NewPages Reviewer Guidelines

Hey Kids! Earn wealth and fame
(or at least FREE BOOKS)
as a NewPages reviewer.

Here’s How!

We believe that out there in the vastness of the North American continent (and beyond it, without a doubt - but, due to limited budget, we can only mail materials to reviewers in the U.S.) there are bright, imaginative readers who would like to see their opinions of current books and/or magazines broadcast to a larger crowd than immediate family, friends and workmates. You may be one of these readers, and NewPages may be your forum. Here’s how to use us to tell the world what you think.

How to Get Started:

Send us a review of a recent book or periodical. Any topic you like, preferably from an independent press. Include a statement on what you would like to review. If we like your sample review, we’ll contact you and start sending you review copies. As long as you keep sending back reviews that we can use more often than not, we’ll keep sending you books. If you have trouble getting your hands on something current from a small press, drop us a line and we’ll work something out.

What We Don’t Want:

- Drudge work. If you have only a tepid reaction, don’t waste your time writing a review. We'd rather concentrate on materials that are worth reading and that you would want to recommend others read.

- Highfalutin' language that is meant more to show off the reviewer's writing than the author being reviewed. Give us a break. We just want to know whether the book/magazine is worth it or not, and why.

- Try to avoid aggressively sloppy spelling, semantics and punctuation. Leave the typos to us.

What We Want:

- Lively, opinionated reviews.

- Honesty. Reviews are to let people know whether a publication is worth spending their money & time on. The only turkeys we want our readers to buy are of the Thanksgiving variety.

- Typed in text-only or Microsoft Word format. Sent to us as an e-mail attachment.

- How long? About 300 to 500 words for books; up to 350 for literary periodicals.

- A short quote or two for flavoring is nice.

- Reviews referring briefly to the reviewer’s personal experience could be agreeable.

- Humor sometimes helps. Cheer us up – see your name in print.

- Accessibility. You're writing for the average intelligent person. Don't overwhelm with literary exhibitionism.

- First rights to the review. Please do not submit the review to other magazines or websites. We're usually happy to allow other sites to link to or reprint reviews from NewPages as long as they give you credit along with a link back to us.

What We Worry About:

- Writers reviewing books written by personal friends (or enemies), or from a press they hope to submit their own work to, or that has published their work in the past (or has published works of their personal friends or enemies)... you see where this is going? We hope for good ethics in the review section. If you do have some connection with a press or author, be sure to disclose that to us *before* you write a review for NewPages.

What We’ll Do:

- Try not to embarrass you with careless editing.

- Watch for legally actionable slurs, defamations, etc. (Can’t afford to go to court on your behalf.)

- Publish your review in our website and send you our hearty thanks.

NewPages
P.O. Box 1580
Bay City, MI 48706