Can you imagine if reviewers got paid actual money to review?

I wouldn't even be writing this guide. I would be eating an endless supply of garlic bread in my big mansion with all twelve of my flamingos.

But, sadly, I do not get any cash from reviewing.

No mansions for me. No flamingos, either.

But at least I got garlic bread!

Asking for payment for reviews can feel super awkward, honestly. When I first became a reviewer, and my boss asked me what my payment would be, I kind of just was like...uh, friendship? I want their friendship? Because, well, I was just a teenage girl with no writing credentials whatsoever, who honestly did not excel in high school English (except for the few times I got to submit smutty short stories). How could I possibly get people to pay me, in any way, for writing reviews, when I'm just an amateur?

Years have passed, though. I definitely feel like I'm a pretty experienced reviewer for Wattpad standards, and I have no fear asking people for payment. So, for those of you on my waiting list, I'm still waiting for you to transfer $1,200 into my bank account.

Anyways, that's all I needed to say. Now that my waiting list knows they need to pay me, we can end the chapter here. See y'all later, when I get my flamingos.

Just kidding! Let's walk through payment, and let's vent about it!

Please feel free to share your stories and experiences in the comments! I love hearing all about it!

The first rule you need to know: a review is nothing like a read for read.

The next person who even suggests they are the same thing will be obliterated with my flamethrower (once I become a millionaire with all my flamingos).

Being a reviewer means reading as much of the story as they agree on with the author, and instead of just reading and making fun comments, they have to be critical. If they are a good reviewer, they will be reading carefully, taking notes along the way, and then writing up those notes so that they become a coherent 1,000+ word review.

It takes a lot more time, and a lot more thought, than a read for read.

So, do I think payment is reasonable?

Absolutely.

Because, I'm not sure about other reviewers, but a review can take up to ten whole hours for me to finish if the book is complete. Those ten hours could go into my academic assessment, or my own projects, or I could even use that time to hunt down every piece of dandruff in the world and burn them. But instead, it is me trying to support other writers.

Mind you, I do it because I love it. Seeing other authors grow makes me extremely content, and I'm in no way guilt-tripping anyone for requesting a review.

But I do acknowledge that, if I can't spend those ten hours on my own projects, it should be totally okay for this author to spend at least ten or fifteen minutes looking at my work. That way, I sort of am still supporting my own projects by asking this author to check it out, but I'm not forcefully asking for a review in exchange or anything.

So, yes, I think payment is reasonable. Obviously, when I say payment, I do not mean cash -- so many people ask me this, and I'm like... while I would love to buy another sixteen scarves for my scarf-but-also-suffocation-tool collection, keep your credit cards to yourselves.

Payment means asking your requesters to either follow you and/or check out some of your works (to a reasonable extent). It is important that you consider what you are doing for the requester before you actually ask for payment. For example, are you reading their whole book? Or just a single chapter? Because you just can't ask someone to comment seven hundred times on all ninety chapters of your book if you're only going to read one of their paragraphs and tell them their characters aren't hot enough.

As a reviewer, these are the most frustrating things I find:

- People not completing payment.

If I took a shot for every time this happened, I would honestly be passed out on the floor. So many people just ignore the payment altogether, because they just copy and paste their review request forms all over Wattpad, and don't actually give a rat's ass about the reviewer's payment.

That, or they say they'll do it after they receive the review, and then mysteriously disappear to the Himalayas once their review is out.

That, or once you ask them to pay you before you release their review, they get all defensive and tell you that--

Wait. That leads me to my next frustration:

- The ones who say they don't believe in payment.

I've been told off for requesting payment several times. Why?

Because, apparently, "you cannot force someone to read your book" and "reviewing is about helping others, so why aren't you just helping me?"

Like, hello, yes, I get the sentiment. Really. I do. But, well. Okay.

Tampons are all about helping women. But we still have to pay for them.

And if I have to pay for tampons and pads to stop myself from flooding Australia with my endometrium lining, then you can read one chapter of my book before asking for a review.

Seriously. I do understand that reviewers are here to help you. But we also cannot pour from an empty cup. We will burn ourselves out if we keep reviewing without getting anything in return. Then what happens? The review economy is in shambles. It collapses. We hit another Great Depression, and this time, the Great Depression isn't just the brooding bad boy in Wattpad stories having a meltdown because he realised he loves the protagonist despite all her flaws (that don't actually exist).

Besides, if Wattpad is about helping others, the whole concept should be about us all supporting one another. I'm so happy to support authors and review their works, but I would love to be supported in return! And a lot of my requesters do this to a phenomenal level -- they go above and beyond what I outline in my payment, and I love them dearly for it.

And yeah, "you cannot force someone to read your book."

You cannot force a reviewer to review your book.

So think about that, next time, before you try to quote Wattpad Guidelines on me, Sally!

- The ones who make excuses.

Some excuses, I understand. Like when people have reached the maximum follower count, and are not yet willing to unfollow all twenty of those accounts that used to post shirtless pictures of Harry Styles back in 2015.

However, I remember someone saying they didn't want to read a single chapter of 101 Writing Tips because "they didn't like the genre; they only read romance books, and don't like big fantasy novels." And I was like... girl, there is no fantasy in 101 Writing Tips, excluding that one time I made Justin Bieber hook up with French Fry.

Ah, yes. The memories.

But those excuses, like, "I don't really like stories with no romance" or "I don't really like commenting when I read" -- those just weird me out. Like, just go find a different reviewer who asks for different payment, or try to open your mind and give other non-romance stories a go! You may find yourself truly falling in love with new genres that you hadn't even considered before.

Mind you: some are reasonable. Like, if the reviewer wants you to read a book that has triggering contents in there, and you don't feel comfortable reading those triggering contents, you should absolutely ask for an alternate payment. Do not make yourself feel uncomfortable for a review. Ever.

That's the perspective from me, an exhausted reviewer. However, I have been on the flip side. So let's talk about the requester's perspective.

For those of us who were once new to asking for reviews, it can be super intimidating seeing the payment section. Like, oh my gosh, I remember the first review I ever requested. The reviewer had asked for five comments on their first three chapters, and I spent a whole thirty minutes overthinking whether it was five comments per each chapter, or five comments in total. And then, when I did the five comments per chapter, I had a meltdown because I was scared I did too much and the reviewer would decline my book for that.

Yeah. Have I ever mentioned that I tend to overthink?

Anyways, once you begin requesting more, you become used to the full variety of payments that are often asked. And this leads me onto all the frustrations from the requester's side:

- When you complete the payment, but the reviewer never completes their review.

I mean, it's the same as going to the shops, paying your cash, and then the shopkeeper keeping both your cash and the tampons you wanted to buy. It's even worse when the reviewer is still active, and is just purposely ignoring your request in particular. It's the equivalent of that same shopkeeper opening the tampons in front of you and sticking it up their nose.

Very frustrating, and because they tend to ignore you, there isn't too much you can do about it except unfollow their sorry tushies and move on.

Also... what is with me and tampons today?

Anyways. Uh. Next frustration.

- When their payments are ridiculous.

Y'all ever see those reviewers that straight up act as if their reviews have been kissed by the holy spirit? Because I have. It's like they pulled their review straight out of Poseidon's ass or something, because they ask you to:

Follow all ten of their alt accounts.

Follow their aunt's account.

Read all seven of their stories, vote on every single chapter, and leave at least forty-two comments on each one.

Promote their art portfolio.

Give them your social security number.

Sign up as a judge for their awards.

Sign up as a judge for these other random awards and make sure their story wins first place.

Write their autobiography for them.

And give them a shout-out on your profile page.

Literally ridiculous. And then, when they give you your review, it's literally just:

"yuh ur story was good.. But you made the protagonist have freckles on her shoulders and idk that's a weird place to have freckles lol overall I give it a 2/10."

And you're like... seriously?

- When their stories are actually hard to read.

Sometimes, we look at the payment. And we go to read the requester's stories, as stated in the payment.

And we just cannot, for the life of us, enjoy it. Sometimes, it genuinely is because we cannot stand the genre, but sometimes the writing quality is just so poor that you cannot even understand what they were trying to write. They've misspelled their protagonist name, there are no descriptions of their brand new fantasy world, and the dialogue is makes you cringe.

In these cases, it's probably best to not even request the review. They probably need to work on their own skills before providing a sound review.

Someone once also said they would review my story if I sent them a picture of myself, and that was just an alarm bell going off for me. Don't do that, folks! They could steal your identity! Or... worse. They could make voodoo dolls from your picture and then stab your shoulders with a broomstick. I don't know. It could hurt.

So, on behalf of both reviewers and requesters,

First, how much will be reviewed? How much effort is put into the reviews?

If it's a lot, then I don't see why the author can't read a few chapters of the reviewer's book and leave some feedback. Especially if they know the review is going to be really in-depth when it eventually comes out. I think this is fair.

If it's not a lot, and it's just three to five chapters that you read and review, then make sure you dial it back a bit. You can ask them to follow you and check out your stories, but make sure they don't end up doing more work than you do; it sort of takes away the whole point of you being the reviewer here.

And if the reviewer is reading literally one chapter and giving you a thirty-word review, you may as well just not request a review at all. That, or just give them a pathetic little follow and hope the review will somehow help you.

I also know that some reviewers do ask for cash payments. However, you need to make sure they are really good and qualified before doing that, and you also need to make sure it's definitely not a scam of any sort.

Personally, I ask my requesters to follow me. They are allowed to unfollow me as soon as their review is done. I ask them to follow me so that I know they see any urgent messages on my noticeboard if something is happening to delay the review.

I also ask them to check out 101 Writing Tips and leave evidence that they've been here. Part of it is because this guide is my pride and joy, and I do love it a lot and want people to give me their thoughts on it. But, also, it's aimed to help them with specific questions or concerns they may have while waiting for their review. If they already know they struggle with run-on sentences, then instead of just waiting for the review, they can start fixing it after reading my chapter about them!

Anyways, that's all I really had for this chapter! What are your experiences with 'payment'?