Review Submission/Query Policy

So, this is coming after finally getting tired of saying the exact same thing over and over to the bajillion people that are constantly sending us their stuff. Know that we’re not trying to make the query process impersonal here. This is simply a logistics issue that, quite frankly, we don’t have the bandwidth to handle anymore.

There’s something you need to understand up front: we review books for fun, and it’s all done in our free time. We don’t get paid for this gig, but we keep doing it because we love it and because we love seeing the authors we love succeed. However, this condition denotes that our time on EBR is limited. So we’re careful how we spend it. Unfortunately for you, that means we have to be selective about what we review.

Here’s a few brief guidelines concerning what we will and will not accept. Just don’t hold us to it. We pretty much do whatever we want.

1. We primarily review Speculative Fiction (SF) books such as:

   • Fantasy and all its subgenres
   • Science Fiction and all its subgenres
   • Dystopian
   • Alternate History
   • Horror and Mystery (with an SF flair)
   • Thrillers (with an SF flair, but we rarely review these)

   We occasionally review non-SF genre, but that pretty much only ever happens because of a personal preference of the reviewer and because it was sent to us. For example, Steve loves his Westerns. Since he’s moved on from EBR, the rest of us don’t cover them.

   We often review Young Adult novels in SF genres, but are less likely to review for Middle Grade or younger. Doesn’t mean we don’t review those. Just doesn’t happen very often.

   *DO NOT* send us your mainstream Romance, Mystery, Thrillers, Nonfiction, Historical, political, etc because those emails just get junked. Period. We’re only going to say this once and assume that everyone listens to us.

2. We primarily review books from legitimate publishers, which will occasionally include Indie houses. If you are from an Indie house that publishes SF, you can send a query. We’ll reply, if we’re interested.

3. We rarely review self-published novels, and when we have in the past it’s because it was from Mark Lawrence’s fantasy blog-off contest or because we’ve read the author’s traditionally published works. Or because we are occasionally gluttons for punishment and ask for it. We generally discourage self-published authors from sending review requests. We won’t stop you. If you insist, and you don’t want us to immediately junk your query, here’s a few pointers:

   • It must be free. Attach a MOBI (preferred) or PDF to the email (obviously our contact form won’t work for this as it doesn’t accept attachments), or provide a way that we can easily get a copy. We have a hard enough time deciding to read one of these novels. We certainly aren’t going to pay you to review your book. And that’s kind of how the reviewing gig works anyhow. Take a lesson from the big boys of publishing here.
   • Your email should contain a useful subject line (this distinguishes you from everyone else), and the email itself needs to be short and quick to scan with the title of your book, your name, and a brief description of the book. Also, see the previous pointer. (See how nice we’re being to remind you!)

We don’t review everything we get. Even if it’s from a publishing house. Sometimes life gets in the way. Sometimes it takes us a little while to get to a book we’ve been sent. Our general rule is to try to get a review out within a year of the release date (usually much sooner) and when the review goes live we try to email you the link within a week of publication. If we attach a “Like” or “Love” rating to the review, we try to also post those reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Because if we like the thing, then loads of other people are going to like them too.

If, after reading all of this, you still decide to send a query to us and you don’t get an answer… you can safely assume that one of the above conditions have hit us, and it’s not going to happen. Do not pester us with repeated requests or we’ll just filter all emails from your email address straight into the garbage. It’s easier than it sounds. Know that our no-hassle policy has nothing to do with who you are or whether or not your book is any good. We do what we do, and we’re going to continue doing that until we decide to be done.

Which isn’t going to be anytime soon.