Review Copies and Why they are sold by Jim Cox

Dear Publisher Folk, Friends & Family:

The sale of review copies by reviewers and book review publications is always a point of controversy and misunderstanding — especially on the part of self-published authors and small press publishers who are new to the publishing industry. On this particular subject I speak from some 39 years of professional experience as a book reviewer, as the editor of other book reviewers, and as a publisher of nine monthly book review publications:If you are a small press, and especially if you are a self-published author, you are already working under a tremendous handicap with respect to getting reviewed.

If the reviewer is competent, if the review publication is legitimate, they will be chronically inundated with far more books submitted for review than they have the time or resources to handle.

If you deface your review copy submission in any way, even if it’s just stamping it “Review Copy” or (even worse), “Review Copy — Do Not Sell”, it will almost always be passed over in favor of a pristine review copy from some other author and/or publisher.

Reviewers sell their review copies in order to supplement their income from whatever their day job might happen to be. It’s their self-appointed compensation for their time, expertise, and efforts the creating a review entail from them.

The thing that authors and small press publishers working on very limited financial budgets for marketing and publicity must do in order to insure the “biggest bang for their review copy buck” is to check out the reviewer and/or review publication that has requested a review copy.

One simple way to do this is to examine their web site and see the kind and quality of the reviews they do.

Another is to ask for references from other authors or publishers that reviewer has worked with in the past.

Still another is to go online to one of the author/publisher discussion groups like , Publish-L, PubForum, and SPAN and ask for other folk’s opinions or experiences with a particular book reviewer or book review publication.

And one final piece of advice, especially for those new to the publishing industry and how it works. Go to:

http://www.midwestbookreview.com/bookbiz/advice/advice.htm

Then read the half dozen or so articles I’ve written on book reviewing, the book review process, how to spot a phony book reviewer so that you don’t get ripped off by scam artists, what to do with a review when you get one, etc.

Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review

Thank you Jim Cox for allowing us to quote your letter.