Welcome everyone, today we have another post in our #NewBloggers 101 series, and this time, we’ve got the lovely Shruti @ This Is Lit again! She is taking the steering wheel and writing a full guest post about how to write a proper review policy. But be warned, I (Evelina) shall poke my head in once or twice to check on you all! *chuckles*
If you want to find all the other posts in the #NewBloggers series, expand this list:
Expand List
- 27.07. The Greatest Book Blogging Myths I’ve Encountered (#NewBloggers 101, Book blogging, Discussion)
- 03.07. [NewBloggers] How Nicole @ FYFA Keeps Her Tweets Organized With TweetDeck (#NewBloggers 101, Book blogging)
- 25.05. #NewBloggers 101 comes back! Litsy – A Bookish Social Network (#NewBloggers 101, Book blogging, Discussion)
- 04.05. [NewBloggers] What Tools Can Help Me Be An Organized Blogger? TBR Spreadsheets (#NewBloggers 101, Book blogging, Discussion)
- 30.03. [#NewBloggers 101] General Intro To Bookstagram (#NewBloggers 101, Book blogging, Discussion)
- 23.03. [NewBloggers] A (Mostly?) Complete Goodreads Tutorial (#NewBloggers 101, Book blogging, Discussion)
- 09.03. Bookstagram Myth: Props Are Expensive? Pamela @ Reverie Society Educates! (#NewBloggers 101, Book blogging, Discussion)
- 02.03. What Are Linkups All About? Nicole @ FYFA To The Rescue! (#NewBloggers 101, Book blogging, Discussion)
- 23.02. So you want to move from Blogger to (free) WordPress? (#NewBloggers 101, Book blogging, Discussion)
- 16.02. What Tools Can Help Me Be An Organized Blogger? Social Media And Networking (#NewBloggers 101, Book blogging, Discussion)
- 09.02. What Tools Can Help Me Be An Organized Blogger? Writing And Scheduling Posts (#NewBloggers 101, Book blogging, Discussion)
- 02.02. What Tools Can Help Me Be An Organized Blogger? Blogging Calendars (#NewBloggers 101, Book blogging, Discussion)
- 25.01. How Do I Write A Proper Review Policy? #NewBloggers 101 Part 4: Guest Post By Shruti @ This Is Lit (#NewBloggers 101, Book blogging, Discussion)
- 10.01. How Do I Make A Good Edelweiss Or NetGalley Profile? (#NewBloggers 101, Book blogging, Discussion, Edelweiss, NetGalley)
- 05.01. When Should I Start Requesting ARCs? (#NewBloggers 101, Book blogging, Discussion, Edelweiss, NetGalley)
Shruti: So you have a book blog now and would like to start receiving all those advance copies you read about before starting your blog. You open your mailbox, imagining a gazillion emails from authors and publishers, but all you hear are loud cricket noises. Where are the promised review requests? Why is no one contacting you?
You, my friend, are in sore need of a review policy.
A review policy tells publishers and authors what kind of books you read. You need to make it easy for them by both telling them what you’ll read and how to contact you.
*Evelina pokes head in*
Shruti is so right! I made the mistake of not having ANY review policy for, well, my first whole year of blogging. (gasp!) I did receive requests. However, they were in precisely all the genres I don’t read. This is another reason why you need a review policy.
So let’s see what you need to do…
Review policy checklist
Shruti: Here’s all the things your review policy should include:
- Accepted formats (print/e-copies/audiobooks).
- Country of living (especially if you’re not a US resident and are accepting print copies).
- Time you’ll take to finish the book.
- Sites you’ll review the book on.
- Genres you like reading.
- Genres you just will not read.
- Email address where you can be reached.
*Evelina pokes head in*
Wow. So remember how I told you about that time when I had no review policy for a year? It seems I STILL have work to do.
Shruti: Haha, actually, I don’t think you do, except for your country of residence, maybe. You have your preferred genres up and details about your blogging communities. That shows publishers that you’re pretty great at this book blogging thing.
Similarly, readers, just write about yourself. You don’t necessarily need to have everything on the checklist. Choose the ones that would work best for you and go for it!
Get inspired by these bloggers’ review policies!
- Perpetual Page Turner: This site has a detailed review policy and includes information from preferred genres right down to what happens if the blogger doesn’t like the book. Don’t like lists? Follow this blogger’s style and put down everything you want in your review policy.
- Katie’s book blog: I like this one because it’s no-nonsense. I love no-nonsense and that can be seen in my review policy too.
This isn’t one size fits all, though. Your review policy is about YOUR reading habits. Identify the points you want authors and publishers to be aware of while contacting you and put them down in your review policy. For example, I can be brutally honest in my review, which is why I’ve included this line: “My review will be entirely honest. If it is a bad review, please note that I’m reviewing the book and not the author”.
Similarly, do you want the publisher contacting you to know something? Do you have a different rating system in place? Do you accept only indie books for review? Do you write funny limericks to summarize books in their review? Put it all down!
And finally, if you’re up to your eyeballs in books and don’t want to accept ARCs for a while, update your review policy. It’s also good if you mention a tentative date till when you will not be accepting review requests.
That’s all! You’re all set now to receive the right review requests. Go out there and read more ARCs, you, reviewer, you! xD
You can find Shruti blogging away her days on her blog here:
This Is Lit
Thank you for guest posting, Shruti! Now it seems I need to run off to fix my own review policy. Is yours more or less like this? Or do you have something to add?
I’m Evelina and I try to blog about books that matter, with a bit of fun there too! Disability and equality will be topics you see a lot, but there’s also a lot of scifi, fantasy and… GIFs. I’m also the proud founder of #ARCsAnonymous.
Thank you both so much for this post! This was really helpful!
Question – Do you think there is a time frame on when you can put up a review policy? I mean, I doubt I’m at the stage where I would get any anyway, so would there be any point?
And thank you for reading!! 🙂
I don’t know about a time frame.. It’s just kind of one of those “hygiene” things 🙂 do you have NetGalley or Edelweiss? Cause you could just put up the same text that you have in your profile (time saver!) Or just go easy with it, and write 5 sentences about what kinds of books you like 🙂 starting small is better than not starting at 🙂
This is so helpful because yes, as a book blogger, setting a review policy up on the blog is both a tedious but important job. And I’m glad this got highlighted in the NewBloggers series 😀 I was always confused when starting my blog as to what I should or shouldn’t include in my policy. I must’ve browsed quite a number of book blogs (Jamie’s was one!) to get a gist of what is necessary and finally came up with the things I wanted to include. But now I’m wondering why this amazing list wasn’t there with me, haha, it… Read more »
Thanks so much, Fanna! I’m so glad you found this helpful. When I first started blogging, I just googled “good review policy” and saw where to go from there, haha. After going through a gazillion review policies, I had a rough idea about what should go in mine. It’s worked out well so far and I hope it does for new bloggers who use this too.
I’m sure it will 🙂
Thank you, Fanna 🙂 you know, when I just started out, I didn’t even THINK a review policy was in order, and I didn’t really care about one almost up till now xD just the last thing on my mind, and I think that might happen to more than just me 🙂 so I’m glad Shruti helped bring our attention to this 🙂
One to think about is what you will do about posting a low rated review, some authors may ask you not to post after you’ve read and written the review. It’s good to be clear about your posting policy for these cases.
Yeah, that’s some thing my review policy doesn’t have. But I’ve already said there’s a 100% chance of me reviewing the book on my blog AND I’m brutally honest. I believe we need to be upfront about what will happen when we receive a review request. That’ll give authors a rough idea about what to expect.
That said, a whole section in the review policy about what happens if you don’t like the book is actually not a bad idea.
I agree with Rosie… because with me, sometimes I won’t even post it on my blog if a book is 3 stars and below (only on retail and Goodreads). They should know that in advance, definitely. I better go fix that now 🙂
Oh, that’s a very good idea, Rosie!
I love this advice! I’ve been thinking of writing a review policy for a while, but haven’t gotten around to it, because I don’t think my following is big enough for review requests. The checklist is SO helpful. Thanks for this post!
I’m glad you found this helpful, Alyssa! And do write a review policy! Every blog is big enough for a review policy. Add one and then see how many requests start piling up! You can also enter your name in several book blogger lists to make it easier for authors to find you. 🙂
I absolutely agree about every blog being big enough 🙂
Thanks for reading, and glad to help 🙂 I think you should still make at least a short review policy! Even when my following was tiny, I’d receive one or two review requests, and it’s always best to state what you like reading. Plus, if you have a NetGalley account, you can just copy paste the profile (which I talked about in another post, although I’m pretty sure you’ve read that already). Reusing profiles saves time, heh 🙂
Thank you Evalina, I love your practical posts. I nearly always learn something new – this time it was something as simple as including my whereabouts in my review policy. It just hadn’t entered my scatty head to say I was based in the UK!
Publishers prefer to send print copies to people based in the US and UK! It’s us international bloggers who need to specify their country of residence.
A number of authors still contact me without reading my review policy and then backtrack when they hear they need to mail print copies to India. xD
But I believe adding that you’re based in the UK would be more helpful for publishers. 🙂
Thank you! Yeah, saying you’re from the UK might be helpful because a lot more people are willing to give you a book if you’re from the US or UK 🙂
Thank you so much for this post. I struggled with writing it and was not clear enough because I keep getting requests to review books that I’d never consider reading 🙁 Will use this advice to improve my review policy 🙂
I hope our advice works out well for you! A “genres I don’t read” section might help you out. xD
…that’s one I expanded after this post myself xD
And thank you so much for reading it 🙂 well, writing a review policy won’t guarantee that people will not randomly mail you with unrelated requests, but at least you’ll have it there and some of the publishers will read it 🙂 it’s always best to have one!
Thank you Shruti and Evelina—this was so helpful! I have my location in the sidebar of my blog, but now I think I’ll copy it over into my review policy as well 🙂
Glad you liked this, JJ! (From both Evelina and me xD ). Country of residence would be great, especially if authors/publishers frequently backtrack when they hear where you’re based in.
And thank you for reading it 🙂 I don’t think I have my location anywhere, though xD but I don’t know if I want to give it away 😀 (lol it’s on Twitter though)
Nice post Evelina and Shruti I am happy that my review page is almost okay And guess what, my inspiration was Jamie from Perpetual Page Turner too I love her blog and all the work she has done in all these years.
But regarding the review policy, I have noticed that not many publishers/authors actually read it and that makes me really furious
My inspiration was Katie’s review policy, but Jamie’s was definitely helpful!
Also, hey, you’re based in India. I’m sure you’ve gone through the same problems as me with authors. My review policy clearly states that I accept only print copies and I live in India. Yet, so many authors contact me and then say no once they find out they’ve to mail a copy to India. This pisses me off. ☹️
Yeah exactly! That’s why I said that most of the authors don’t even trad that policy page.. And with ebooks the problem with me is I tend to just ignore them? I know why but it happens with me a lot. Also, there are a few authors who would ask to send PDF when I have clearly stated that I don’t accept Pdfs.. I wish they read the policy page.
Oh yeah, PDFs are kind of a no-no. Yeah, a lot of the people seem to just ignore the page, but hey, at least if they do, you can skip replying because they clearly didn’t read 😀
Haha exactly I guess that’s the only way.
:DDD I can’t believe you do that mail thing though. It’s just so priceless.
Thank you! Well, since you wrote that About page post, I think your review policy was always going to be okay, cause it’s part of the same thing, I feel 😀
Yeah, not many do. But at least you know you’ve got it there xD some do. And I guess that’s enough 😀
I haven’t looked at mine in a while, I will definitely take a look soon, I’m sure there are things I need to change:-)
A rule of thumb would be to look at the review requests you’ve received so far. Are authors always contacting you about the wrong books? Are they not okay with sending you print copies after hearing where you live? Edit your review policy to answer more of their questions.
I think Tammy is from the US, so she doesn’t have the location problem, at least 😀
Yeah, I found stuff to change after Shruti pointed it out to me too 😀
This is incredibly helpful. I wish this series would have been around wen i first started, it would have been so helpful.
Thank you!
I love that you’re putting this at the beginning of your new blogging series – it isn’t something I’d really considered, but maybe it would have helped a lot right from the beginning! Thanks for all the tips!
I’m glad I can help, and thank you loads for taking the time to read my stuff! 🙂
I updated mine several weeks ago, and it’s hard without guidance. I’m going to update it with some of your advice. I think it should also be mentioned if it is possible that you would DNF a book, and if it is, do you require yourself to read a certain number of pages or whatever? Thank you for this helpful post.
Thanks for reading! Yeah, you are right – that is a great idea about DNFs 🙂
My review policy has evolved over time; I tweak it periodically. I read a lot of other review policies on different book blogs. My current policy is wordy, it could be trimmed, but I hit all the points you mentioned, so ysy me! Thanks for the refresher, and the advice.
That’s great 🙂 I think it’s fine that it’s wordy, maybe you should just bold the main parts so people in a hurry could skim? That makes it easier to read 🙂 thanks for reading! I’m glad the post was relevant.
This is a great post 🙂 I have one page on my blog where I state my review policy and ratings system. And since I don’t really accept direct review requests from authors I am not already working with, I have included a line saying that I will not respond to e-mails from authors or publicists I am not working with at the moment. I had a period where I got several review requests every week, and then, follow-up e-mails when I didn’t get back to them within a couple of days… I think it’s important to be precise, and… Read more »
Thanks so much, Lexxie! You’re right. A review policy needs to be very precise in order to not waste both the blogger’s and the author/publicist’s time.
Thankfully, I’ve never received a follow up even if I don’t reply for a long time (although I usually take the time to politely decline etc 🙂 ). But yeah, I absolutely agree about stating that you won’t reply if you don’t have the time for that. Smart 🙂
And thank you!
I’ve been wanting to update my review policy and this is really helpful! I love checking out everyone’s about me page and policy page when I blog hop just so I can see what I incorporate it and make it my own in my own policy. I’m definitely bookmarking this for later when I have time to sit down and write a new one out.
This is exactly what I do! I always check out bloggers’ About and Review Policy pages! I’m happy with my review policy but I constantly update my About page, haha. xD
Am I the only one who never looks in them.. >_> 😀
That’s great 🙂 I’m glad the post was relevant!
Excellent post, thank you so much for your advice Shruti!
Thanks so much, Bethan! xD
I’m glad this was relevant 🙂
I got the opposite of loud crickets, which is how I came to realize I needed a review policy, because our inbox would get flooded with review requests. So one extra thing I did have to add to mine was something along the lines of “Please understand we cannot respond to every request because of the volume we receive every day”. I used to reply to request emails, but it just got to be too much. In spite of it all though, it’s depressing to see how few even read blogger review policies before sending their pitch. I still get… Read more »
Review policies streamline what you’re looking for from authors! And you’re right about them not reading our policies part. I’ve received so many generic review requests. I still respond to them to say no, though. Haha. Just so that they’ll learn and be better with the next blogger.
I agree about them not reading – but after I fixed mine, I started receiving stuff like “your policy states that..”, which means, SOMEONE must be reading them, so 😀 that makes me glad, at least.
I guess I don’t get that many requests then? It’s like a few a week, so not that bad to deal with, although sometimes there will be waves of them when there’s more. Haha, I can’t believe the one with the blank space 😀 😀 that’s something else…
Such a great post. And you reminded me I need to dust off my review policy and update it. LOL
Haha, thanks so much!
Yeah, Shruti actually reminded me of that too! 🙂
Thanks so much for having me on your blog, Evelina! ❤️❤️
My pleasure 🙂 <3
Ah ! neat how I got talked about making one the other day !
However, since i’m pretty slow imma just keep NetGalley for now and maybe add one later – as of which I have this post bookmarked in case.
Quite an amazing post you two ! I just love Evelina’s poking in .. ahahah
I hope this helps when you do get around to writing a review policy! And I loved the bits where Evelina pokes in too!
Aw, thanks Shruti 🙂
Thank you! 🙂 hey, you know, you can just always copy your NetGalley profile text into your review policy page for now, better than nothing 🙂
I made review policy since I started book blogging but my review policy has not contained all things on Shruti’s Review policy checklist 🙂 Thank you for sharing Avalina 😀 I think I need to update my review policy 😀
I know, I updated mine too while we were drafting this post 😀 I’m glad we could help!
OMG I NEEDED THIS! I have been struggling with writing a review policy, mainly because I didn’t know exactly what to say. And like you, it’s been a full year without one. Thank you for the tips!
I hope it helps and you can make a smashing review policy 🙂
Awesome tips, Shruti and Evelina! I used to have a pretty messed up review policy on my old blog, but have decided not to put one up YET for my current blog since I’m not all that open to accepting requests as of the moment (school sucks and all). Will bookmark this and use it as a checklist. <3
That’s the thing though, if you don’t want to receive requests, that what your policy should say! That should help you receive less emails with requests 🙂
This is so helpful. I’ve never received or requested an ARC. I have VERY small readership so I’ve never really felt as though any authors/publishers would be interested. Last year I was a bit all over the place with my schedule, which didn’t help the situation any. I’m trying to get my consistency back now, so maybe in a few months I might start looking into this. Thanks for the advice – it’s all really good stuff to be thinking about.
Readership or size shouldn’t be anything to worry about 🙂 have you read that post of mine about when to request books? Because I requested and received eARCs before I even had a blog at all (and thus, had no readership, so to say.) And indie publishers or authors are interested almost at all times, despite your size 🙂 so really, whether you request or not, depends solely on how you feel about it and whether you want to 🙂
Ooh, I haven’t! I will go and check that out. Thank you for all the great advice 🙂
I’m glad I could help 🙂 <3
Great post! I have a detailed review policy, but I still constantly get offered books in genres that I don’t read. I guess writing the review policy is easy, but getting authors to read it is hard.
I’ve heard people say that a lot, you’re right 🙂 but if these people do not bother to read our preferences, we’re not supposed to respond either 🙂
Hi! Thank you for sharing! Your post is really useful and amazing! I love (and really appreciate) that you take the time to write these kinds of posts, so thank you again. I have a lot of work to do, and my lazy self is not so happy at the moment, so I think I would procrastinate a little bit, but now I know what I have to do! 🙂
Aw, thank you so much for the support and the praise 🙂
this is an awesome explanation I think for both beginners and more established bloggers as well! thank you for writing this out
And thank you for reading, Lily 🙂
Thanks for such a great informative post! I had almost all of this in my review policy, but it’s nice to know that I have it right. Another great article! I’ll tell anyone who is looking how to set up a review policy to come here!
Thank you, Jenn 🙂 <3
I just LOVE this post so much, and great advice especially for newbie bloggers just starting out. I really wish I had known this when I first started. I made so many mistakes including not having a good review policy. I used to never get any requests and now I get them all the time. So it does help but key is getting your name and your blog out there.
Yeah, that’s true, I would say that the review policy is more for ensuring you get the RIGHT kind of requests 🙂 thank you for reading!
[…] Avalinah’s Books […]
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much for another great post! 🙂 I don’t have a Review Policy yet, but I have been thinking about setting one up soon, so this is the perfect post to give me an idea about how best to approach the subject 🙂
I hope it helps! 🙂 thank you for reading.
This is great information! I will definitely be sharing this post. I don’t have much of a review policy written up. I do have a bit on my “contact me” page and from what I can tell, no author read it before writing leaving a comment. Sad!
Mine’s also on the About page, maybe I should rename it, good point 🙂
I currently don’t have a review policy either (*gasp*), but I am working on it! It’s been a draft for waaaayyy too long so I think I just need to go ahead and do it because I’me receiving some review requests for genres that are just not my cup of tea. Also it was awesome that you guys did the post together! It made it really fun to read!
Thanks Lara 🙂 yeah, I think it’s better to have a half baked review policy than not have any at all! That’s why I just wrote mine km under ten minutes and called it good 😀 but that’s only after reading Shruti’s post 🙂
Just recently updated my review policy!! It has so much importance!! LOVED YOUR POST! So informative :)♡
Thank you! 🙂
[…] @ Avalinahs Books shares another New Blogger 101 post this time it’s a guest post by Shruti on Review […]
[…] I posted only two times last week, due to all of the half-hiatus stuff that is currently going on. Have you forgotten me yet? I hope not. I can truly recommend The King of Bones and Ashes though! Dark and witchy. There’s more about it to come next week! And I will thank Shruti @ This Is Lit again, for writing a guest post on how to write a proper review policy. […]
You reminded me that I have to update my policy!!!!!!! Thank you ladies for another amazing post 😉
I’m glad! Shruti actually reminded me of the same thing 😀 thank you for reading 🙂
I was just tweeting about this the other day when I got a request citing a review of mine the author loved but I had never written such a review. I’m not accepting any review requests but a clear sign that publishers, PAs and authors don’t always read them is the tons of review requests I get despite not accept any per my policy. I hope you get good ones though!
An author citing a review of yours that you’d never written? o.o wow! That is serious (and seriously annoying). I’m glad that has never happened to me. How did you deal?
I do receive a moderate amount of review requests, but I decline most of them. There have been a few really good ones, though 🙂
This post knows what’s up. I think it’s fascinating how few book blogs have review policies! I love my review policy; it’s saved me many times. That said, I am still struggling to figure out how to interact with authors who request reviews when I’m closed for reviews, or when they submit requests for genres I don’t read. I get frustrated with how insignificant it makes me feel… but, well, that’s a different post, right?
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, Shruti! I’ll probably tweak my own policy this weekend.
I actually didn’t have a proper one either, before Shruti guest-wrote this for me 🙂 but that’s now fixed! xD
I have heard a lot of bloggers say that when they get contacted by someone who just blatantly ignored their review policy, they blatantly ignore the email and the emailer as well 😀 sounds fair, no? 🙂
Thanks, ladies! This is a great reminder to go look at my policy. It’s kind of old and is probably outdated. 🙁 Great post!!
I’m glad the post could help 🙂 yeah, having a look at the review policy now and then is probably a good idea 🙂
Such a helpful post! Newbie bloggers should be aware they’ll probably STILL receive review requests that don’t match their policy (not all authors read them!), but they can say no (or just delete them) with a completely guilt-free conscience knowing they did their part to inform.
You’re right, maybe we should append the post 🙂 not all people take care to actually READ the review policy. LOL xD
Very thorough and awesome guide! Love the checklist. This is sure to help folks make sure they get the right emails in their inboxes! 😀
Thank you, Lashaan 🙂
Great advice here! The review policy is super important and has helped me tremendously. I will occasionally have someone ask me to read something not listed in my accepted genres, so I politely decline, but since adding my review policy, I have not had any major issues.
Thank you 🙂 I’m glad you liked the post. Yeah, even if you get asked, and it’s in the review policy, it’s just easier to say no, cause they were supposed to look there before they asked, so it’s sort of… Moral ground, lol.
This is so helpful ! Thanks !
It is definitely my pleasure, and thanks for reading 🙂
[…] to make a good Edelweiss/Netgalley profile – write a proper review policy – get comments (Evelina @ […]
Thank you!
Thank you for the intel Shruti & Evelina! I actually do not have review policy up on my blog ((hides under rock)) and I’ve been blogging for 2 years. Why? No idea, I guess I’ve just never sat down and written one. I do really need to put one up, as it would weed out some of the genres that author’s contact me about reading that I will absolutely not read.
And thank you for reading 🙂 haha, I know, my review policy was also barely existent before Shruti’s post 🙂 I suppose you could just copy paste your NetGalley profile somewhere on your blog and save time? It’s pretty much the same thing as a review policy would be 🙂
For as long as I have been blogging, this is something I have yet to do properly D: I have a brief line on my blog contact page and I’d been meaning to expand it once I got my new site up and running. But thanks for the tips on what to include (and a reminder I didn’t know I needed!)
I know right! The review policy is just so easy to NOT bother with, that’s all. I say, if you don’t have time, you should just copy your NetGalley profile for now, or something like that 🙂
And thanks for reading 🙂
[…] guest posts on @Avalinah’s Books about how to write a review policy for your book blog → How Do I Write a Proper Review Policy? & Evelina also shares some blogging organization tips → What Tools Can Help Me Be An […]
Fabulous post ladies! The only thing we have on ours, that I didn’t see above, was a timeline for when we get back to review requests. And we have ours listed at 2-4 weeks. The reason we had to add that info was because we had a few authors that would send us multiple emails a week asking if we got their previous request *slow blinks* lol. Since then we’ve only had one author who didn’t read that part of our review request page and she sent a follow-up email every three days…….oh my gosh lol. But any who, I… Read more »
Thank you! <3 oh, that's a good thing about the timeline. Although I don't know if I'd specify mine, cause I don't think I really have one - it's more like, SHIT HAPPENS. If you know what I mean 😀
Oh, thankfully, nobody has sent me reminders yet! Ugh, that would suck. Every three days? That would SO be blocked.
[…] 01/25/2018 How Do I Write A Proper Review Policy? (#NewBloggers 101, Book blogging, Discussion) […]