm not saying they have to love my book. Everyone has different tastes, and that's totally fine. But what I'm not okay with is someone taking my hard-earned money and doing a half-hearted job. That's just dishonest, you know? And sadly, that was the only review I got from Pubby in the three whole months that I was signed up with them. Not exactly the kind of service I was hoping for.

I will say, though, that the people I interacted with at Pubby were really nice and professional. When I finally decided to call it quits, they were quick to respond and very kind about it. And I have to admit, their website looks super fancy and impressive. But at the end of the day, that doesn't matter if the actual service is complete crap.

So yeah, I wouldn't recommend giving Pubby a try. Save your money for something that's actually going to help you grow your writing career. Trust me, you'll be better off.

I gotta tell ya, Pubby (pubby.co) has left a real sour taste in my mouth. It's like they never heard of professionalism. When I took the plunge and signed up, I never even got a verification Email. And it's not like they were sending anything else out, either. It wasn't until I started complaining that I finally heard something - and let me tell you, it wasn't pleasant. One of their employees got all snarky with me, claiming my book had been rejected for some bogus reason ten whole days ago. But the thing is, I'd worked with other promo services before, and never gotten tossed for anything like that. So I knew they were lying to me.

I thought that would be the end of it, but oh no, these jokers still charged me for months afterward! I couldn't believe it. Needless to say, I told them to get lost immediately. My advice? Don't even think about using Pubby. You'll just be asking for trouble.

I loved Pubby at first because of how fast the reviews were coming but after awhile most reviews are generic and you can tell that the reader never read your work. Most won't even buy your ebook either. Second, reviews are now disappearing from Amazon like wild fire. This has been happening from September 2021- January 2022. Don't waste your money on this site. It's not worth it and you will see your reviews deplete within a few weeks or month after it's been posted. I am beyond pissed off because of this and will be using more legit review sites that have real readers.

I gotta be honest here, my experience with Pubby (pubby.co) was just okay. When I first started using their service, I was a little ticked off that they charged me $240 before even getting my consent. That wasn't a great first impression, if you ask me.

But the thing that really got my goat was how they let customers leave reviews without any real justification. I mean, come on! Just because someone doesn't like the subject matter of a book, that's no reason to leave a bad review. The reviewers know what they're getting into, so if they didn't like it, they should just keep their opinions to themselves.

And to make matters worse, I've had assignments taken from me without even getting a heads-up. Not cool, Pubby, not cool. And even when I've submitted reviews that Amazon has accepted, I still haven't gotten any credit for my "snaps." What's up with that?

All in all, the customer service at Pubby leaves a lot to be desired. They need to get their act together if they want to keep customers happy.

I was really looking forward to trying out Pubby.co, but after spending some time on the site, I have mixed feelings about it. The concept of being able to get 10-15 reviews during a 10-day free trial period is definitely attractive, but there are a few catches that make the experience less enjoyable.

First off, while you do get 2000 snaps to start off with, these don't go very far. In fact, you can only put your book out there for one reader, which definitely limits the potential exposure. To earn more snaps, you have to engage with other content on the site, such as retweeting tweets or reviewing other books. While this can be a fun way to discover new books and authors, it does take time away from actually writing, which is something I'm not willing to do.

Furthermore, most of the books on the site are listed for sale, which means that if you want to review them, you have to actually purchase them first. This can be frustrating, especially if you're looking for free downloads. Plus, even if you do earn enough snaps to put your book out there for multiple readers, there's no guarantee that you'll actually get any reviews in return.

All in all, while I appreciate the idea behind Pubby.co, I don't think it's worth the time or money. Instead, I'd rather wait for real, organic reviews to come in naturally. While it may take longer, I think the results will be more genuine and satisfying. But hey, that's just my two cents.

This site, Pubby, is a disaster. Honestly, I can't believe how terrible they were. Every promise they made was broken, and it was an utter waste of time and money. I was hoping to get some quality reviews for my book, but instead I got reviews that sounded strange and peculiar. In fact, it was apparent that the reviewer hadn't even read the book. It's as if they were guessing the whole thing!

One of the Pubby reviewers even went as far as making up fictitious scenes that weren't in my book. Astonishingly, they surfaced again in future reviews, as if everyone was just copying. Amazon deleted the majority of the reviews due to their inferior quality. At Pubby, I decided to pay more for verified purchasers who would really buy the book, yet what I got instead was far from it. My Amazon profile clearly showed that the vast majority had not purchased the book.

I also paid for a "recommended reader" service that was supposed to draw historical romance readers. Unfortunately, it didn't work that way as I got college-aged boys instead. I couldn't wait to cancel this service, but even worse, they refused to issue me a refund. I strongly advise against using this company – it is a horrible way of throwing money down the drain.

Pubby.co seems like a pretty cool website. For only $20 a month, you can get your manuscript reviewed by 5 to 10 avid readers. All you have to do is upload your manuscript and then wait for the feedback to roll in. Sounds easy, right?

Well, the website doesn't tell you everything. In order to even request reviews, you have to earn snaps in addition to your subscription fee. These snaps are earned by reading other people's books - most of which you have to pay for! Sure, there are a few freebies, but they are few and far between. It can be a real pain trying to accumulate enough snaps to get your book reviewed.

Even when you do get a review, there's no guarantee it will be legit. I received one review that was clearly fake. It was basically just a copy of the summary I had written, with a 5-star rating attached. It's not surprising, really - when people are forced to read books they may not be interested in just to get credits, it's only natural that some will try to cheat the system.

If you try to contact customer support for help, don't expect much of a response. Mary, in particular, was short and rude with me. It's a shame, really - it seems like such a waste of potential.

Don't get me wrong - this could be a great site. If they simply connected readers who love reviewing books with authors who need reviews, it would be perfect. Unfortunately, that's not the case here. I ended up cancelling my subscription and looking for alternatives.

All in all, I think my review is pretty honest. Just keep in mind that Pubby.co may not be the best option if you're looking for genuine reviews of your work.

I had some success with Pubby at first, but soon discovered that the luster fades quite quickly. To start: customer service is atrocious. If they do respond to you right away (normally it takes several days even using the chat function) there are few answers provided, but most answers are generic and rehearsed. I often wondered if "Mary" was a bot since the rest of the system is heavily automated. My second issue is the inconsistency of pricing and plans. Three times I had to address my membership in the lower-cost "essential" plan because Pubby changed the price or services offered within the plan WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE. This is what eventually sealed the deal for me and led me to cancel my membership. Another huge problem and red flag for authors to stay far, FAR away from Pubby is the fact that they refuse to remove uploaded content from their servers even after your membership has been canceled. I removed everything I could of my work from my dashboard, but who knows what they have access to and what they might do with it. Thankfully my work is all copyright protected. BUYER BEWARE. Pubby is a waste!

Look at the pic I added here on my account-dang. You can see the red circle thingy. That's a big ol' sign telling you that Pubby.co ain't legit. They gotta tell peeps to wait an entire 6 hours after buying a copy of the book before posting a review. Like, why would they gotta do that if people were really reading every single page of that 500 page book? Pubby was a complete bummer for me. The customer service was garbage, and ain't nobody gonna deal with all the complaints. It's just one person runnin' the show, ya know? And even when reviewers did all the steps they needed to do (like buyin' a copy from Amazon to get a verified purchase tag), my reviews still got taken down within two months. I had gone through the trouble of reading 75 books and writing 38 reviews, only for them all to disappear. It's just a scam to get SNAPs for the site's own reviews, I'm tellin' ya. And I bet those reviewers just bought the book, wrote the review, and then returned it to get their money back. That's why the reviews got posted so quickly. It's so shady!

And let me tell you, those reviews were boring as heck. They didn't say nothin' that couldn't already be found on the sales page or in another reader's review. When you're an author, you know your book inside and out. You can tell when someone took the time to actually read it versus someone just fakin' it. In the end, I regret using Pubby because it was a total waste of time and money. You better watch out before using it yourself. It's sketchy, man.