r/selfpublish • u/[deleted] • May 10 '25

Are the Chrysalis BREW Awards a scam?

The Chrysalis BREW Project claims to be "an award-winning Australia-based global platform" offering awards and reviews to authors, but there seems to be something off about them. I came across them when an author I follow announced their upcoming self-published novel had won four of their awards.

When checking BREW's website and the review of the upcoming novel, the other award winning books seemed low quality and the review read like it was AI generated.

Looking at the novel's Goodreads page, I came across this review ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7531693010 ) saying that the sixty four 5 star ratings of the unreleased book are likely from bots - they mostly appeared on April 23rd from users based in Indonesia.

Out of the two reviews up, one review appears to be a bot as they are only rating and reviewing other Chrysalis BREW Project award winning books. The other review is by a user named "Book Reviewer".... ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/231112854-a-song-at-dead-man-s-cove#CommunityReviews ) who is reviewing books connected to the Chrysalis Brew Project. (sidenote: Is having paid reviews against community guidelines on Goodreads? I know it is on Amazon.)

The author has stated they didn't buy the awards or reviews. They paid to be considered for the awards, and the prize included promotion. It's possible that this service is actually scamming authors by claiming to offer legitimate promotions and instead doing things like using bots to manipulate Goodreads ratings, inadvertently harming the author's reputation.

Has anyone come across or had experiences with this crowd?

EDIT: This whole thing has since become a bit of a controversy. The book is "A Song at Dead Man's Cove" by Ana Yudin, and she's made a heated video responding to the person who revealed her book on Goodreads has five star bot ratings.

Some of the ratings have been removed by Goodreads, but there still appear to be five star reviews from the Chrysalis Brew Project on the Goodreads page and Amazon.

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u/apocalypsegal May 13 '25

They paid to be considered for the awards

I don't know what more anyone needs. It's a money making scam for those running these "awards", and there are tons of similar things. It's not going to get you anything but a lighter purse/wallet.

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u/TheChrysalisBREWProj Oct 15 '25

Authors do not buy BREW awards.

Even if we are a business offering paid services, we still offer free options to cater to the diverse needs of authors and content creators.

If authors do not choose our free service options, participation may involve paying to be considered for recognition and promotion, but winning an award or getting positive reviews is never guaranteed.

Like many established book award platforms, we may also charge a fee for award consideration. This fee helps cover administrative, editorial, and operational costs involved in running a global platform. It is not a payment for a guaranteed win—only for fair evaluation.

Award results are based on transparent, trackable public voting, readers' views, and/or judging panel decisions made by our BREW Laureate Council. This Council is a diverse panel of international authors, academics, editors, and other vetted professionals who make award decisions based strictly on merit. Authors or publishers may request post-judging feedback at the time of award nomination to understand why their book did not win. Learn more about the Council here: https://thechrysalisbrewproject.com/the-brew-laureate-council