• Guest please check The Index before starting a thread.

[Reviews] The Indie Review

SamCoulson

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 19, 2014
Messages
132
Reaction score
16
Location
Near Washington DC
Greetings...

Like many of you, I'm a (recently) self published author, reader, and human being. As part of my journey as such, I found that self publishing as an industry presented three major problems:

1. It's hard to get your books out there if you're a writer.
2. It's hard to sort out what's good if you're a reader.
3. I think 1-5 star review systems suck. They fail to provide meaningful information to me, as a reader, looking to find something that I want to read.

So, after going through the self publishing experience myself, I thought I would try my hand at addressing both of these problems, so I came up with an idea for a book review and promotion site. Now, unlike most review sites, I have no intention of charging for reviews in any way, that's just silly, as it corrupts the entire process. The idea is to build a crowd-driven community of writers and readers who are interested in plumbing the depths of the sea of self and indi-pub'd books for mutual gain. I call my creation the Indie-Review Network.

Now, book promotion sites of different flavors are a dime-a-dozen. I give you that. But what makes this approach different is that we are not using the same-old 5-star review system. Instead, I've devised a criteria-based review, where the reviewer rates the book by:

  • Originality - Is it cutting edge like Gibson's Neuromancer? Or is it tropish like Twilight?
  • Thrilling - Is it slow and even-keeled like Downton Abby? Or is it "holy crap whirlwind" like Game of Thrones?
  • Readability - A big issue with self pub'd books--is it written well? is it easy to read? Or is it a dense and unforgiving tome rife with typos?
  • Immersion - How well does it suck you in? Is it on par with an iPhone, or an iMax?

I'm posting here because, well, I just started the site, and I'm looking for writers, reviewers, and potentially some guest bloggers. My mission is to help promote other self-published writers who get reviewed well on the site. But, for now, I need help with the content.

If you have any interest, swing over to the site, see what we've built. If you've read a book or 10 recently, go through the review system and let me know what you think. So far I've had great feedback and buy-in, but my sample size is small...

Enough rambling: www.indie-review.net
 

Ari Meermans

MacAllister's Official Minion & Greeter
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 24, 2011
Messages
12,854
Reaction score
3,057
Location
Not where you last saw me.
SamCoulson,

The Announcements, Events, and Book Promotion forum was created to provide our author-members an additional place to promote their own writing. Please read the guidelines here. Additional information on how and where to promote on AW may be found here.

I'm moving your thread to Bewares, Recommendations, and Background Check (BR&BC) since you're promoting your display and review site and not your book(s). The room mods there may or may not allow your thread. Should that be the case, you have the option of linking to your site in your signature as provided for in the links I've given you.
 

SamCoulson

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 19, 2014
Messages
132
Reaction score
16
Location
Near Washington DC
Alright, I was just following Old Hack's advice as to where to bring it up after asking in a PM. Go ahead and delete it then.
 

Polenth

Mushroom
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 27, 2007
Messages
5,017
Reaction score
735
Location
England
Website
www.polenthblake.com
It's not standard for book blogs to charge for reviews. It is standard for them to provide a longer piece of text about why they think what they do about the book, rather than just give a star rating. Also, you need the star rating for sites like Goodreads, or the review will not be seen... and if you're not putting the review on other sites (or at least, a short version with a link to the full version), it's not going to be as helpful to authors and readers as it could be.

All in all, your description makes it sound like you don't follow many book blogs, and that could be a problem. Reinventing the wheel can end up with a wheel that isn't as good as the current ones. It also means you'll miss out on support from the book blogger community, who are sure to have more advice on things that worked and didn't work for them when it came to their sites.
 

CaoPaux

Mostly Harmless
Staff member
Super Moderator
Moderator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
13,952
Reaction score
1,746
Location
Coastal Desert
Site hung on 'till mid '15, but activity ceased late '14.