Dear authors,
Let me start with how much I appreciate that you visit my blog and think highly enough of me to read your book. I’m certainly not a professional reviewer but I do my best to review all your books fairly and honestly. And that they get the attention they deserve.
I think you have an amazing and difficult job as an author. The business isn’t an easy one, especially if you are a minority author. So I understand that it is hard to keep track of how to do everything. But please, please think of how you send your review request. I’m more likely to be inclined to take on a request from someone who is polite than when I feel that I get an email that has been copied and pasted. And I am not the only one.
I have a name
Sending out an email that only starts with hi without my name feels like this is just a copied and paste email. As if there wasn’t enough interest or time to figure out my name. It isn’t hard to find. I use my real name everywhere. You can already find it in the sidebar. Please use it. You don’t have to ask me how I am or how my day was. But at least adress me as a person.
I am friendly, not your friend
Overal I think of myself as a friendly person and I am more then willing to have a chat with all. But don’t act like I am your friend in replies or in a review request, unless we have had personal exchanges. Don’t shorten my name.
Send me the title and the synopsis
If you want me to be interested in reading your book sending me the title and the synopsis (in your own words or the copy and paste synopsis from the back cover) is important. It is hard to be interested in a book when I just get an email with ‘Hi do you want to review my book?’ and a link.

Don’t expect me to download your book from Amazon
If you want me to review your book don’t ask me to buy it. I don’t have a fund for my blog. I do it for free. Also expecting me to download the book from Amazon on the one day it is free does not work at all. You are expecting me to do all the work here. Plus, I might be away that one day and not have time to download something before a specific time.
Please make sure you have correct information
It is great to add in where you have heard of me. So if you found me through instagram that is fine. But don’t say things like that I post reviews on bookstagram. Because I do not. I post photos and I might mention if I like the book or not but I do not review them there. Best not to do those type of things.
After the review don’t send me an email to ask me to update or change things about my review
When it comes down to it, if you update your book on basis of reviews/feedback or if you update the cover, that is great. But I am not going to change my review. I will not change the cover because that is not the cover I had when I read the book. If I do reread the book, and sufficient time has passed, I would most likely just write a new blog about it. Do not send repeated emails about it as at some point we or I am likely to start ignoring you.
Finally
Please take some of the above in consideration when you email bloggers. We want to help. But we are people too. Sending out review requests to bloggers is apart of your job, often at the start of your career. You don’t send out emails like some that I’ve gotten when you are an employee at a business. So if you want to move forward, just make sure your emails sound professional like. They don’t have to be formal. But think of the image/idea you are sending of yourself.
And hey, it is a trial and error kind of thing too. I’m sure I didn’t sound as great in emails replies back the first time as I did now. But it is important to consider.
Kind regards and greetings,
Annemieke
This all of this!! Or when you can tell that authors didn’t bother to read your review policy, even though the only two places where you can find my blog’s email are either my review policy page, or my contact page where I ask to please read my policy first. It’s so frustrating.
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It is super frustrating!
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I agree with all of this! I have specifically mentioned everything I want and don’t want on my review policy page but it’s like 90% of them just never read it. A majority of them get declined for this very reason.
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I agree. A lot of them don’t read it or feel like that despite that they have a different genre should still give it ago because they might be that one exception you maken. Nope.
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*Standing Ovation*
This open letter is amazing. I agree with all of this. I get so frustrated when authors treat me like I’m their friend or owe them something when they won’t even refer to me by my own name. I’ve actually closed my blog to review requests as of late because I’m tired of feeling inhuman. It makes me so sad. I don’t need that in my life.
I hope this open letter finds a foothold in how authors interact with you!
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*bows*
We are people too and we deserve to be treated like that. We aren’t just a device to be used. And you certainly don’t deserve to feel like that. Hugs. I hope closing down review requests for now will make you feel better.
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Thank you! So far, so good. We have such a supportive community– it helps to hear words like yours. They boost me back up. π
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Yep, this is great! I’ve been getting review requests from people asking me to read their NA book…even though I explicitly state that I don’t read NA! Like, what??? It also bothers me when authors try to guilt-trip me into reading their book even though I’m not interested. π
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Haha. Yeah because they might be that one exception to your rule. π
Ugh that is horrible.
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Love this post! Even though I have a disclaimer saying I’m not currently taking reviews I constantly get mails from authors. Generic emails! So, because I actually love writers and authors I finally took the time to the time to write back to two of them with a short list of tips on how to get book bloggers to review their books. Like a bullet summary of your post. They had both refer to me as “Dear Our Familiarum” MAN! That’s the name of my blog!!! If you want me to volunteer some of my time to read your book [3 days AT LEAST] and write a review [30 min at least!] the LEAST you could do is visit my blog and LEARN my name or nickname or whatever. That way maybe you’ll learn I’m not accepting copies so you don’t waste your time emailing me! I’m saying it this way here, but I was very nice when I suggested it to them by email. I got such a nasty email back from one of them! I decided never to try again!
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Haha you’d think they’d get a clue when typing that. I’m sorry to hear you got such a rude reply back. I guess a lot of them don’t realize that you should not just shoot a quick reply if you want someone to review your book. We might be doing it for ‘free’ but that doesn’t mean that you should treat us as such.
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This is so accurate!! I’ve had a couple of requests from authors who seriously need to read this… I also love the ones who add you on Goodreads and then spam you with recommendations of their own books. Um, no, that’s not going to work.
Great post!
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I’m so glad I seem to duck the goodreads spam of that. I wonder why they seem to think those things will work. π¦
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I love this list! I am actually closed to review requests and it bugs me so much when authors ignore that an inquire anyway. I mean, I GET IT. Getting reviews can be hard, but we are hard working too and we’re not doing anything to be mean! Just trying to survive too! I’ve also legit been asked to read/review/promote a book…oh and buy it too.π I wonder if these authors ever think about how that sounds?!?
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Yes, we are just trying to survive.
Ugh, I don’t understand that. Do we look like we actually get paid for this?
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You rock! π
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Of course I do π
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Yes, I hate when authors just spam a huge group of people with the same copy and pasted message to every single one of us!!! It gives a major negative impression that they want us to commit the time and effort to reading their book and then writing a review and probably also photographing it, but they don’t want to spend the time to find out our name, who we are, or if we would even be a good fit for their book (i.e. do we read YA? Do we read non-fiction? etc.). Like, erm…that…doesn’t make sense??? Really great post!
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Right? You’d think they want their book towards the right people. But some just think all bloggers are the same. Or that we all read everything.
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