There seems to have been some confusion lately about our process for handling review requests, mainly from self-published authors, so I’m going to take this opportunity to clarify things.

MonsterLibrarian is a volunteer organization. None of us are paid for the work we do to make the site successful. The people who participate do so because they love the horror genre and horror fiction, and they want to share it with others.

Our reviewers contribute their time and energy to review books for us. Like you, they have busy lives, and reviewing for us is just one of many things they do. That they contribute reviews is a gift from them to you, to MonsterLibrarian.com, and to the genre.

We get many more review requests than we have people who can review them. When someone sends a review request to me, I look to see if it contains this essential information:

Title of the book

Author’s name

Description of the book

Yes, people do send review requests that do not include that information. If the request includes that information, I forward that on to our reviewers. Usually I will let the person know when I have done that. If the review request interests or intrigues a reviewer, and they have the time and energy to do so, they tell me they would like to review the book, and I write the author back with that information.

Note those words “interests and intrigues”.  The description of the book included in the review request can make a difference. If I send out a request for review describing a book as  “a collection of  horror short stories”,  it’s probably not going to grab anyone.  Try to be more specific.

I will also note that a polite and professionally written request is much more likely to snag someone’s interest, although I can’t make any guarantees.

I’d love to see every book get reviewed, but it’s just not possible. We do our best.

Just in case I missed something here, I have a special page just for authors with a Q&A about the site. Here’s a link.