If you have been hanging out at the Cafe for a while, hopefully you’ve found something new to read by way of the staff picks and book reviews provided by the great folks at ARe and our house reviewers. Just to reintroduce you, the regular contributors to the Wildfire romance eBooks newsletter and the Cafe are:
- Bitten By Books: BBB reviews speculative fiction and paranormal romance of various pairings.
- Val Kovalin: Val reviews M/M erotic romance and gay romance.
- Susan Plummer: Susan reviews multicultural and interracial romance.
- Lady Rhyleigh: Lady R. reviews historical romance.
- TRS: The great folks at The Romance Studio review contemporary romance of various pairings.
Each week, we add new reviews to the Cafe and welcome authors and readers to share these recommendations. Quite regularly, too, authors will ask us what it takes to become an ARe Cafe Recommended Read or Top Pick. For more information on this program, Digimonkey has a short article on how it works.
Presently, we do not accept requests to review, but there are ways you can increase your chances:
1) First and foremost, your book must be available for sale at All Romance or OmniLit. ARe Cafe is part of All Romance, naturally, and as such we promote books and authors available through our sister sites. If your books are not distributed through us, you are welcome to register (if you self-publish) or contact your publisher about selling through ARe/OmniLit.
2) Secondly, once your books are for sale you must opt-in to the R&R program (or your publisher must opt in – details are on the publisher dashboard). When your books are opted-in, our reviewers will be able to select them for review if they wish. If you are not certain your books are opted-in, talk with your publisher or contact us if you are a self-published author.
Why You Should Opt In
According to our recent survey of close to 6,000 respondents, the single most influential discovery vehicle is “Online Bookstore Promotion – newsletter, home page placement, direct browsing”. The second most influential discovery vehicle is “A Review”. The ARe review system effectively leverages these important avenues to discovery.
If your title is selected by one of our columnists, then it will appear on their monthly read list. The reading lists are posted on the Cafe and archived in the Cafe review section.
The reading list is also published in our newsletter. Our newsletter circulation is now over 150,000. Most of these opted in subscribers are digital romance and cross-genre readers. Just being on the reading list provides for some nice exposure and placement includes a buy link.
There is NO RISK of a bad review since we only review the Top Pick and Recommended Reads. There is NO COST, other than the 1 download that in return guarantees exposure.
Also, there is NO ONGOING SUBMISSION PROCESS. You click on the Opt-in box once and after that everything is automatic. There’s no need to send us files or any other additional information.
How does our review system work? This will automatically place 1 copy of each new title uploaded on the bookshelf that is available to our columnists. The book will only be eligible for review for a limited period of time (since we like to keep the content fresh). Only the columnists are given access to the bookshelf and each title is ONLY available for 1 download.
How do you sign up? If you would like to opt in, then all you need to do is sign in to your publisher portal and click the opt-in button in the box at the top.
Now, as an author you might ask yourself, “Well, how do I get my book in front of ARe readers then if I can’t send files?” There are ways to promote with us – you can write a guest post at no charge, or upgrade to premium services:
What’s Free
- Write a guest blog for the Cafe.
- Host a book giveaway.
- Post your book information on our Facebook page.
- Tweet your ARe or OmniLit link and tag @AReCafe. We retweet!
- Check out the free features at Wildfire.
What’s Premium
- Be a Featured Author at the Cafe. We’ll add you to our Pinterest boards and tweet one of your books every day for the week.
- Feature your book trailer at the Cafe.
- Buy an ad at the Cafe. They are reasonably priced compared to other book sites.
- Buy a Wildfire ad. Our newsletter goes out to over 150,000 readers looking for more books to read.
Check out our advertising page for info on all the premium features, and contact us with your questions.
Filed Under: Cafe News
Tagged: book reviews, guest blogs, promo opps
I love the recommended reads and staff picks. I find quite a few new-to-me writers that way!