Onlinebookclub -- any experience?

I wasn't sure if this should go here or in the Bewares thread. If it is more appropriate there please feel free to move it!

http://onlinebookclub.org/ has over 36000 members, and an active forum. Authors are banned from all kinds of self-promotion; you can't even have your book in your sig. You have to submit your book and if you're lucky one of their reviewers picks it, reads and reviews it. The review is free. However, once it is reviewed you can pay for an advertising package to get it publicized quicker, and also to get it more prominently displayed. Here are the advertising packages:

http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/authors/advertising.php?bookid=1184

A couple of them look quite interesting. Obviously, you would only buy a package after you know you have a good review; but is this in some way paying for reviews? Has anyone here done it? If so, with or without the package?

Apparently it takes several weeks for a good review to go live; if you purchase a package it only takes about one week. Is this dodgy? Is it the same as paying for reviews, and thus suspect?

I asked my publisher and this is what he said:

I’m pretty sceptical about ‘advertising’ opportunities like this - they make money from indie authors desperately wanting to ensure their book gets reviewed.

Their site gets a reasonable amount of traffic, but most of it is from India, where the book isn’t available at the moment. You can see that at this link:
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/onlinebookclub.org

So overall I definitely wouldn’t recommend it.

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FYI, I did try the freebie and today I got news that it's a good review but it will take some time to go live, and I can speed up the process by buying an advertisement packet. That kind of put a damp cloth over things; that's why I asked here and my publisher.

Old Hack said:

I'd be interested to know how many of their thousands of members are writers who have signed up to get their books reviewed, and how many are readers, looking for good books to read.

It does not sound to me like a good way to spend your marketing budget.

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I think having a good healthy suspicious eye is always advantageous! I tend to be too trusting, but I'm sure you're right, OH. That sounds just like it! It's like the Author's Corner on the Kindle Boards, or on Goodreads: full of authors pimping their books. *sigh*

Actually, they did publish the review today, but the notice came with another call to purchase the advertising package, "to make it more visible". So the review is live, but I don't know if it is visible at all to someone who does not have the link.

Well, just to update: the reviewer did post an "Official Review" thread about the book so it went public on the forum, and a few people replied to the OP and said they'd like to read it. I have no idea if this translated into sales. I did not purchase any of their promotional packages.

However, the "official reviewer" contacted me privately through my website and said she loved the book so much she wants to write a different, less analytical review for her blog and help promote it however she can; she also asked me a few questions for an interview. So some good has come of it, in terms of more exposure, though again, I don't know if it will translate into sales.

To sum up: there's no harm in submitting your book for review, and you don't have to pay anything. A reviewer would have to choose your book to review. Once that was done it was posted online within a few days. So, it can't hurt and might help a little bit.