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Writing, Reading, and Rural Life With a Border Collie

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What We ARE & AREN’T Interested In – or -Updated Submission Guidelines 3.0

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:

  1. Memoirs about childhood trauma or abuse
  2. Trashy “romance novels”
  3. Anything with gratuitous violence and/or profanity
  4. Garbage (see #2 and 3, above)
  5. “Self Help” books unless written from a biblical worldview
  6. Anything needlessly dark, distasteful, or otherwise disgusting (see #2, 3, and 4)
  7. 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?


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Why “A Healing Touch” Isn’t – or – How to NOT Tick Off Mom

Happy Sunday Authors!

At least it’s a happy Sunday for some of us. Others who shall remain nameless are sulking (Hi, Mom!). Lemme explain.

 

Her Crankiness (hi again, Mom) is miff-ified at authors who waste her time by not adhering to and/or ignoring our submission guidelines when they request a review.

Case in point.

A Big Stretch

Back in August Mom got a review request for a “historical fiction” book “because many people turn to independent reviewers for realistic recommendations on what to read. Considering the current social, economic, and political climate, not only are readers looking for something new and different, many are wondering about young America’s beginnings as a nation. A Healing Touch speaks to this interest.”

We enjoy historical fiction. So we decided to dive in. Only to find out that “historical fiction” is a mighty big stretch for this thing.

Cuz what starts out as a story “of two people blazing trails into the Northwest Territory along the Ohio River in 1796” crashes big time in chapter 22. Here the author seems to forget where she is, jumping from historical fiction into porno. Too bad. It was a pretty good story up until that point.

Bye! Outta here! Doneski! Hasta la vista baby!

“Can’t believe I wasted two days on that,” grumbles Her Crankiness. Cuz there are two things that’ll get your book into the nearest round file (trash can), right off the puppy chow:

  1. Mistreating any animal, especially dogs, or
  2. Crap of the R-rated variety (or worse).

So don’t even go there. Don’t waste our time. It ticks us off. It gets you on our Kitty Litter List. You don’t want to be there, okay? (I’m telling you this so you won’t hawk up a hairball when we pan your stuff  because you didn’t bother to read the submission guidelines. Think of it as a public service announcement.)

Speaking of Which

For the zillionth time, as noted in the first line of our Rating System & Submissions page (for anyone who could be bothered to read it):

We review fiction and nonfiction books rated G to PG-13. We don’t have the time or interest in anything else. (Occasional exceptions may be made on the basis of artistic merit. But that is rare.)

 

Stay Inside the Lines

The novel noted above colored outside these lines. Way outside. And nothing tees off Her Crankiness like authors who can’t or won’t follow simple instructions or who misrepresent their work. She will not be happy that you’ve wasted her time. (Not a good idea. Trust me on this.)

Since you’re still reading, however, you’re smarter than that. You’re up front about your book. Its genre, storyline and content. If you’re honest about that, we like you already. If you’re not, then off to the Big Kitty Litter Box in the Sky with you!

Are we clear here?