Are there any magazines, journals, or newspapers that review *self-published* books?

Question

As noted about vanity press books in Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_press#Libraries, libraries often won't stock such books because they're not reviewed anywhere, but popular review magazines (Booklist, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal) usually won't review them because they were self-published. It's a true catch-22. Anyone have any suggestions?

Answer 1

Foreword Magazine (http://forewordmagazine.com) will review books that are self-published and from smaller presses. If the book has already been published, there will probably be a fee paid to Clarion Review Services.

Yes it can be difficult to get your book into a library. I've often seen Booklist and Library Journal recommend that small and medium sized libraries not carry a book. That would be hard to swallow if you are an author!

As a possible solution, you can get a book reviewed and then mail a press kit (your book, reviews, and other info about you) to a library. It will be hard for them to ignore you if your material is right in front of them, but it's no guarantee.

The advantages to self-publishing are that it's fairly cheap to do and it's often a quick process to get a book out there. The disadvantage is that in order to really get some attention for your book that could result in subsequent sales is that you may have to do months of work promoting your book and you are the one who has to spend money doing that.

Good luck to you.

Answer 2

Magazines, journals, or papers generally are not supposed to bother if the book is published by the author or any body else. They should be concerned with the book but practically it helps a lot if the publisher has a name or the author has a name in the field.

Answer 3

If "Readers Digest" is still around, I know they use to do all that sort of stuff..Check them out.. Good-Luck, and Congratulations, on your Talent,for becomming a writer!!Smile!!