When I first started receiving requests for reviews from various authors and publicists, I have to be honest, I was really flattered. When I started Literary Escapism, I never even thought for a moment that I would be in a position where I could accept or deny to review novels that were being offered to me (after all, I began this site as a way to share what I love doing – reading).
Since I started getting these responses, I have read some amazing books. I love to read and promote the people who can write amazing stories for everyone to read, so I wasn’t exactly selective in the novels I accepted to review. Needless to say, I’ve gotten a few that I normally wouldn’t have picked up. Granted, that’s going to happen.
Now you’re probably wondering why this came up. Easy – during one of my more recent requests, the author said he couldn’t find any guidelines and thought he would try anyway. That got me thinking that maybe I should have something up here in the form of a “request” on how to submit a novel for review. So here are my requests for submitting a novel for review.
- Please email all requests to myjaxon AT gmail DOT com.
- In your email, please include the title, author and a short synopsis (or a link to the books page).
- At this time, I am unable to guarantee reviews of electronic copies – I understand that books are going this way, but I haven’t caught up yet and have no easy way to read e-books except on my laptop (and my 2 year old hates it when I’m on the computer all the time). – Edited to add: I understand this is the way publishing is heading, but unless someone wants to send a Kindle along with the novel… :P …however, I did change this guideline from “unable to accept” to “unable to guarantee”. This doesn’t mean I won’t review your novel, I just can’t guarantee when it will be reviewed.
That’s it for guidelines, however, for someone who wants to submit a review, here’s what I will guarantee from any of my reviews:
- I will be honest with my feelings. If the book sucks, I’m going to tell you that, but I’ll try and do it tactfully.
- If I receive a book before it’s published date (advance review copy), then I will have the review posted prior to the release date or on any date agreed upon between myself and the author/publicist.
- Any book I receive after it’s been published gets added to my TBR stack and I get to it in the order I receive it.
- If the novel is a part of a series, and I haven’t read the series before, I will generally read the novels before the newer book so I am not jumping in the middle of a series. Sending any previous novels in the series will result in a quicker review since I won’t have to track them down.
Hopefully, none of what I’ve said is unreasonable.
Also, as I’ve said, I love promoting authors and their works. I am always willing to work with any author who would like to write a guest post for Literary Escapism or is looking for another outlet to promote their novel.
