I’ve done it for some mainstream publishers. I will do it for indie ones, too.
Check out my previous free reviews for Forge Books, Turner Publishing Co., and Bright Sky Press. All I got was a free copy. Just like the big boys get. And, no, I did not report it to the FTC and I won’t until newspapers have to do it, too.
I know how hard it is for POD and small press authors to get reviews these days. Newspapers are cutting back on book review sections or eliminating them altogether. News magazines, likewise. Even when they were going full throttle, getting them to give you a shot was chancy at best.
Heck, getting them to give a big publisher a break and a review was (and is) more problematic than the big publishers like to admit. Today, they don’t know what to do. Nowadays, the best way to sell a book is not at the corner bookstore (independent or chain) but on the Internet at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Alibris. But first the readers have to know you’re out there and that means advertising at places with high hit counts like this one.
But once you’ve drawn them to your book page, you really need something to distinguish it, with your story summaries, from all the others that have similar copy. After you’ve had family and friends leave their five-star reviews (which aren’t taken very seriously, by the way, by the average book seeker), you’re pretty much stuck. Yes, you can hire a review done by, for instance, Feathered Quill Book Reviews of Goshen, Massachusetts, which will post it on Amazon for you.
I did that for my short-story collection Leaving the Alamo, Texas Stories After Vietnam. Feathered Quill’s reviewer did a nice, detailed job. Not just a pocketful of generalizations like you’d get from some other services I’ll refrain from naming here. But FQBR set me back $50, and in this game that’s cheap. Some of the big dogs charge up to $500.
You probably will need to do a FQBR, too, as well as hire some of the other more expensive services. But, in addition, you can let me review your book free of charge. All I need is an email to scribbler at texasscribbler dot com with an attached e-copy of your book.
You know, a PDF. If it looks like something I want to spend six or more hours reading, I’ll email you back with an address where you can send me a free, reviewer’s hard (or paper) copy—-just like Big Media does it.
After I get that, I’ll email you with a date when you can expect me to finish a review and put it on your Amazon or other book page. I can also include a Microsoft Word printout of the review, under the heading of Cavalry Scout Book Reviews, of Austin, Texas, if you want a news release to photocopy for your other marketing efforts.
So give it a try. You can’t beat the price.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 