Early Reviewers now free to publishers

The short version: We've made LibraryThing Early Reviewers—our program to hook publishers up with LibraryThing members willing to review upcoming books—entirely free for publishers. The response has been huge. We'll have seven publishers and twenty-four titles this October!

The long version: We planned on charging publishers to participate in the program. Publishers were eager to do it even so. Certainly its closest analogue, the Amazon Vine program is charging. (Our sources say "an arm and a leg."). Also, it takes work on our side.

Then we decided: What the heck? Pricing discussions took time and limited the reach somewhat. And we figured out how to automate the process better. When in doubt, we err on the side of openness. More publishers means more books, more books means more happy members, more reviews, and more fun.

We're looking forward to announcing the October batch. So far, we have 7 publishers signed up, with a total of 24 different titles and 420 copies in total. It's a mix of fiction, and non-fiction, with reference and even poetry books on offer. That's a lot of books, and we think it can get even better.

I like to think of Early Reviewers as playing matchmaker between publishers and readers. The idea is a simple one—give free pre-publication books to people in exchange for reviews. But it's surprisingly hard to find the *right* people to review the books. That's where LibraryThing and the whole matchmaker scheme comes in. We match members to the books based on the other books in the library, so the books end up in the right hands.

For members: I've added a section to WikiThing with an FAQ on Early Reviewers for members—what it is, how to sign up for a book, where to post your review, and more.

For publishers: Introduction to LibraryThing Early Reviewers for publishers

We're going to do monthly batches of Early Reviewers, so I'm always working on gathering more publishers and books. If you know of any interested publishing houses, send them my way!