What price reputation? Somebody at Elsevier thought $25 gift cards would do, at least for positive reviews of its textbooks on online bookstores.

Inside Higher Education reported yesterday that an Elsevier marketing representative offered free books and $25 Amazon gift cards to authors of a recent Elsevier title—or anyone else—willing to write 5-star reviews of the book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble’s websites.

According to the writer of the email, forwarded by whistleblower—and Elsevier textbook author—George Tremblay of Antioch University, in Keene, New Hampshire, “the tactics defined above have proven to dramatically increase exposure and boost sales.”

Tremblay told Elsevier he would be forwarding their email to a list of professonal psychologists—the book’s target audience—along with a note suggesting the psychologists “reconsider any weight you accord to those Amazon reviews.”

Two Elsevier higher-ups have weighed in, telling Inside Higher Ed that compensation for book reviewers’ time is normal, but that there should be “no incentives for a positive review, and that’s where this particular e-mail went too far.”

In unrelated events Elsevier admitted last month that it accepted payment from drugmaker Merck to pick and choose Vioxx-friendly medical articles for inclusion in a custom journal look-alike distributed to doctors in Australia. (The Great Beyond, 8 May 2009). It’s not all bad news at the academic publishing giant, however. Last week the Special Library Association named Elsevier “The Most Influential Publisher of the Last 100 Years in BioMedicine and the Life Sciences.”