Kimber here. Her Crankiness can’t come to the blog right now. That’s cuz she’s neck-deep in Mom Cranky. Lemme explain.
Back when Mom was young and foolish – like, yesterday – we took pretty much any request for a book review and ran with it. Hindsight being 20/20, we learned a few things in the process. Like:
- Not all requests for book reviews are created equal
- Our time is limited. So is our attention. We don’t have the time or attention to plow through a book that wouldn’t pass Troglodyte muster. Or spell check.
We get tons of requests for book reviews. From authors. Publicists. Publishers. Feline fans. (Nobody’s perfect.) We love reading good books by gifted writers. And doing honest book reviews.
Less Than Half
But we’re picky. In fact, we accept less than half of the review requests that come in. We just don’t have time to read stuff that belongs on the bottom of a bird cage. (You wouldn’t believe some of the junk we get.)
Clarifying
So we’ve found it necessary to clarify what we are and aren’t interested in regarding book reviews. Like this:
What We’re Interested In:
No promises here. This list is for general reference only. It does not guarantee an acceptance of a request for a review, especially if we get a few chapters into your book and discover a dud. But in general, we’re interested in:
- Thoughtful, well-written stories that speak to the human condition, offering hope and inspiration
- Stories that are fresh and creative, not warmed-over leftovers or wannabes (Hi, Harry Potter clones)
- Uplifting stories that include some redemptive quality without being preachy
- Books with a transcendent theme, e.g., that are bigger than the author
- Books with a clear beginning, middle, and end
- Books that are free of typos and grammatical or punctuation errors
- Books anchored in a biblical worldview.
Special Interests Include:
- Historical Fiction
- Christian Fiction
- Narrative Non-Fiction
- Young Adult
- Outdoor/Adventure
- Memoir/Biographies (see below)
- Travel
- Clean love stories
- Humor. One of us loves dry humor and wry wit. Bonus points if that includes a dose of sass (Hi, Mom)
- Animal stories – Arf! Arf!
If your particular genre isn’t listed here, it doesn’t necessarily mean an Auto-Reject. Just be sure to query and provide an honest overview of your work before asking for a review.
What We’re NOT INTERESTED In:
- Memoirs about childhood trauma or abuse
- Trashy “romance novels”
- Anything with gratuitous violence and/or profanity
- Garbage (see #2 and 3, above)
- “Self Help” books unless written from a biblical worldview
- Anything needlessly dark, distasteful, or otherwise disgusting (see #2, 3, and 4)
- We no longer accept PDFs for review
AUTHOR ALERT
Are you an author who’s written a book series? Have we read and reviewed the first installment and liked it? Have you commented or connected on a good review of book one? Unless you have, please don’t send us the next one. We’re not interested.
For more, see 4 Reasons Why We’re World Champion ‘Book Bailers.’
For additional information on our Rating System and Submission Guidelines, please click here.
Are we clear?
Pages & Paws 