Paid Book Reviews

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Robyn on September 22, 2007 at 11:03am

Dear Alan:

Reviews are always worth it. Even terrible ones can be watered out by countless other positive ones.

The reason book publishers pay for book reviews is to get something together before publication that can be used in promotions prior to as well as on the book to attract readers.

I would question someone who would need more than $100 dollars to perform a review. If you are truly stuck and need to find someone economical in the future, consider going to Guru.com and hiring a writer off of that site.

Good luck.

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Permalink Reply by Robyn on September 25, 2007 at 12:52am

I would recommend getting one.

What you can do with it is when you are advertising your book beit in a flyer or whatever, you can have a piece of review in quotes at the top. You can add the endorsement to your website. This kind of thing does inspire people to have the confidence to buy your book.

The easiest place is guru.com but you can also go through book writers associations. But stick with 100 as the ballpark price you want to hear.

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Permalink Reply by Stephanie Ehmen on September 25, 2007 at 10:09am

Hello
Does anyone have experience with GetBookReviews.com ? They offer reviews and media press releases.

Thanks!
Stephanie

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Permalink Reply by Revvell on September 25, 2007 at 11:03am

Personally, I would never pay to have someone review my book. I'd give it to friends, family, co-workers ~ "here! read this please and write what you think of it". If I were getting paid I'd certainly give a good one so people would send more people to me.

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Permalink Reply by Dennis AuBuchon on September 25, 2007 at 12:14pm

Any review can be good. Sometimes there are sites with book reviews to be performed for free but to get the exposure to a wider audience the site offers promotional opportunities. This can be considered by some to be a paid review but you are actually paying for the promotional services. Positive or negative does not matter as it involves exposure for your book.

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Permalink Reply by Tiva Wallon on October 26, 2007 at 8:11am

You should never and I repeat...never have to pay to have your book reviewed. I have used a few review services and been very pleased with them. One is on myspace. Their address is myspace.com/booksvilleliteraryreviews and the other is lighthouse reviews.

Good luck
Tiva

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Permalink Reply by Alan Smith on October 26, 2007 at 8:37am

Tiva,
Thanks for the suggestion! Sent a note to myspace site but having trouble locating lighthouse reviews. Do you have their site?
Alan

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Permalink Reply by Revvell on October 26, 2007 at 11:17am

just copy/paste in the address Tiva gave you. Oh here: http://myspace.com/booksvilleliteraryreviews

< grin >

Revvell
http://podcast.TheBookCrawler.com

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Permalink Reply by SusieSunshine on October 26, 2007 at 1:45pm

Has anyone heard of Xavier House Reviews? If so, have you done anything with them? Below is the link. Please check it out if you would and let me know what you think of it. Thank you!

http://www.xavier-house.com/review

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Permalink Reply by Alan Smith on October 27, 2007 at 11:07am

Revvell,
THAT one I found and they've already agreed to take a look at it. It's the Lighthouse Reviews I'm having trouble tracking down. Any ideas?
Alan

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Permalink Reply by Jack Dixon on December 10, 2007 at 10:56am

Hi, Alan. I'd never pay anyone to review my book, precisely for the reasons your post implies. If you were to pay me to review your book, I'd feel compelled to make the review as positive as possible. If my review were negative, you might feel as though you'd wasted money. I think that if money is part of the review process, both parties' objectivity may be compromised.

Others, of course, feel differently, but that's my take on it.

Jack
www.jdixon.net

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