Paying Markets for Book Reviewers

Posted over at AbsoluteWrite this week you'll find Betty Winslow's review of an e-book on book reviewing (it's not our e-book). But I was happy to see that our e-book avoids one weakness Winslow found in the book she reviewed (and that I've noticed elsewhere, too): an overemphasis on online markets/review outlets.

As Winslow writes:

[M]ost of [the other author's] information is geared to online markets and reviews. This didn't surprise me--it is an e-book, after all--but it does give the reader the impression that the most important review markets are online. It's true that many (probably most) websites depend on volunteered reviews and are always in the market for more. However, if you want to make any money at reviewing, you will need to look for better-paying markets (which are mainly print markets); at the most, what you'll get from a majority of the online markets is a free book.

Too true. Which is why our e-book of paying markets (and only paying markets) for book reviewers includes more than 80 listings, with 65 of them belonging to the print market category. And it's updated (and typically expanded) twice each year, before I begin working with the new semester's batch of book reviewing students from the Lesley University low-residency MFA program in creative writing. My students, whether they're in the Lesley program or they sign up to study with me on their own via an e-mail course, get a free copy. But even if you have to pay for it, it's one of the least expensive market e-books out there (just $4.95). You can download a free preview (with sample listings) here.