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I'm an author. Would you like to review my book? (Last updated May 2011) If your book is published through a trade publisher, feel free to send a galley to YABooksCentral.com 9864 E. Grand River, Ste 110 #230, Brighton, MI 48116 for consideration. Please be aware that we receive hundreds of books every year. We make every effort to review books in a timely manner, but some *may* be reviewed quite a bit down the line or not at all. Review copies received that are not reviewed are either donated or given away. Additionally, please understand that YA Books Central does not require staff reviewers to review titles they don't like. They can, but they don't have to. Some reviewers may, depending upon how the particular book affected them. If you send a book and it receives a negative review, please understand that things like that happen, and the opinions of that reviewer may not necessarily be the opinions of other YABC staffers. Do you review independent or self-published books?Believe us, we'd love to, but due to the high volume of books we receive from trade publishers, YABC -- as a whole -- is taking a break from reviewing independent and self-published books for the foreseeable future. We hope to start reviewing them again soon. Some of our reviewers may still review one here and there, depending on their backlog of ARCs, but that is up to them, individually. Until then, we encourage you to add your book and author name to our database, then point your readers to our site so they can post their reviews on your book listing page. We also encourage self-published and independent authors to create a community profile so they can interact with our readers, and submit a bio/book excerpt/author interview for us to place on their author profile page. See: How can I promote a book or author on your site? below for more information. What's the deal with the review books at YABC? Do publishers pay you? The short answer to that is no. Publishers and authors do not pay YA Books Central to post reviews. Click here for the full disclosure. How can I contact YABC? You can email MG at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it anytime. How can I enter a book into your database so it shows up on your site? It's simple! First, register an account with us. It's free! Then just click the Add a Book link in the menu bar at the top and fill out the form with as much information as you have. That's it! Once the book listing is reviewed and approved, the book will be visible on the website. If you are submitting a book that is part of a series, please do so in this format (number in series is optional): Series: Book Title (Number in Series) For example: Animal Ark Series: Foals in the Field (Book 2) I don't agree with a book review I saw on this site! What can I do? That's great! If everyone thought the same things, this would be a boring planet. Please submit a book review of your own so you can share your opinion with others. Please, no personal attacks or flames. YABC reserves the right to publish or not publish any review for any reason. I'm an author/publisher/editor/book promotor. How can I promote a book or author on your site? There are quite a few ways. First and foremost, make sure the author's name and book are in our database. After that, the author should submit a bio and/or interview. And, last but not least, the author should create a membership to our site and fill out a community profile so they can share a link to their website, share book trailers, and more. I noticed inappropriate content on the site. What can I do? If you notice something inappropriate in a review (such as profanity or gobbledygook or personally identifiable information like a phone number or email address), you can report that review by clicking on the exclamation icon at the bottom right of the review. The review link will then be sent to me so that I can take appropriate action (either editing or deleting the review). If a reader has inappropriate content on their community profile, or they are using their community profile to harass another user, you can click the "Report this user" icon at the top of their profile page. Can you post a chapter of my book in your Excerpts section? Yes, I can. Please add your book to the database, then fill out the Submit an Excerpt form. It may take up to 3-4 weeks for your excerpt to appear on your author profile page. Hey, I submitted a bio/excerpt/interview and I don't see it yet. Where is it? Custom submissions to YABC are carefully reviewed by our staff in the order they are received. Due to the high volume of submissions, it may take up to 3-4 weeks for approval. Be sure to use correct formatting and follow our guidelines, otherwise we may choose not to post your submission. We ask that you only submit once -- multiple submissions of the same content will make the wait longer for everyone. I have a paper to write. Can you write it for me? Um, no. You're certainly welcome to search the site for the info you need, but the whole purpose of going to school is learning things yourself. Having someone write something for you or hand it to you on a silver platter kind of defeats the purpose. Not to mention we've got lots more fun things to do, like read new books. Where can I find out what's new on the site? The best place to go is the home page of YABC or KBC. All the latest staff reviews will be showcased there, as well as any important announcements we may make. You can also check out theYA Books Central Blog, and follow the blog to stay informed. There you'll find a listing of all the latest stuff posted to the site, announcements, interviews, giveaway news, and things like that. Hey! I submitted a review and it wasn't posted! What gives? Well, it might be because your review didn't qualify for posting. A review, to be posted (and also to count towards earning a free book), MUST contain some merit. Just saying "I love it" or "I hate it" isn't enough and repeating the exact same thing for more than one book definitely doesn't count. Reviews must also be over 250 characters long and less than 8000 characters (though most people never come close to the limit). Check out How to Write a Book Review for some hints on what a good review contains. You don't have to have all of the elements by any means, but it will give you an idea what we're looking for. How long will it take for you to review my book? That's hard to say. It varies for every reviewer we have on staff. Sometimes we'll get to it pretty quick, other times it may be quite a while. We don't have a set time frame because a lot of factors affect when a book is reviewed: a) how many books are already in our review queue, b) whether we're already working with an author and/or publisher to coordinate a review with a book's launch, c) our personal interest in the book (hey, we're human), d) the potential interest level of the site readers, e) whether we've recently reviewed another of your books or even books from the same publisher or a book with the same general plot. Does YA Books Central publish negative reviews? The answer to this is both yes and no. It really depends upon the reviewer (and I'm talking here about staff reviews, not reader reviews...reader reviews definitely run the gamut). Some staff reviewers choose not to review a book if they didn't like it. All that we ask of our staff reviewers is that they be honest in their opinions. Does that mean that sometimes a book that an author or publisher has sent for review gets a negative review? Yes, it does. But the opinions of that reviewer may not necessarily be the opinions of other YABC staffers, and may not be the opinions of the readers. That's why we allow reader reviews on all the books in our database -- we want a full range of opinions, not just one from one reviewer. Can you publish my book? Nope. YABC is not a publisher. Where do the books you give away come from? For monthly sponsored giveaways, a publisher or publicity company donates those copies. For our reader review giveaways, we choose from our Prize Bucket: a collection of books we've received for review. Do you ever not review a book sent to you? Yes. At this point, YABC receives so many books for review that there is no way to review them all, even with all of the (awesome!) volunteer staff reviewers who work on the site. At times, books will also not be reviewed because the reviewer didn't like it, or because it is the 5th book in a series (for example) and none of our staff reviewers have read the previous books. Books that are not reviewed eventually wind up in either the Prize Bucket or are donated to a worthy cause. I'm interested in advertising on your site. What do I need to do? Please fill out this form for advertising info. I'm a publisher/author/publicist and I'd like to sponsor a giveaway on the site. What do I do? Just drop me a note at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with all the details and we'll see what we can do. Contests/giveaways are planned months in advance, so please don't wait! We run at least two sponsored giveaways a month. I love the site! How can I help make it successful? Thanks for asking! ;-) This site is a labor of love run by passionate volunteers. There are a number of ways you can help out:
Hey, I won a prize. Do I have to pay for shipping? Nope. Free really does mean free on YABC! I'm an author/editor/publicist/illustrator. Would you like to interview me? Sure! Just contact MG at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or you can utilize the "Build Your Own Interview" question list using the provided form on that page. I've written a book. Can you help me get it published? No, I can't. But Kimberly did put together a page of hints and tips to help you get started. |
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