“When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.” – Erasmus.
Lovely though this sentiment is, I don’t think I have ever met anyone for whom this quote is true. Even the most dedicated bibliophile would, if the choice came down to it, choose food first; because you can’t read books if you’ve starved.
Yet book reviewers online sometimes seem to be following this quote through, or at least have vast disposable incomes that allow them to buy six new books a month and hardly get around to reading a single one of them.
The answer of course is that they don’t buy all of the books they read. Some are presents, some are offered by publishers and some are bought (after food), but if you are new to book reviewing how do you start being given books before you are able to justify buying them in vast quantities?
Well as I am new to this as well, I have found a few places. The website readersfirst offers a preview of various books on a Monday, if you write a review of the preview then you are entered into a draw to win a copy of the book – the book will arrive before it’s released and all you have to do is read it and give a review of the finished product by the publication day. They say it’s a draw to win the book but so far I have won all three of the books I have previewed, so it’s not rare to win.
Other places include bookbub which can send you emails for daily deals on ebooks. Want to start reading that new series? Well for one day only it’s 99p instead of £7.99! Though the books offered here are e-books rather than physical versions, the writers will all still value reviews.
Author websites also regularly offer books in exchange for honest reviews. And though I am yet to try this so am not sure how it works, some publishers can be contacted directly to ask for copies of books to review. In all the cases the only thing you need to do is review the book once you have finished and if that allows me to gain a new book every month then I am all for it. I don’t even need to make the decision between food or books. Unlike poor Erasmus.
ChristyESWriter 