ARC and Book Review Service

Gaining book reviews is often one of the most difficult and time-consuming aspects of marketing a book. It can be a vicious cycle as, without book reviews, your book is often unlikely to be read. But without the book being read, you are unlikely to get book reviews!
This services saves you the time and hassle in getting book reviews, whilst ensuring that it is performed in an ethical way in line with Amazon's rules.

The Difference Between An ARC and a Book Review

An ARC is an Advance Reader/Review Copy of a book. For books that have not yet been published, sending ARCs to readers is a great way to create a buzz around launch date.

For already published books, gaining book reviews can significantly help relaunch a book and help it gain more exposure.
Gaining book reviews is one of the toughest aspects of book marketing and is very time-consuming, therefore one of the ways we felt we might be able to help our authors was to bring motivated readers of that genre to them!

What It Costs

Total cost = Set-Up Fee + Admin Fee + Per Reader Fee

For beta reports only OR beta reports and reviews:

Set-up fee of £40.00 (covers time contacting readers about your title)
Admin fee £17.78
Per Reader Fee of £9.67 (covers time sending each reader the files)

For example, if you opted for 10 readers, the total cost of the service would be: £154.48

For Reviews only:

Set-up fee of £40.00 (covers time contacting readers about your title)
Admin fee £11.11
Per Reader Fee of £0.35 (covers time sending each reader the files)

For example, if you opted for 10 readers, the total cost of the service would be: £54.61

You decide how many readers you want to send your book to, so you can decide exactly how much you want to pay.

If there is no interest for your title, we refund your set-up fee, so there is no risk to the author!

For more information about gaining reviews for your book, please Contact Us.

"Rowanvale's ARC service is exemplary. It fits seamlessly into the publication process and provides authors with the ability to reach a wide audience of reviewers. Reviews are such an important element for raising the profile of any author, and I have been impressed with how Rowanvale incorporate this service into the publication package."
- Neil Rushton

Why Is This Service Useful?

Time-Consuming = Trying to gain reviews is extremely time-consuming and, unfortunately, reviews often tend not to materialise, despite an author's best efforts. This can be disheartening and demotivating
Amazon Restrictions = Amazon has incredibly strict restrictions with regards to gaining reviews and won't allow reviews from friends and family. This is often very limiting for authors, if they were hoping to get their main source of reviews from this method
Social Proof = Having reviews means that your book is statistically more likely to be chosen against other titles that have none or less reviews. If customers are comparing two similar products - one has lots of reviews (even if mixed) and one has none (or very little), statistically the one with lots of reviews is much more likely to be chosen
Expensive Alternatives = Other paid book review sites can be extremely expensive, such as Kirkus ($425-$575) and NetGalley ($399-$599)
Creating a Buzz = Especially for authors who are looking to gain reviews ahead of publication date, having a number of reviews already on Amazon when a book is published, can considerably help the launch of a book
Promotional Sites = Some promotional sites only accept books that have a minimum number of reviews on Amazon
Credibility = Reviews are posted to Amazon and Goodreads, which helps build a book's credibility and status on these two sites

What Does This Service Include?

We match your book to motivated readers, in order to ensure your book is sent to those most likely to enjoy it. It is against Amazon's rules and would be unethical to guarantee reviews from every reader, and we do not require our readers to provide a review for every book they read, however we constantly monitor and refresh our pool of readers to ensure they all have the time to participate, to ensure a high read-to-review ratio.
The set-up fee covers the time required to inform readers about your book, in order to gauge interest. The readers are given seven days to express their interest to read a title. You are then informed of how many readers would like to read your book and it is entirely up to you how many readers the book is sent to. You, therefore, only pay for the number of readers that you would like the book to be sent to. If nobody requests your book, we refund you your set-up fee!
We then send a specially created and locked (to restrict file sharing) review copy of your book to the readers. For ARCs, we ask all readers to post reviews within one week of publication date. For book reviews for already published books, we usually allow five weeks for reviews to be posted, but can ask for shorter time-frames, at the author's request.

Get In Touch

Learn more in our free publishing guide, which gives you a more detailed look at the process, or by speaking to one of our Publishing Advisors, who would be happy to walk you through all the details you need to begin the process.

“When I found Rowanvale, they seemed like the perfect publishing house for me and my books, almost like it was too good to be true! But they really are everything they say they are.”

– D. Bishop