BookLife Reviews
Complete Information for Authors and Publishers

BookLife Reviews are guaranteed, thorough, professional assessments plus marketing insights, written by Publishers Weekly reviewers and designed to help you reach the right readers.

 

 

A BookLife Review is a respectful, knowledgeable 300-word review that includes information designed to help in the marketing of your book, all crafted by a professional Publishers Weekly reviewer who is an expert in the genre or field of your book.

MISSION

The mission of BookLife Reviews is to support indie authors and publishers through one of the most challenging parts of self-publishing: marketing the finished book. An honest and detailed review from BookLife Reviews highlights your book's strengths and analyzes its potential for reaching an audience while giving you a valuable assessment of ways that future editions or future books can be made even better. Our insights help you target your marketing efforts to the readers who are most likely to enjoy your book. Marketing can be complicated and daunting; your BookLife Review will help to guide you through.

STRUCTURE

Each BookLife review consists of:

• Three full paragraphs (about 300 words) of plot summary, critique, and analysis of your book, including an assessment of which readers are most likely to enjoy the book.
• An honest, positive one-sentence takeaway that summarizes the reviewer’s opinion of the book’s best aspects and likely audience.
• Comparison (comp) titles and/or authors.
• Letter grades (from A+ to C) for five production elements: cover art, interior design and typography, illustrations (if applicable), editing, and marketing copy.

ELIGIBILITY AND SUBMISSIONS

Any book in the English language containing up to 150,000 words that is or soon will be commercially available in the United States is eligible for a BookLife Review. See our complete submission guidelines.

BOOKLIFE REVIEW TIMING AND PROCESS 

A BookLife Review will be completed and delivered to the person who submits the review by the delivery date, which is calculated as follows:

• If the submitter has not paid an expediting fee, the delivery date is six weeks from the date of purchase.
• If the submitter has paid an expediting fee, the delivery date is four weeks from the date of purchase. 
• If a complete and valid e-book file is not uploaded to the BookLife system at the time of purchase, BookLife will request one from the submitter as soon as this oversight is discovered, and the date that a complete and valid e-book file is provided to BookLife will be considered the date of purchase for the purposes of calculating the delivery date.
• If the delivery date, as calculated above, would fall on a weekend, holiday, or other day on which BookLife's offices are closed, it will be extended to the next business day.

Books with a word count over 100,000 may require a couple of extra days to complete; they also may preclude the ability to expedite a review. If either of these is the case, the submitter will be notified before the due date.

If extenuating circumstances occur such that BookLife is unable to deliver the review more than a couple of days past the delivery date, BookLife will inform the submitter of the delay; refund 10% of the purchase price for a non-expedited review, or the complete expediting fee for an expedited review; and extend the delivery date by two weeks. If BookLife is still unable to deliver the review by the extended delivery date, BookLife will refund the purchase price and any fees in full, and will be released from any obligation to deliver a review. BookLife Reviews fees are otherwise nonrefundable.

At the time the BookLife Review is delivered to the submitter, it is not public, and it will remain private until the submitter decides to make it public.  Once the submitter makes the BookLife Review public, the BookLife Review will be made public: in the case of reviews submitted via BookLIfe on the author’s Booklife.com Project page for the book; in the case of reviews submitted via Publishers Weekly's GalleyTracker, on the individual ISBN page on BookLife.com. In both cases the BookLife Review will be syndicated to various online retailers and reviews data services such as Gayle and OverDrive. The BookLife Review will also be printed in the BookLife section of Publishers Weekly magazine that appears in the calendar month following the date the submitter makes the review public. For example, if an submitter makes a BookLife Review public on August 28, the Review will appear in the September issue of the BookLife section in Publishers Weekly. Submitters who agree to make public their BookLife Reviews will receive a physical copy of the issue of Publishers Weekly in which their BookLife Reviews appear. Submitters can order additional copies of the issue at the time they make public their BookLife Reviews. Once a BookLife Review is public, it cannot be made private again.

INSTRUCTIONS AND FEES

The nonrefundable fee for a BookLife Review is $399 ($499 for books over 100,000 words). This fee includes the printing of the BookLife Review in the BookLife section of Publishers Weekly. 

The optional fee for expediting a review, so that it is delivered in four weeks instead of six, is $150, and it is also nonrefundable. Please note that in some cases a review may not be able to be expedited due to the length of the book or because an author is submitting more than one book for an expedited review. In either case, the author will be notified, and the expedite fee will be refunded.

Click here to read step-by-step instructions for purchasing a BookLife Review.

BOOKLIFE REVIEW REUSE GUIDE

Every person who completes the submission of a book will receive a BookLife Review, written by a professional Publishers Weekly reviewer, except in those cases noted above in "BOOKLIFE REVIEW TIMING AND PRICE." A BookLife Review is not a book review from Publishers Weekly (click here to see the difference between the two). The BookLife Review has been designed to help authors and publishers market their books, so they are encouraged to use the text of their BookLife Review in any way they can to promote their books. Please note: when attributing quotes from a BookLife Review, authors must credit BookLife Reviews. Additionally, BookLife Reviews are not any kind of conversation or correspondence with PW reviewers, who will remain anonymous. BookLife Reviews will be delivered online to submitters who will be notified by email within six weeks of submission (four weeks if the author has paid to have the review expedited); BookLife Reviews will also be accessible on authors’ project pages on BookLife.com and on publishers' GalleyTracker pages, where submitters can choose to make them public or keep them private.

TERMS, CONDITIONS AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

Participation in BookLife Reviews constitutes a submitter’s full and unconditional agreement to and acceptance of these Terms, Conditions and Limitation of Liability and all other provisions herein (the “T&Cs”) as well as the BookLife.com Terms & Conditions and the decisions of the reviewers and editors of BookLife Reviews.

Upon full refund of the submission fee in any particular instance, BookLife shall have no obligation, express or implied, to review any submission, and submitters shall not be entitled to any damages or other relief by reason thereof.

BookLife, its parent companies, sponsors of BookLife Reviews, their respective promotional partners, affiliated companies, agencies and their employees are not responsible for any individual’s inability to submit a book, including but not limited to: failed software or hardware transmissions; unavailable network, server, telephone or other connections; errors of any kind, whether human, electronic, or mechanical regarding lost, misdirected, late, incomplete or damaged submissions; or for any damage to any computer, network, hardware or software related to or resulting from participation and are additionally not liable for injury, losses, damages or costs of any kind resulting from participation in BookLIfe Reviews. By participating in this program, submitters opt into the use of their registration information in accordance with the BookLife and its parent company’s Privacy Policy and consent to receiving correspondence via telephone and/or email by BookLife and its parent companies.

If a submitter chooses to make a BookLife Review public, the submitter authorizes BookLife and its parent company and affiliates to distribute the Review in any media related to BookLife, its parent company, its affiliates, or any other outlets BookLife chooses.  Submitters understand they will receive no compensation of any kind for such distribution of BookLife Reviews; the copyright to BookLife Reviews is owned by BookLife.

While BookLife Reviews are intended to be respectful, submitters understand and acknowledge that they may not agree with the specific content of any review and may feel that the review is not flattering or does not portray the submitter's book in a positive manner. Submitters are advised that BookLife does not accept any requests for retraction or modification of any BookLife Review. In the event a submitter feels that factual information stated in a BookLife Review may be inaccurate, the submitter may advise the BookLife Reviews editor, and the editor may decide to correct the information at the editor's sole discretion. BookLife expressly disclaims any liability for any content included in any BookLife Review, and by a submitter's voluntary submission of a book to the BookLife Review program, submitters agree that they shall have no claim or cause of action whatsoever in connection with the content of any published review. Submitters understand that once the submitter chooses to make a review public, that review cannot be made private or retracted in any way.

Participation in BookLife Reviews is contingent on compliance with the T&Cs. BookLife reserves the right to declare any submission ineligible if it is determined not to be in accordance with the T&Cs and BookLife’s Terms and Conditions.

BookLife reserves the right to reject any submission for any reason at its sole discretion and will refund the full submission fee for any rejected submission.

REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES OF ENTRANTS

Submitters specifically represent and warrant the following regarding each submission:

The work is original material written or published by the submitter. The submitter is entirely responsible for all content submitted;

The work has not been copied, in whole or in part, from any other work (as written in any language or in any medium, whether now known or hereafter devised) and has not been previously published, produced, or distributed in any audio or visual form, or otherwise exploited in any medium (whether now known or hereafter devised, in whole or in part);

The work does not defame, and does not infringe or violate the right of privacy, right of publicity, copyright, trademark, service mark, trade secret, or any intellectual property, proprietary or other right(s) of, any third party;

The work does not include the name or likeness of any actual person(s), without having obtained the express prior written consent of such person(s) (or of such person’s parent or legal guardian if such person is a minor) in each instance; and

The work meets each of the content requirements found in the T&Cs and the BookLife Terms & Conditions.

FAQS

Click here for a list of frequently asked questions about BookLife Reviews.