So you want to get free books? Who doesn’t?
BookGateway.com was founded by a group of book review bloggers – that is, bloggers who receive free copies of books from publicists, publishers and authors for review. Book review bloggers then read and review these books on their blogs and also a commercial site like Amazon, Barnes & Noble or ChristianBook.com. Book review bloggers are never required to give a good review in exchange for the free book and are not paid for their time. We are rewarded by simply being able to read books we love and tell the world about them.
The founder and administrator of this site, Scott Asher, got into book review blogging several years ago. In his own words:
I noticed on Amazon that quite a few of the reviews had some kind of disclaimer saying that the reviewer received the copy of the book for free and I wanted to know how. I spent hours searching blogs and publisher websites for information on how I could review books. I ended up finding several Christian book sites that encouraged book review blogging and quickly signed up.
Waterbrook Multnomah, Tyndale House, Thomas Nelson and Bethany House were the first publishers to approve my personal blog, ashertopia, for review copies. After working with these companies for several months and putting up a dozen or so reviews I made the leap to requesting books from publishers that didnt have book review blogger programs like Moody, Harvest House and NavPress. Then came my introduction to the Shelf Awareness newsletter, which opened the door to secular publishing companies.
Within six months I started doing freelance for a commercial site, BuddyHollywood.com, as well as building relationships with a dozen publishers and publicists for a vareity of genres. Since then, I’ve cultuvated relationships with most of the publishers, large and small, and can usually request a book of my choice for review.
Other book review bloggers followed in Scott’s footsteps, including the Golden Reviewer, his grandmother, both of his daughters, Arieltopia and Sunshine, and several of his friends, collegues and professionals he met through book review blogging, like Robin Gwaro, Bryan Entzminger and the editors at BuddyHollywood.com.
There are enough book reviews to go around.
At BookGateway.com we have a hard time understanding why so many people aren’t interested in sharing how to get into this business. That’s why we are sharing how we got started and encouraging everyone to get involved. Reading is the key to continued education through life. Reading really is fundamental, to borrow a tag line.
Click on the Join Us link at the top of this website to read how you can get involved with different publishers and get free books in exchange for your honest reviews. And if you are looking for a place to publish your reviews we would love to publish them here.
