Best Paid Book Review Sites for Authors

Book reviews are the lifeblood of your book's success, both before and after you launch. And paid services know that there are dozens and dozens of companies happy to take your money with the promise of getting new reviews. So what should you use? Well, if you're wondering that, then this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie, the book broad with Book Launchers. We're your professional self publishing services team. I talk about the importance of getting book reviews all the time, but that's because they're so, so important for book sales and for your bigger goals as an author. And there are literally dozens and dozens of companies out there promising you reviews in exchange for dollars. Not all are legit, and many aren't as effective as you'd like. But rather than take you through all the options out there, I'll share the ones we use at Book Launchers and why, and hopefully that helps you. We use Goodreads, Netgalley, Book Sirens and Booksprout for our authors. Now you might be thinking a review is a review. So why so many different sites for the same thing? Well, the best book review sites for you depend on your book category, your overall strategy and your goals for your book, as well as who you're targeting with your book. The ultimate goal is the same on every site though. To increase your exposure, find new readers, and bump up that review count. Not all sites make sense for every author. So let's start with Goodreads. This is the most popular review site in the publishing industry and the top online community for both book lovers and authors alike. And because it's owned by Amazon, it boasts some perks for authors with books in the Amazon database. You can claim your profile and earn a badge verifying your identity right through the site. Plus, you'll be able to access a wealth of statistical information on your books that are listed on kdp. How do you know if Goodreads is the way to go though? Well, if you want your book to go viral and gain as much exposure as possible, Goodreads could be your ticket. The strategy here is to get people to add your book to their virtual bookshelves and of course write reviews so other users see your book in their friends feeds. Hopefully when they see it, they add your title to their reading list too. It's like a giant 80 million people book fueled game of telephone. Oh, let's play another game. Okay, let's see how fast you can hit that like button. Go ahead, quick smash it. Wasn't that fun. You can also run a giveaway on Goodreads which can lead to more reviews too. It's something we do on a regular basis for our clients. All active giveaways are listed on the Giveaways section of the website and your fans can link to it and encourage their friends to enter the giveaway too. We have a video dedicated to Goodreads, so I'll link to that at the end so you can get all the goods on Goodreads. NetGalley, on the other hand, is a service that delivers digital arcs. Arcs are advanced reader copies if you don't know that, so it delivers arcs of your book to professional readers. These are reviewers, media journalists, bloggers, librarians, booksellers, podcast hosts, and others. They use NetGalley to gain access to digital copies of your book, and it can be a really effective marketing tool for your entire author brand, not just your book, because your book will will be made available to people who want to read it in their professional capacity. A NetGalley promotion offers your arc for three months and highlights your book in the recently added and Read now sections of their database, as well as to the sections specific to your title's categories, so all users will see it listed on the website. There's a lot more to NetGalley and figuring out if it's right for you, so we also have a video going into all the details on this, including the cost because it is more expensive and not worth it for all books. So to figure out if it's right for you, stick to the end and I'll link to a video we have on NetGalley as well. Book Sirens and Booksprout are like NetGalley in that they are review sites set up to deliver your ARC copy to readers and reviewers, but these two sites focus on getting your ARC securely to book reviewers and bloggers and to your book army. Book Sirens boasts over 10,000 readers across a variety of genres, with an average review rate of 75%. That's probably because their users are vetted and accepted as serious book reviewers. They need to have posted at least 20 starred ratings on Goodreads before Book Sirens approves them. To join you, first send your book to the Book Sirens team for evaluation so they can confirm that it's a quality book that they want to offer to their users. Once it's approved, your book will be added to its category where users can discover it, download the arc, and start reading. A really cool feature of Book Sirens, which is leading to their 75% success rate, is that readers can only download one ARC at a time and they can't download a new one until they finish and review the one they've already downloaded. That's pretty cool for authors because that means your advanced reader is much less likely to ghost you without leaving a review, and they're completely focused on one book at a time. Book Sirens will also supply you with a direct link to send to your book army so those folks can hop on over there and securely download their ARC for free. You also have the option of choosing whether your reviews are posted on Goodreads, Amazon, or both. Booksprout is another option to consider if your main priority is a prelaunch review push. Similar to Book Sirens, booksprout is a review site that automates the delivery of your ARC to over 50 40,000 users, and even your own book army can't beat their average review rate of over 79% either. We've been testing this with really mixed results though. My book, well After Launch, got four reviews from a single booksprout listing, but the other books we tested didn't have any results, so we're playing with it to figure out if it's a timing issue, a topic, or what we've experienced the same thing with Book Sirens, though. My book wasn't even accepted by them for their reviewers, so I only used Book Sirens for arcs. But others of our client base have had good results getting reviews. So what's the difference between the two? Well, booksprout focuses on getting reviews by a certain date, while Book Sirens focuses on getting a particular amount of reviews. On Book Sirens, you can post your book and have the reviews roll in for as long as your little heart desires, but on booksprout, your reviewers have a time limit to read and write their review. Booksprout also limits the number of reviewer downloads depending on your subscription level. The more money you spend for their service, the more downloads that come with it. Book Sirens is a fee per book service which lets you choose the number of downloads as little as five to as many as 250. But on the plus side, you can request that booksprout reviews be posted on up to eight different sites, not just Goodreads or Amazon. They include options like Kobo, Apple Books, Google books, and even BookBub. Whether you go with Book Sirens or Booksprout or both, they're easy to use and effective sites if you need a little help building up your audience. If this is your first book or your Book army looks a little sparse on the pre launch Battlefield or one of these two review sites, or maybe both could be your answer. Okay, so now you really need to dive deeper into Goodreads with this video right here and learn all about using NetGalley with this video right here. Both are must Watch and I'll see you there.