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Tips for getting one’s book reviewed, etc.?

In our newest “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:

I have recently landed my first permanent position and I am about to publish a book with a respected academic publisher. It’s my first book publication. A few of my papers have circulated in the field, but I’m still roughly what you’d call a nobody and I do not anticipate that my book by itself will attract much attention. I’m also not awfully well-connected. Since I’ve worked hard on this book, I’m wondering what I could do to make sure it receives a decent amount of attention. Here are questions that I have in mind, I would love to see what others think:

1) How to maximize the chances that my book gets reviewed? Can I do anything beyond asking the publisher to send copies of the book to journals who do book reviews?

2) More specifically, how to maximize the chances to be reviewed in the NDPR? I feel like these reviews are 10x more read than the others

3) Is it acceptable for an (independently motivated) student of mine to review my book? If so, under which conditions?

4) Can I contact colleagues at other departments and offer them to come give a talk about my book? Is this acceptable only if I offer to pay for my trip? Is it also acceptable if I cannot offer to pay for my own trip and thus expect their department to fund it? If the latter, how to formulate my suggestion/offer without sounding entitled or annoying?

5) The dream is to have an author-meets-critics symposium about my book in a respected journal. How hard is it to make this happen? What is the best strategy to do so? Should I first contact some potential critics, and then journals once I have their agreement? Should I do it the other way around? Or should I do something else?

Huge congrats to the OP on the job and book! I’m curious to hear what other readers think. I’ve published several books, and although I haven’t quite done the best with this, here are a few thoughts:

  • On (1): you can reach out to journals directly, which often list book review editors you can contact. If you have some free authors’ copies of your book (which is usually a part of your contract), you can send them off to review editors who indicate interest.
  • On (2): I’m not sure.
  • On (3): that seems like a conflict of interest to me.
  • On (4): I don’t see why not, and I don’t see why you should offer to pay for the trip. If they are interested in having you give a talk, see what they say (about travel costs).
  • On (5): My sense is that you should have a list of critics lined up (who have agreed to do it).

Do other readers have any helpful tips or insights?

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One response to “Tips for getting one’s book reviewed, etc.?”

  1. Anonymous

    I was one of the editors of Metascience, a Springer/Nature journal that only publishes book reviews. We published about 115 reviews a year. We had, at the peak, about 60,000 downloads a year. So our reviewer were read (even cited sometimes)
    Answering your questions:
    3. That is a clear conflict of interest. You should never encourage or be involved in any way in getting a student of yours to review your book. You will look like you have very bad judgment.
    1.& 2. Some publishers ask authors to list 5 or so journals they want their book sent to for review. That is what CUP does. Ideally, you pick wisely, and at least some of the journals decide to review your book. You can contact journals in advance and ask if they would consider having your book reviewed. Be realistic. If a journal publishes very few reviews each year, and you are as you say “a nobody” then do not waste your time. Look at whose books they review. Unfortunately because of all the illegal downloads, publishers are not giving many free books away, even for review.
    4. If you invite yourself to give a talk somewhere you should not expect someone else to pay for your visit. But you should contact people whose work you discuss in your book and let them know about your book. (Do not contact those whose work you should have discussed but did not – they will not think much of you).
    From my experience, what you need is for someone who is big in the sub-field or topic of the book to take note of it. Then doors will open. You will get invitations to speak, to contribute to edited volumes on the topic, etc. And if the Press found you easy to work with, they might invite you to write another book or edit a volume for them. (if the Press is good, then other Presses will contact you to write a book for them … but be choosy. You can now afford to be).
    5. It is very hard to get a symposium of one’s book in a journal. In Metascience, we published very few a year, maybe 3 or 4. They are a ton of work to coordinate. In the end, we tended to go with big names – why? Because it attracted lots of readers to the journal, and reviewers were also keen not to disappoint a big name by not handing in the review.
    Sometimes when I was trying to find a reviewer for a book by an unknown author with a less than top press, I would have to invite 7 or more people, just to find ONE reviewer,

    Reply

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