How To Get Your Book Reviewed – by Mark Lardas

My name is Mark Lardas. You know me on MadGeniusClub by my handle Seawriter. I am an author (trad press, usually), and I review books. A lot of books. I will write at least 75 400-word to 1000-word book reviews this year and possibly as many as 90. Plus 100 or so blurbs. I started reviewing books in 1996, and have written weekly reviews since 2006. Publications running my reviews include Galveston Daily News, Epoch Times, Nautical Research Journal, and Ad Astra.

The previous paragraph was not to establish how wonderful I am. I wrote to demonstrate I know something about book reviews. I have been reviewing them a long time. I know what editors want from a review and how to maximize the chance of getting a review accepted and published. 

Are reviews an effective marketing tool for an indie author? I do not know. I suspect so, but I just write reviews. I don’t know how they affect sales. Ask authors whose books I have reviewed. They know. On MGC that includes Sarah Hoyt, Dave Freer, and Cedar Sanderson.

I do believe getting a book reviewed helps get past the background noise of the publishing industry. A review in a major publication gives the reviewed book wide attention. Readers suddenly know about the book. Some buy it – which they cannot do if they have never heard of it.

How do you get your book reviewed? Or rather how do you maximize the chance of getting it reviewed? Here are guidelines:

1. Find a reviewer. (You know one: me. I write 75-90 reviews a year and am always looking for a good read.) Ask author friends which reviewers they know and ask for an introduction. Go to major newspapers and magazines and search for the features editor. (Sometimes there is even a reviews editor.) Contact them and ask who reviews books for them and how to get them a review copy of your book. Consider putting your book up at Netgalley.com. (No, I don’t know how. I get a lot of books I review from their website, though.) 

Don’t start with the New York City or Los Angeles publications. Try a local paper with some tie-in to your book. Local new authors are catnip to hometown papers. If the book features a location, contact publications near that location. Or look for organizations with an interest in your book. (NSS for science fiction for example)

2. Get the reviewer a copy of your book. Do whatever you can to make it easy on the reviewer. Do they want it dead trees?  Send a print version. Do they want it electronically? Send them the e-version. Better still, ask what format is desired (EPUB, MOBI, PDF, whatever).  If possible, send that. Maybe you don’t have the desired format but do the best you can. Finally send it where they want it sent.  Some reviewers work out of their homes. Others exclusively at the office. Ask where they prefer the book to be sent and send it there. (Either by post or electronically.) 
3. Have a print version. Often, this is an absolute must. Epoch Times will not let me review a book without a dead-trees version. (We experimented blurbing digital-only books but got firm pushback by review readers. Now it is forbidden.) Even if the intended audience is mainly digital have a printed version. (If you want to charge $2.99 for the e-book and $29.99 for the paperback, that works.  Reviewing publications don’t care if the print price is unreasonable, just that is available.) 
4. Have a publishing house, even if it is your basement. A lot of editors will see “Independently Published,” and kill the review. Not always, but most times. It is a fight to get independently published books reviewed and I do not dare do it too often. Create your own imprint. Think Goldport Press or Wordfire Press. It checks an important box. 
5. List your book on Amazon. If you are not on Amazon a lot of publications will not review your book. Period. The Amazon URL is a requirement for every review I submit to most publications. It does not matter if you loathe Amazon with the heat of 1000 suns. You must be listed on Amazon to get a review from anything other than your friend’s blog. Include a print version at Amazon.
6. Don’t annoy the reviewer. Sending a query to confirm the reviewer got the review copy is fine and accepted as normal. Sending an e-mail every week asking when your book will be reviewed? Not so much. There are many reasons a review will be delayed or never appear. Stuff might be happening to the reviewer. An editor might have rejected the review. A better book might have bumped yours. (Yes. It happens. There might be better authors than you.) It does not fit. Or the reviewer might feel it better for everyone not to review the book. 
7. Answer reviewer questions quickly and politely. Getting a reviewer query about your book is a good thing (generally). It means the reviewer is invested enough in the book to have questions needing clarification. Send off a response as soon as you can, and do not get triggered. Respond civilly.

That is it. Questions? Put them in the comments. I’ll do my best to answer quickly and politely.