PubbyReviews of pubby.co

Updated review in 2026: I had a problem with a reviewer reviewing a 'fact book' (my book is fiction), which was a strange mix of my book and made-up stuff. It just looked like a fake review written by AI, so I contacted customer service. They didn't seem to have any desire to fix it other than refunding snaps and told me I could flag it with Amazon. I wasn't trying to influence the reviewer at all, and don't mind if I got a negative review if that's what the person really thought (as it happens this was a 5-star review). But this was clearly someone who'd either made an honest mistake cutting and pasting, or hadn't bothered to read it and got AI to write a review. I felt really let down by the experience, customer service really didn't seem to care, and cancelled my susbscription. The review is still there, although I tried flagging it with Amazon. It really stands out because I don't have that many reviews on my book. Disheartening for a hard-working, AI-free, indie author. This was my initial experience from 2024: great service so far, have been very pleased with the quality of reviews - people are obviously reading my book. I have had a couple of reviewers that didn't like aspects of my book, but that's what you get with honest reviews, and although I actually found the negative comments they made about my book pretty irrelevant, at least they felt they could express themselves freely. Having said that, Pubby does give you the option to cancel if you're not enjoying a book. Compared to another book review subscription I've tried, Pubby is much better in my opinion. The other book service is MUCH slower and took forever for anyone to pick up my book. Also as the other service allowed authors to set their own book 'token' value you've got a lot of low-content rubbish offering high points for reviews. Pubby could be improved if it allowed you to offer reviewers the option to purchase a hard copy of your book instead of just ebooks.

I've been using Pubby since August and up until mid November, all seemed to be fine and I have managed to get a fair number of reviews. However for the last few weeks it seems that my account is 'frozen', I can't 'up' my books for reviews, despite having accumulated a lot of snaps. I have been emailing/ using the chat function nearly every other day and have not heard back. At all. Very disappointed with the customer service (or lack of it), as this is a paid service and I even paid extra to have verified purchase reviews. Sadly, I wouldn't recommend this site.

Been using it for months, and then out of nowhere I get double charged, one for my regular charge and one for $240. Pubby's response "I don't see an issue on my end, not our problem" Now I have to spend time calling my credit card company to to do a chargeback.

I really wanted Pubby to be a good way tool for publishing. It boasted over 2000 authors at a fair price. I uploaded my book and waited for approval. They said it takes 4 hours to approve. It took me 48 hours to get my account suspended. Another 48 hours passes (and several emails asking for help) and I learned my publisher already had my book on it so my acct was suspended because it was a duplicate acct. The part that broke my heart is that Pubby has no ability to communicate with me when I needed help. The best they could do was send AI bot responses that took 48 hours to complete. Furthermore, the reason I didn't know I already had an account is because it wasn't working. My book had not gotten reviews for 3 months. Luckily it was a trial so I was eager to cancel before I paid for nothing. The sales pitch that you will get 5-7 reviews just in the trial is as true as the companies estimation of when they will get back to you.

The reviews you get are mediocre at best. Two of them are no longer showing--they disappeared. The base package membership at 42 bucks a month is exorbitant and because they automatically put all new members on that rather than their cheaper package I quit them. Also you have to read and review someone else's book in order to have yours read and reviewed. I don't recommend it. Two out of the three reviews for my book disappeared. 42 bucks down the drain.

Server is down and can’t access website, but no communication from the company to see this was happening and when this may be back up? For £240 a year I would expect a bit more

A bit of a rip-off. You pay a monthly fee then have to read/buy other people's books to earn points which you then spend so that you can get reviews. Their site claims you can get 5-10 reviews a week, but this is optimistic and not possible for an extended period. Firstly, because you are only allowed to read 10 books a week to earn points. I have had to read 12 books on Pubby (which is a lot of my time!) to get 7 reviews of my books and I have run out of points to earn reviews for my books. The only way to get more reviews is to spend more money on services or to buy points (known as Snaps). I love reading books but as an author, I don't have time to consistently read 10 books a week.