Book Review Blogs That Accept Self-Published Work

Book reviews help sell books, but many book review blogs won't review independently published work.

For the past few months I've been thinking about putting together a directory of book review sites that accept indie/self-published books but I haven't been able to find many.

Well! Yesterday I found two database sites that only list blogs that will accept independently published work. These include sites that mainly review traditionally published novels but will evaluate self-published work on a case by case basis. Also, these database sites have a strict policy: no site they list charges for a review.

Book Review Databases That Accept Independently Published Work

The Indie Book Blog Database

Site owner Jennifer Hampton writes:

As an indie/self-published author, getting a book review can be very difficult. With ebook publishing on the rise, many companies are taking struggling independently published authors for granted to cash in on this.  You should never pay for book reviews! A false book review can tarnish your reputation. Having your amazon self published title flooded with reviews that aren’t honest and un-biased can ultimately ruin your writing career. I know how hard it is; I’m a self-published Author myself. Without reviews you can barely get noticed as an author. This is why I’ve developed the Indie Book Blog Database.

At the Indie Book Blog Database you can find hundreds of well-established book blogs that will read and review your books for free! That’s right for free! You may not get your books reviewed over night, many of the reviewers here get flooded with review requests. One thing you have to remember: This is a free service and many reviewers do this for a hobby. (The Indie Book Blog Database, About)

The Indie View

The Indie View "ranks within the Top Ten of Book Review sites on Google, globally". Nice!

To be on this list the Indie Reviewer has to be:

- Actively posting reviews
- Review eBooks
- Not charge for their reviews
- Not be affiliated to a publisher
- Have submission guidelines in place for an Indie author to submit an eBook
- Putting a link back to TheIndieView on their site

Read more here: The Indie Reviewers List.

Book Review Database That May Or May Not Take Indie Published Books

Fyrefly's Book Blog

This is a massive database containing all book blogs. There is no master list of blogs since it contains more than 1,800 book review sites, so you have to use the search function. This is from the "Book Blogs Search" page:

If you’re looking for book reviewers to whom you can pitch your latest book, using the search engine as a search is a more efficient way to go about it than clicking alphabetically down the big list. Just search for a few titles that you consider similar to your book, see which bloggers are coming up in the search results as having reviewed (and liked) them, et voila! A customized, targeted list of bloggers that are predisposed to enjoy your book!

Best of luck!

Other links you might like:
- What to do if your book isn't selling: Tips from Johanna Penn
- Amazon Ranks Authors In Terms Of Their Book Sales
- How To Design A Great Looking Book Cover

Photo credit: Trees for Cyprus - Friend us

Indie Books: What Price Is Right?

Dean Wesley Smith addressed a question that has been on my mind: what effect will the recent settlements regarding agency pricing have on the cost of books? DWS says they're going to go up, perhaps way up.

Pricing for customers of electronic books will go up as this settles out over the next few years. Even with stores discounting some titles, ebook prices really can’t do anything else but go up.

Why are book prices going to increase?

... I am being scary simple and general here for the sake of keeping this short and understandable to those who don’t much care.

So now the government has come in and said to the big publishers, “No, no, no. You can’t all agree to do this at the same time.” So now the publishers are being forced to back up and allow retailers to discount what they want, as it always should have been.

In response to that, publishers are raising their “suggested retail prices” expecting retail stores to discount. Some retailers will, some will not.

Some books will be discounted, some won’t. And the amount of discounts by the retailers will vary from moment to moment and book to book and agreement to agreement.

All this is going to cause all kinds of very strange price benchmarks for books. Prices like $10.14 or $12.64 for electronic books. It’s going to have readers who are used to set and standard prices shaking their heads, that’s for sure.

And it’s going to make for some interesting shopping for book buyers, who now can shop around for the best deals. Again, as it always should have been in this capitalistic country.

So what should indie writers price their books at? Here's what DWS recommends:

Novels
- Front list, meaning brand new. Over 50,000 words. $7.99
- Shorter front list novels, meaning 30,000 to 50,000 words. $6.99
- Backlist novels, meaning already published by a traditional publisher. $6.99

Short Books
- Short books, meaning stories from 8,000 words to 30,000 words. $3.99

Short Stories
- Short stories … 4,000 to 8,000 words. $2.99
- Short stories under 4,000 double with another bonus story… $2.99

Collections
- 5 stories $4.99
- 10 stories $7.99

Dean also suggests, and I agree that this makes good sense, publishing a trade paper edition along with your ebook, even if you don't expect to sell many paper books. Why? Because it shows readers how much less expensive the ebook price is and makes them feel like they're getting a deal--which they are!

You can read the rest of Dean Wesley Smith's article here: The New World of Publishing: Pricing 2013

Other articles you might like:
- Stephen King: How His Novel "Carrie" Changed His Life
- How Do Writers Get Their Ideas? Neil Gaiman, Seth Godin & Stephen King
- Writing Resources
- Jim Butcher, Harry Dresden and the Dresden Files

Photo credit: See-ming Lee

Is 99 Cents Too Low For An Indie Ebook?

I used to think 99 cents was a good price for indie books. Sure, they're worth more than 99 cents but if you want to sell a lot of books then it seemed reasonable to price them affordably, and at 99 cents a lot of folks don't think twice before clicking the "download" button.

Things have changed.

Two things happened. First, Amazon changed its ranking algorithm to favor higher priced books and therefore 99 cent books no longer have the competitive edge they once did. Second, I think the novelty of being able to buy a book for 99 cents has worn off and consumers don't download 99 cent books as readily.

For years Dean Wesley Smith said an author should never price her novel at 99 cents. I now agree with him. Yesterday he posted a comment one of his readers had submitted and I've reproduced a small part of that, below. I think this is a fantastic analogy.

He [an pricing professional] would look at all the short stories and say ‘It takes 15 minutes to read? And it was fun? Okay. charge 5 bucks.” And when writers squawked in horror, he would say “Starbucks sells fancy coffees for $5 that take 15 minutes to drink. They sell millions every day. Did you enjoy the story as much as the coffee? Yes? Well, no problem.”

And the writers would come back with “but there was actual substance in the coffee… cream and coffee beans and sugar…” and the he would respond with “yeah, and if I really like the story, I can read it again. I can’t drink the coffee again. I can lend the story to my friends. I can’t say to my friends, ‘gee you should taste this coffee, it was really good, you can try it when I’m done with it.’

He would tell you that it is not good practice to set anything, no matter how ‘small’, at regular price at the very bottom of the price structure.

The bottom price should be reserved for sales exclusively, and used only in an integrated, strategic way to give you more sales traction and build your brand.

If people said “oh, well I’m new, and I don’t have name recognition so I have to sell cheap to make sales” he’d say, no. Set the price you want to regularly sell at. From that price have sales, or other promotions that give an incentive to the consumer to try your new stuff. You’re telling the consumer that you know they are taking a bit of a risk on a new, unknown quantity, so a price break makes it more appealing. Once they’ve tried your stuff, then they know if the regular price is worth it to them.

You are always educating the consumer as to what your product is worth. The regular price will come to be perceived as its true value. You don’t want to set that too low. You steal from the consumer the thrill of getting a deal, you steal from yourself the flexibility to build and expand your brand appropriately.

Read the rest over at Dean's blog: The New World of Publishing: Book Pricing from Another Perspective.

Related reading:
-The Vandal's 10 Ways To Promote Your Book
- 7 Tips On How To Launch A Book Without Losing Your Mind
- 5 Book Review Blogs