All reviews are final. Prior to submission, we would advise reading this post and the Guide to Reviews, as well as getting a general feel for the site.
What books are eligible for review consideration?
Submitted books must meet the following criteria:
1) Available as an eBook from Amazon.com.
2) Short stories, novellas, and full-length novels are all acceptable.
3) Any genre of fiction is acceptable. Non-fiction is also acceptable if it is on a subject of general interest and targeted at a layperson.
4) Book submissions must come from the author, publisher, or other valid representative. (Ex-spouses, we understand that you want to make him or her look bad. We aren’t going to participate.) From time to time, we may decide to purchase and review a book that wasn’t submitted.
5) The book must be “indie published.” Our definition of indie is very broad. Self published and small presses are in. The Big 6, their many imprints, and the largest of the non-Big 6 publishers (Harlequin, for example) are out. However, if your book was previously published by one of those publishers and you’re now re-publishing it as an indie, you’re back in.
6) Submission is no guarantee of a review. The reality is that the majority of books submitted won’t be reviewed.
How do I submit a book?
Simple. Send us your book in a non-DRMed ebook file, either a MOBI or ePub format, as an email attachment to BooksAndPals (at) Yahoo (dot) Com. An alternative method is to submit a Smashwords coupon code. In the email, include what genre best describes your book.
We are no longer accepting submissions as Amazon gifts or in other formats such as PDF, .DOC, etc. Books submitted as gifts will be converted to gift cards and the money blown on things we don’t really need.
What is the process after a book has been submitted?
1) Your book will be added to our list of books available for review along with the date of submission.
2) If the submission was a Smashwords coupon code, rather than an eBook file, the coupon will be redeemed. However, the book file will not be retrieved at that time. This is to guard against a coupon expiring prior to retrieval.
3) You will receive an email acknowledging receipt of the submission.
4) The book will be available for a reviewer to select and read for a review for one year. After one year the book will be dropped from the list.
5) If your book is reviewed, the review will be posted without notice. If you want to know if, or when, a review is posted you’ll need to follow the blog (see the many options to do so on the right), or use a Google alert on your name or book title.
6) After the review has been posted to Books and Pals, the reviewer will post the review to Amazon, At the reviewer’s option, they may also post the review on any other venue they choose, including Goodreads, other eBook retailers, and personal blogs.
7) We reserve the right to modify this process at any time.
What do I do if my book is in the queue for review consideration and I fix, change, or re-edit it?
If you submitted using a Smashwords coupon, make sure to update Smashwords with the current version. We’ll always choose the most recent version when retrieving a book file to read for review.
If you submitted using an eBook file as an email attachment, send the new version, making sure to explain the situation in the email.
We will put forth our best effort to use the latest version in our review. However, mistakes do happen and once a reviewer has begun reading a book, it will be too late to use an updated version.
If your change is just cover art, there is no need to send us an update. We use the current cover art from Amazon.com at the time the review is scheduled (sometime between two weeks and the night before a review posts).
Last updated 9/10/2022
