Today’s post will be a bit different. I wanted to come on here and talk about an issue I and a lot of other bloggers surely have experienced.
So, I have been blogging for over a year now and have received countless emails from authors requesting me to review their books. You heard me, I said requesting and not asking because they don’t ask anything. They just assume you will review it, even when the book is far off from the genres you normally review.
Please, authors, don’t do this. Don’t send me your book without me asking for it. I see this happening so often with other book bloggers and booktubers and the response we get if we decline is never pleasant.
I have been wanting to write this post for a while now. So here it is.
So what should you do?
- First you should check if the blogger you want to contact actually takes requests.
- Introduce yourself and your book IF it’s a genre the blogger reviews.
- Ask if the blogger is interested.
- If the blogger says no, don’t argue or get upset. Remember we don’t get paid to review books and our time is valuable.
What not to do!
- Don’t ask people who only review fiction, to review your poetry or lifestyle book.
- Don’t just add the link to the book in your mail without knowing if the blogger wants to review it.
- Don’t spam the blogger if they don’t respond to your mail.
Just be respectful. We are human beings too.
Ps. I will be adding my reviewing ‘rules’ to my ‘about’ page.
heavenlybookish 
Great post! I couldn’t agree more. I’m open to reviewing books but only if I have a genuine interest in them. I completely get writers want their work out there but I just think some go about it in the complete wrong way.
Jen (jenrosewrites)
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Yes I agree! I get that it’d important, but we are human too and can’t review all the books that are being published.
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Omg I had an experience like that 2 weeks ago! An author send me a mail with “here’s my new books, please put reviews on amazon and goodreads. Happy reading” and I was like what??? And later they send another mail with the exact same thing. Uhm maybe wanna ask me first if I even WANT to read it? Rude. I just ignored it, lol.
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Same! It’s really annoying, like I get people want their books to be read but this is not the way haha
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This happens? I’ve never reviewed books specifically for authors, or done arc reviews, but if an author contacted me telling me to review their book, I sure as hell wouldn’t do it. Particularly not if I am not interested in the genre
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It does, sadly. I saw a tweet earlier today about this and when the blogger said no the author accidentally sent an email about that blogger to that blogger saying things as ‘dumb’ and ‘it’s one of those booktubers’
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What?! Bloggers and booktubers aren’t obligated to review books, that doesn’t make them dumb? That’s actually disgusting, we’re here to have fun and talk about books, its making book blogging awful for some people. Gosh, that’s awful
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i loved this post and i definitely agree with all the points you bought up!! it always gets so uncomfortable when someone sends you their book without even asking!! lovely post 💝
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