Thursday, October 18, 2007

Guest Reviewer--Tammie King from Night Owl Romance

Today my guest is Tammie King from Night Owl Romance. She's here to talk to us about the review process on her site. Tammie, thank you so much for taking time from your busy schedule to answer my questions!



1)New authors are frequently very confused about the reviewing process. Could you briefly tell us how a book is chosen for review?

At Night Owl Romance reviewers choose their own books. Lists of available books are provided for them to browse and they can also choose books from different ebook sites and watch coming soon lists. We also take requests direct from authors and those requests are sent to the reviewers. If one of them wants to review the book they let me know and I get the book from the author.

2)All right, the book is reviewed. What does the rating system really mean? And how can I tell the difference between a 2 and a 4?

We at Night Owl Romance have a 1-5 scale. A 5 is a keeper that will be read over and over again. A 2 is a book that just seems to be lacking something.

3)Now what happens? Is the author notified personally or is the review just posted on your website?

If an author requests the review then they are notified. Most of the books we review are direct from the publisher, so we notify the publisher when the review has been completed. Because the review process is time consuming we are not able to notify every author and publisher for every review. All of the reviewers donate their time.

4)How does one apply to be a reviewer? What are the reviewer's qualifications for your site?

We have an on-line sign-up form that I provide when reviewer positions are open. I just hired four new reviewers, so we are closed for now. We require new reviewers to provide a sample review and for them to do at least 3-5 reviews per month. Most of the reviewers do more than 5 per month.

5)When I visited Night Owl Romances, I noticed there were various book covers, book flicks and featured authors. How does one get to be a featured author? And how can I get my cover posted on your site?

To pay for the postage and other up keep on the site we charge for advertising. To get a book cover listed it's $12 a month, while Book Flicks are $30-$50 a month and featured author boxes are around $30 a month. We also have some free advertising opportunities. Authors can be interviewed for free and also post on our message board. Our author directory is also a free service.

6)If a new author came to you for advice about promoting her book on your site, what advice would you give her?

I normally offer new authors the chance to chat on our debut chat day and the opportunity to advertise their book via a book cover ad or specialty ad box. Both are great ways to get their book known by readers. We used to do a debut author package, but because of time we have had to cut that advertising opportunity.

7)Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your site?


Our goal at Night Owl Romance is to have readers and authors find each other. We love to hear that a reader has found a new author to love. NOR is a work of love that we give to authors and readers and we hope that readers and authors can find a way to hook up. We also have a monthly magazine that displays some of our reviews and has a hunk of the month interview. You can get the magazine by registering for our message board.



Tammie King
Night Owl Romance

http://www.nightowlromance.com/nightowlromance/

Again, Thank You, Tammie!



Anny
You can make a new friend but you can't make an old one.--Tom Bodett


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4 comments:

  1. I do book reviews myself so I am always interested in what other reviewers think. This was, as always, an excellent blog.

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  2. I'm glad to know that reviewers are tested before they are hired. I've wondered about that as some reviewers cannot spell and cannot put a sentence together in a clear format. I haven't seen that problem with Night Owl.

    Great interview!

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