Book Review Guidelines
The fee for a review is $75. Reviews are required to be at least 500-words long and submitted within one month.
Reviews will also be posted on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com. They may also be cross-posted to the reviewer’s own blog, which is up to the reviewer.
All reviews will be featured and stay on the front page for around a week. Some reviews will become a lead story (scrolling thing on the front page). These will stay up longer, and depend on the nature of the review – very good reviews are more likely to become a lead story.
Note: in order for reviews to stay on the front page for longer, reviews will not always be posted immediately after approval. In addition: reviews may be cut down for distribution on Amazon and Barnes & Noble (which has a word limit). Generally, a synopsis is not as useful on a retail site and so these details may be cut out to get straight to the review.
Paid reviews don’t guarantee a good review, just a thorough one.
After the review is completed, writers can choose for a review not to be posted & distributed (though this isn’t recommended: there’s no such thing as bad press).
When submitting a book for review, please provide the following (you’ll be prompted to submit this info after payment):
1. Author/Book Link
2. Synopsis
3. Genre
4. Blurbs (if any)
5. Format you prefer to send: eBook or hardcopy
In general, please don’t just submit: I’d like to get my book, ____, reviewed. Provide some information, so we can choose the right reviewer. Do not contact and pay reviewers directly. Please complete payment and contact the site so the review can be assigned – and request a reviewer if you have one in mind.
(Goes to checkout page)
Contact the site for a mailing address if you would prefer to pay by check.
Become a Reviewer
SPR pays reviewers $50 for reviews via the above process. Click here for complete reviewer guidelines.
Editor’s Note
Some advocate against paid reviews, given the number of free review sources available. As SPR allows all registered users to post content to the site, this is not the only promotional opportunity the site offers. Frankly, there are a too many submissions for the review staff to handle and this system brings in a greater variety of reviewers, and even pays authors who are willing to become a part of the review team.
In addition, other review sites can only review a finite number of books, and SPR can guarantee a review, given the expanded review staff. Plus, the review is guaranteed to be 500 words, which is not the case for all book blogs. In a way, this system is more like self-publishing itself: there is no gatekeeper deciding what gets reviewed, which comes with some upfront cost. Ultimately, the goal is to review more books.
