Book bloggers are pummeled with review requests every single day. While these are mostly received with love, it can get overwhelming. Depending on the size of the blog, requests can range in number from one to twenty or more per day. Since it is humanly impossible to read that much, it is inevitable that the majority of review requests will be rejected or ignored. If you are wondering how to reduce your chances of having your review request end up in the trash bin, read on.
I have compiled a list of the top 5 things that make me reject a review request:
1. Not Appropriate for My Blog Demographic
I review children’s books, ebooks, and book apps. Anything for kids ages 0-18. You would be surprised at how many requests I get to review books for adults. This tells me that the author/publicist didn’t bother to look at my blog or read my review policy. While I do read books for adults, this blog is specifically for children’s books. Please don’t email me and ask me to review an adult book on my blog. Your request will be deleted.
2. Bad Cover Art or Illustrations
I cannot stress how important this is. I can’t speak for every book blogger, but I am very guilty of judging a book by it’s art. The first thing I do when I get a review request is look it up on Goodreads, Amazon, or the App Store to see what the cover or illustrations look like. If it is not visually appealing, I turn it down. I get far too many review requests to spend time on a book that hasn’t been properly packaged. In my experience, if an investment has not been made to acquire a stunning cover or quality illustrations, then the inside of the book probably isn’t any better.
Good artwork is expensive, but it’s worth it! Find someone with a rockin’ portfolio and hire them. Don’t hire your brother or Joe that lives around the corner. Get a professional.
3. Ask Me to Purchase the Book
If you are going to ask me to dedicate my time to reading, reviewing, and blogging about your book, you need to send me a copy. Please don’t tell me how much you love my blog and how you would love to have me review your book, only to tell me that it’s $4.99 and I can purchase it if I’m interested. I’m pretty quick with my delete finger, and these requests always get tossed.
4. Mass Emails or Impersonal Emails
I know it can get tedious looking through that great big list of book blogs you have. You don’t want to read each one of their review policies or bother to scroll through past reviews to see if your book would be a good fit. But believe me when I tell you that when I see an email that opens with “Hi” or “Dear Blogger” or “Hey Everyone!” that delete finger gets whipped out of its holster pretty darn quick.
Stick my name at the top of the email. If you don’t know my name, look at the bottom of one of my blog posts. It’s on every single one. Or click on one of my social network buttons and you’ll find it.
5. Emailing Me 500+ Times
Once is enough. You really don’t need to email me again. And again. And again. I got it the first time. If I didn’t respond as quickly as you’d hoped, I either got my delete finger out for one of the above reasons or I’m swimming in a pile of review requests and haven’t quite made it to yours yet. But remember that if I haven’t already gotten my delete finger out, emailing me repeatedly will surely do the trick.
One last thing:
It’s important to remember that even if you do everything right, sometimes reviewers just can’t take on more books. Your book is probably amazing, so please don’t take it personally if you haven’t committed one of the above offenses but you still don’t hear back from me. I’m probably buried under a pile of books somewhere and won’t see the light of my computer screen for several days.
