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iUniverse Book Reviews
By Floyd M. Orr
Rated "G" by the Author.
Last
edited: Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Posted: Monday, October 16, 2006
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Would you like an honest review of your iU book? Would you like to have reviews posted on four separate websites? What would you pay for this service? How does free sound?
I have a blog site on which I post reviews of deserving iUniverse books. The author only has to visit the site, read the submission guidelines, and contact me with a request for a review. After researching the book to see if it meets my qualifications, I will respond to the author with a physical address where the author can send the book. As you can read on the website, these qualifications are not according to genre. The selected books must meet high levels of quality, grammar, editing, and/or research. The other qualification is that the authors must not be cheaters. You can read my definition of cheaters on the site. We all know that the proliferation of five-star reviews of POD books on Amazon, as well as on the many paid-for-review sites, are not exactly legitimate reviews. There are many more small business sites who offer the reviews as part of a paid package. You may have already discovered one or more of the following issues. (1) The best, most respected review sources are very difficult to attain for an unknown POD author. (2) Many sources that once had openings are now closed to submissions. (3) A few sources claim they will probably read the first page of your book, laugh at it, and then give it away. (4) Some sites have an open submissions policy, but make the author wait for months for a review. (5) Some websites offer free reviews, but their email communication with the authors leaves a lot to be desired. (6) Some websites offer free reviews after a long period of time, or you can pay them to move your book up the list. (7) Some sites will put a review on their own website, but will charge you just to copy and paste the same review onto another website. (8) Some sources claim the rights to your review so you cannot post the review on other sites yourself. (9) Some sources offer reviews only as a part of an expensive marketing package. (10) How good is any review that you had to pay for in the first place? Any iUniverse author who may be interested in this generous offer is encouraged to visit the blog site. You need to read through many of the posts to get a feel for the project. This is not quite like any other review site out there. You can cross-reference reviews of the same books at Amazon, B&N, and here at Authors Den. The way I see it, you can pay the reviewers who are in it only for the money, or you can thumb your nose at them. The choice is yours.
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