Foreword Reviews Reviews 5

I was neither notified when my review was completed nor informed that it was ready. I was never given the opportunity to decide whether the review should be published or withdrawn. I became aware of the review only after it had been finalized, which was particularly concerning given that it was a 2-out-of-5, predominantly critical review.

The issue is not criticism itself—critical reviews are a normal part of publishing. The issue is the lack of notification and author consent. Authors should be informed when a review is ready and given the opportunity to authorize its publication before it is released. This is a basic professional practice and essential for transparency and trust.

Based on my experience, Foreword Reviews should adhere more carefully to its stated procedures and ensure that authors are properly notified before any review is made public.

— Yvon Milien

I paid $450 for a professional review of my fiction novel. I received a scathing report from someone who obviously did not read my book.

It was a romantic story that had two main backdrops, major league motor racing and courtroom drama. The review had no mention of either, while criticizing what was referred to as a confusing time lapse when it was depicting a scene where the main character walked the streets of Charleston, SC, alone while thinking how he would like to return with with his girlfriend someday.

I would recommend getting reviews from those who would actually read your type of book instead of paying a so-called professional book review outfit who may likely asign your work to a literary genius who would never consider buying your kind of book, period.

I paid for a review of my self-published book almost two months ago. Apart from the amount of money they charge for their services, which is humongous, I was curious to see the result of the "evaluation" I will receive.
I cannot resist but mention that their website is a mess; everything on the business's digital presence screams low quality and neglect, from the appearance to their submission process all the way to the payment interface. Honestly, I thought this website was forgotten and abandoned in the '90s. Not to mention the cherry on the pie, they asked me to send the book in pdf format via EMAIL!!!! No DRM, no security, no protection, nothing.
But now, back to the outcome of their service.
The review I received for my book had a very good rating, but the content seemed like it was referring to a completely different project. I noticed that many of the points the reviewer was making did not make sense, as it seemed he/she misunderstood the material. My impression was that they were not prepared adequately. Even the criticism, I daresay, was too generic and banal. Again, too much focus was given to the visuals of the project, rather than the substance. It seemed a very low effort.
This made it very hard for me to promote the review as it seemed like it was referring to another book, and it was deviating in content way too much from the other reviews I received - such as Kirkus.
This led me to decide to "kill" the review, and let the 600 dollars go straight to the bin.

Based on my personal experience, they are no good.
They had a very ugly online presence, little care for the quality of their output, and it took two months (a bit more actually) to deliver, and boy, 600 dollars for a generic paragraph they delivered.
I am sorry, but I sincerely cannot recommend them. There are much more affordable and better alternatives out there.
If you want to invest in something more premium at the same price, then go for a Kirkus review.

I requested a review of my self-published non-fiction book from Foreword Clarion reviews services.
They charged 600 dollars for an "objective" and thorough review of my non-fiction book.
Two months later, I received a review from the reviewer - who specialized in completely irrelevant genres- and she returned a low-quality, poorly written generic critique - not even a review.
She tried for the majority of the review to rehearse the book's content. Still, she was so poorly prepared that she wrote things that were not even mentioned in the book.
Instead of providing in-depth insights about the content, she returned some shallow criticism about the location of the text - that, according to her "objective" opinion, made the explanations of the tasks hard to understand- along with some equally "objective" criticism about the aesthetic of the text, the "not so optimal" position of the bullet points -based on her opinion, and how well designed was some objects that I used in my examples.
She failed to provide any insights on all the major aspects of the content - methodologies for solving the problem, applicability and practicality of the methods, strategies to maximize performance, how complete the practice tests are, quality of the tools mentioned in the Appendix, etc.
Overall, she did what a lazy English teacher in a public school would do if she were to evaluate an essay.

The cost of 600 dollars is outrageous for such a low-quality service, the outcome of which was utterly misleading for the customer and had little to no value for the creator.

Based on what I have seen and experienced from my communication with them, I cannot recommend their services. Not even if the "service" was provided for free.

Not a professional company, we paid 500 for a 'review' which was total garbage, like a child wrote it and didn't read the book, a spit out template of hate that they do to people who don't use their publishing service. Shame on you.