IndiePubNews

Getting a Book Review in ForeWord–Plus Still More Book Bloggers

Most writers are aware of Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. These are industry giants with an audience of booksellers and librarians; they review books from major publishers and will review self-published books for a fee. Fewer know about ForeWord, a magazine that caters to the same audience and specializes in reviewing books from independent publishers and self-published authors. The magazine comes out quarterly and features both a print and an online edition. Right now, you can get a free e-subscription to the magazine through Zinio.

Editor Julie Eakin says, “ForeWord loves self-published books. For magazine consideration, I need to see them three to four months in advance of publication in galley form. Our online (paid) reviews may be purchased at any time.”

These are the details: If you have your own independent imprint, there is at least a possibility that you can get a review in ForeWord for free. In each magazine, they review 125 books from independent presses that the editor deems of  ”sufficient quality.”  The books must be received as galleys at least three to four months before publication and come with a press release or fact sheet explaining their appeal.  Here is a list of other requirements for receiving a ForeWord review.

ForeWord does offer other types of review.  It will give online-only reviews to other books of “sufficient quality” for $129 without regard to publication dates.  Click here for the submission guidelines for these. Finally, there are the more expensive Clarion reviews. These go for
$335 and anyone can order one without a special editor’s nod.  The turn-around time is six-to-eight weeks, and there are no publication date restrictions.

ForeWord reviews some e-books as well as print books.

Meanwhile, since I last wrote about book bloggers, I have found another directory.  It is at Step-by-Step-Publishing. Not only does it have its own directory of bloggers, at the very bottom of the page, it also lists a number of sites that include still more directories.  It seems that finding book bloggers is getting easier and easier.

So good luck with getting reviews for your book!

Getting Book Reviews on Amazon

OK.  We knew it already, but the Taleist self-publishing survey made it official:  Reviews sell books! You can read a summary of the survey at Catherine, Caffeinated or you can buy the detailed  (self)-published version of  the report, Not A Gold Rush on Amazon. If you have Amazon Prime, you can even borrow the report for free.

Of course, reviews from book bloggers sell books (see my previous post).  But as the Taleist survey  makes clear, good reviews by Amazon customers also sell books.  Of the latter, reviews by Amazon’s Top Reviewers help sell the most books.  The problem is: How do you get Amazon’s top reviewers to even look at your book? First, you have to find them, which turns out to be easy.  Amazon actually has the list of its 10,000 top reviewers on its site here. If you click on the reviewers’ names, many provide their e-mail addresses and tell you the type of things they like to review. (Be aware that since Amazon sells so many things besides books that  a particular reviewer’s specialty may be toasters.)

So you have an in.  You can find a top reviewer who likes to read your type of book.  Then you can politely e-mail them, tell them about your book, and ask if they would like to have a free copy.  Please be sure not to bother reviewers who indicate they don’t like to be contacted or who don’t review the sort of thing you write.  Or you can go about it backwards, you can read the reviews of books like yours, see if any are reviewed by any of the top reviewers, and then look up those reviewers on the Amazon list.

Reviews by other Amazon customers may help as well.  Most writers are happy for their friends, family, and blog readers to post reviews.  This can be good, so long as the reviews aren’t so glowing that they come across as fake.  Having 100 5-star reviews can provoke suspicion–as well as anger in those who buy your book and find that it doesn’t live up to the hype.

Many authors in Amazon’s KDP Select program also take advantage of free days in which to give away copies of their books.  While this may not provide the bump in the Amazon popularity lists (and subsequent bump in paid sales) that it did before Amazon changed its algorithms, it can still provide a bump in the number of reviews as more people read your book.

Finally, you can use a service that will find people to read your book and post reviews on Amazon–for a fee.  I have never tried this so I don’t know how effective this is. One service is called Book Rooster.  For $67 they will distribute review copies of your book (in Mobi format) to unpaid reviewers who have an interest in your genre.  The reviewer gets the book free in return for an unbiased Amazon customer review.  Book Rooster gets the money for finding the reviewers and making sure that your book gets at least 10 customer reviews.

Finding Bloggers to Review Your Book

A lot has been written, in particular by by Catherine,Caffeinated, about how to approach bloggers about reviewing your book. The short version is this:  1) Find book bloggers who review your genre of book; 2) Write them a personal note at the correct address asking if they would be interested in reviewing your book; 3) Give them a reason to want to review your book–i.e., through a press release or other intro that lets them know why the book is interesting and the sort of thing that they, in particular, like to read; 4) show that you are familiar with their blog and their tastes; and 5) be professional and thank them.  And, of course, be prepared to send them a free book.

My post today is more about how to find the book bloggers in the first place.  One way is to check the Amazon reviews of books that are similar to yours. Who are the online book bloggers who review your type of material and appear to have clout? Pay particular attention to the reviews of self-published books in your genre.

Another way is to check a number of online directories. Although many of the bloggers in these directories will accept self-published books, others limit themselves to traditionally published books. I’ve been told that in approaching them, it is best to stress the genre of your book, rather than the fact that it is self-published.

Futurebook, based in Europe, lists book bloggers alphabetically, along with their reviewing interests and personal comments.  Literary agent Robin Mizell at Treated and Released has another long list of book reviewers on the web. conveniently grouped by genre.

The Book Blogger Directory is just that.  It lists bloggers by general interest (e.g., fiction, non-fiction, religious, young adult) and provides their website addresses.  Within the general categories, however, the directory breaks out specific interests.  For example, under fiction, you would find subcategories for children’s fiction, comics, graphic novels, action novels, etc.

Blog Nation has a list of 390 book bloggers. Each includes a statement from the blogger about his or her interests.  The bloggers are divided into 20 categories, ranging from children’s books to Christian tomes, from lifestyle books to romance novels.

The Indie View, which concentrates on book bloggers who review indie books, has a chart of book bloggers, listing their names, their websites, the genres they like to review, their submission guidelines, and where they post their reviews.

Book Blogs is a site where book bloggers gather to exchange information.  A number of them blog only about their own books, but many do review books by other people.  It is a good place to join up if you want support in starting your own blog or if you want to get to know people who are writing books, reviewing books, and publicizing books.

A Twitter site,BookBloggersCol @winwithebooks, constantly tweets what books bloggers have recently reviewed as well as authors they have interviewed.

Finally, there is a book on just this subject.  It is The Indie Book Reviewer Yellow Pages: A Reference Guide for Self-Published Authors and Small Publishers by Christine Pinheiro and Cynthia Sherman.  As of this writing, it is available as a paperback for $19.99 or as a Kindle book on Amazon for $4.99. This book includes only bloggers who will review self-published and publish-on-demand books.  The 100 entries include contact information, accepted genres, submission guidelines, audience size, and a Q and A with each blogger that helps to reveal their personalities and viewpoints.

I’ll write a little bit more about getting book reviews in my next post.  There will be some info about getting customer reviews as well as about a magazine for librarians and booksellers that loves self-published books and provides free reviews.  Stay tuned.

Welcome to Indie Pub News!

Hello, there.  I bet that if you are here, you are interested in self-publishing.  And, obviously, so am I.  I started out in traditional publishing, working as a reporter for McGraw-Hill, an editor for Scholastic, a free-lance writer for magazines, and a traditionally published novelist.  Then a few things happened, both in the world and in my life,  that made me interested in self-publishing.  A major publishing company, which shall remain nameless, was set to publish my YA novel.  Then my editor left, the second editor had a nervous breakdown (not, I think, because of the book), and the third editor gave it back.  My agent dropped me, and the novel went in a drawer.  I wrote a gothic novel, published by Berkeley; it went out of print and I got the rights back.  Hmmm. I wanted to publish some poetry, but although I was a finalist in the university press contests that determine such things, I never won.

Meanwhile, the world was opening up with all sorts of opportunities that were never available before. Amazon began making it easy to self-publish e-books and, through Create Space, paper books as well.  This included distribution on Amazon.  Amazon wasn’t the only one.  Barnes and Noble  started doing the same thing.  Soon it was possible to self-publish books on all platforms without spending much, if anything, upfront.  A whole frontier opened up. Amanda Hocking self-published her books, learned to market them, and the rest is history.

We are in the midst of a revolution, and I am trying to find my way through it.  On this blog, I want to share the discoveries I make along the way. I’ll let you know what I discover about the field, from how to make covers, to how get reviewed.  I’ll post links to other writers’ articles and try to get some in to talk about their experiences as well.  I’ll report the news. To see what I find on a daily basis, follow me on twitter @IndiePubNews.

The more we all learn about this, the better we’ll  do.  Let’s get started!  I hope to post soon with my first installment on how to get reviewed.  Stay tuned!

Thanks,

Karen