The Author Desk is a free newsletter for nonfiction business authors, including coaches, consultants, speakers and fractional executives who want their book to bring in clients. Every 7 to 14 days, Elizabeth Javor takes one thing she checks on every book that comes to her desk and shows you how to check it on your own. She has worked in publishing and book marketing since 2007.
Why the review site turned your book down
|
THIS ISSUE Why the review site turned your book downIf you submitted a business book to a free advance reader site and were declined, or accepted and then handed almost nothing, they sorted you by who their readers are. Those sites run on one behavior. Somebody signs up because they will take a free book, read it quickly and say something about it afterward. That habit belongs overwhelmingly to fiction readers, so the panels are filled with fiction readers, and a panel like that has little use for a book on pricing strategy or organizational change. Several sites say exactly that in their submission guidelines. The ones that do not say it will take your book anyway, and you find out slowly. That statement applies to one kind of site. It is not a statement about reviews, and it is not a statement about every channel that produces them. The channels are not interchangeable. Some are built around genre fiction and run on volume. Some take nonfiction seriously and have panels to match. Some are editorial publications where a reviewer is assigned, and the publication sets its own fee. Some are free, some are not, and some will not look at a book that has been on sale for more than a few weeks. Your genre, category, publication date, and whether a business backs the book determine which two fit. Those four answers route a leadership book with a consulting practice behind it somewhere quite different from a memoir, and the routing is most of the work. Two things stay off the table, no matter what route your book takes. Anything that pays for a review, in cash or in kind. Anything that gives a reader something on the condition that they confirm they left one. Both put the listing itself at risk, and when removals come, they take the honest reviews out alongside the paid ones. FROM THE INDUSTRY The FTC is sending warning letters over paid reviews On December 22, 2025, the FTC sent warning letters to ten companies under its Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule. The FTC named two practices: posting fake reviews and paying money or offering rewards for positive ones. Civil penalties run to $53,088 per violation. The rule applies to the business whose product is being reviewed, which for a self-published book is you. FTC Unsealed filings in the authors' case against Microsoft and OpenAI The Authors Guild published the unsealed briefs on September 21. If you are a claimant in any of the AI copyright actions, read the filing rather than the coverage of it. Authors Guild Best regards, Elizabeth Website · Substack · LinkedIn · Instagram · Facebook 600 1st Ave, Ste 330 PMB 92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2246 You've elected to receive emails from The Book Marketing Source. Unsubscribe |
The Author Desk by The Book Marketing Source
The Author Desk is a free newsletter for nonfiction business authors, including coaches, consultants, speakers and fractional executives who want their book to bring in clients. Every 7 to 14 days, Elizabeth Javor takes one thing she checks on every book that comes to her desk and shows you how to check it on your own. She has worked in publishing and book marketing since 2007.
THIS ISSUE Your audiobook may already be in Kindle+ On October 22, Amazon renamed Kindle Unlimited to Kindle+ and added audiobooks for subscribers in the US. Subscribers can now read a book, listen to it or do both at no extra cost. Listening is paid the same way reading is now, by page, out of the KDP Select Global Fund, and KDP says it's adding money to that fund to cover listening. Some audiobooks went in with no new action from their authors. If you made an audiobook with KDP's virtual...
THIS ISSUE Nobody can sell you a TEDx spot Somebody emails you about a TEDx talk. They know an organizer, a spot is opening up, and there's a fee that covers coaching and the stage. TED's own page on how TEDx speakers get chosen answers that offer directly. Go and find that email, and look for the number. TED's rules for the people who run these events say that TEDx events "may neither pay nor charge speakers." On its page for speakers, TED is blunter. Any fee-based "TEDx service" is...
THIS ISSUE Who sees your Featured section Open a private browser window, search for your own name, and click through to your LinkedIn profile. Look at what's there. Then sign in and look at the same profile again. The first time through, your Featured section is missing. LinkedIn's help pages say that to view someone's Featured content, "the viewer must have a LinkedIn account and must be logged in." Anyone who reads your profile without signing in won't see anything you've featured,...