Book review sites

G'day,

Just wondering if anyone knows any good book review sites? I'm having trouble getting reviews for my second book, Escaping the Dark House: A Self-Help Memoir of Depression. I ran a giveaway here on LT but so far none of the 30 winners has posted a review. So, I'm going to try submitting my book to book review sites, and am wondering if any of you have had good luck with any. (By the way, Kirkus Reviews is too expensive for a self-publisher like me ($425).)

Cheers,

Will

Kirkus charges $425 to review someone's book? Holy cow!

>1 WillPeters:

As a reader, I'd never trust a review site that charges authors to review their books.

How would you know? It's not like the review has a footnote that says, "This review was purchased from a review-providing service." The review is posted by an individual who is recruited by the service.

Anyway, I'm not yet desperate enough to pay for a review-providing service. I'm actually looking for non-pay sites that review nonfiction books.

Locate (a) blog(s) with semi-regular or better activity and some degree of comments activity that review(s) books on subjects similar to yours ?

Kirkus does not charge for all reviews--only for reviews for self-published books. They're mostly just published on Kirkus's website, though it looks like they now choose some to go into the magazine as well. Evidently they don't pull their punches even with the paid reviews, so they give a choice as to whether the author wants their review publicly available. I think a few other of the bigger review journals are starting this as well (PW, maybe?)

It also appears that Kirkus is now offering editing and publicity packages as well, which is very interesting.

Thanks, Marissa. I was too lazy to post an explanation of Kirkus's service for self-publishers. You're getting much more than a review for that $425. And, if they are providing honest reviews ("not pulling punches" as Marissa said), then there's nothing unethical about using such services.

Try Reader's Favorite. They have free reviews, but you have to wait a bit.