How to Get Free Books

If you’re in it for the long-haul, blogging or writing that is, chances are there’ll come a time when you think, “I’d like to review a particular book for my site”.

As regular readers of my Sciencebase.com site will know, I review probably a dozen or more science books each year, but I know several of you are wondering how do I get those books to review in the first place? Of course not! Publishers have sent review copies (usually advance proof versions) to journalists for decades with the sole aim of soliciting their opinions and gaining a mention among their column inches.

Publishers contact me on an almost weekly basis offering to send a book for review, I usually accept, but not always, and the standard code is that no one is obliged to write anything, whether good or bad, about any particular publication just because it was provided free of charge. That’s the standard rule of review journalism. And, if you don’t believe me, just look at some of the downright nasty reviews books, movies, plays, Broadway shows, restaurants, and even holiday destinations get in the media (none of those would have been paid for by the journalist doing the reviewing).

Anyway, a good blogging friend of mine, who shall remain anonymous, mentioned recently that he’d like to get involved in reviewing books on his blog and in various trade journals relevant to social media, e-government, online media and asked me for my suggestions on how to get started. “Do I merely contact authors and/or publishing agents with my creds and interests?” he asked.

Well, it’s easier if you have a regular commission with one of those trade journals, as you could simply ask your editor whether there’s the opportunity to branch out into book reviewing for them and the book reviews section editor will, if they’re interested in saving themselves time and effort, simply box up a couple of dozen books and ship them across to your desk with a final demand for reviews by the end of the week. Of course, you have to read (skim if necessary) all those books and then come up with a pile of words to deadline to fill the requisite column inches.

If you’re an independent writer or blogger though, then perhaps the most straightforward way is to simply keep an eye on the forthcoming publications lists (published by book publishers in the trade press) and then approach the publisher when you spot the books in which you have an interest. Tell them you’re a writer for such-and-such, which is a well-known magazine, journal, website, with so many thousand daily readers, and ask them to send a review copy. Nothing more to it. They shouldn’t baulk at the idea and indeed many forward-thinking and progressive publishers are actively space on niche blogs with good readerships because they know they can get good in-depth reviews of their products that could help shift a few hundred or even thousand more units than they otherwise would.

Once you’ve published a handful of reviews, you will most likely start to receive email requests from the publishers themselves asking you would like to review their books. Feel free to accept or decline on a whim but always be courteous however irrelevant the book and always leave the way open for them to suggest other books. Do a good job, link back to the more information page at the publisher’s site and remember that there can be a high turnover in book marketing, so the contacts you make at one publisher may change often, but you will start to recognize names when they pop up at a different publishing house.

You could add your Amazon associate link to the book. If someone buys through your link, you’d make a small percentage on the sale, although that will probably not amount to more than a few dollars a year unless you’ve got tens of thousands of readers. Anyway, some visitors may consider that to be unethical (although it’s nothing compared to major media placement advertising).

Finally, once you’ve read and reviewed the book, it’s your to keep or sell on Amazon. Morally, I’d say that’s fine, but you could always give the money to a literacy or other charity rather than spending it on beer. Alternatively, if the books you review are popular rather than specialist then donate to the local charity shop for them to sell and cut out the intermediary.