Frequently Asked Questions

Authors can submit through the submission form on citybookreview.com. You will be asked to provide your book’s title, genre, a brief synopsis, and either a physical or digital copy depending on the review package selected. Publicists can also submit on behalf of their clients through the same process.

City Book Review accepts both formats. Print books are required for free General Submissions. eBooks (EPUB or PDF) are accepted for Sponsored Reviews. If you can send both, do it — it broadens the pool of reviewers your book can be matched with, including reviewers outside the U.S. who can only accept digital copies.

City Book Review currently reviews print and eBook formats. Audiobooks are not accepted as a submission format at this time. If your book exists in both print or eBook and audiobook formats, submit the print or eBook version for review. Your published review can then reference the audiobook edition in your marketing materials.

City Book Review stands behind the integrity of every review. If you don’t like your review or just don’t want it published, you can trade your review for an ad on the websites or an author interview. However, we do not revise reviews to change the reviewer’s opinion or inflate star ratings—our credibility depends on honest assessments. If you believe there is a factual error in your review, contact us and our editorial team will investigate and correct any verified mistakes.

If you need to change your book’s details—such as format, price, or page count—before the review is published on City Book Review, simply contact us and we will update it at no charge. If you need changes made after the review has already been uploaded and published on our site, a $25 administrative fee applies. This covers the editorial and technical work required to modify a live review listing.

You’ll receive an email notification from City Book Review when your review is finished and edited. We send you the review for approval, and once you approve it, we usually publish it withing a week. If you don’t approve the review, we trade it for an ad or an interview on our website. Standard sponsored reviews are typically finished within 4-5 weeks of submission. Expedited reviews are finished within 2-3 weeks.

Once you have the link, you can use the review immediately: add the quote to your Amazon Editorial Reviews section, share it on social media, and include it in your press kit. Reviews remain published on the City Book Review network permanently and are indexed by Google, so the link continues to work for your marketing long after publication.

Kirkus and Publishers Weekly were built for the traditional publishing industry. City Book Review was purpose-built for indie and self-published authors. The most practical difference: a City Book Review sponsored review starts at $199. Kirkus Indie starts at $425. Publishers Weekly BookLife starts at $399. CBR also publishes reviews across a network of 9 city-specific sites, offers expedited 2-3 week turnaround, and has a free submission path. Many indie authors submit to City Book Review alongside Kirkus or PW — the review formats serve the same purpose at meaningfully different price points.

Reviews completed through City Book Review are published on one of our many city specific partner sites in our network, which includes San Francisco Book Review, Manhattan Book Review, Seattle Book Review, Portland Book Review, Chicago Book Review, Los Angeles Book Review, San Diego Book Review, and Tulsa Book Review. Children’s book reviews may also appear on Kids’ BookBuzz. This multi-site publication opportunity gives authors significantly broader online visibility than single-site review services.

Librarians and bookstore buyers routinely use professional reviews as a primary factor in acquisition decisions. A published review on City Book Review signals that an indie title has been vetted by an independent editorial source, making it significantly more likely to be considered for library collections and retail placement.

A professional editorial review is one of the most versatile assets an indie author can have. Here’s where it works hardest:

Amazon Editorial Reviews. This is the highest-value placement. Log into your KDP dashboard, go to your book’s detail page, and add your review quote under Editorial Reviews. It appears near the top of your product page, above customer reviews. Attribute it to the specific publication (San Francisco Book Review, Manhattan Book Review, etc.) rather than “City Book Review.” That attribution is what gives it weight.

Back cover and front matter. Pull the strongest 1-2 sentences and put them on your back cover or copyright page. A quote from a named publication looks professional and signals to readers that someone credible read the book before they did.

Press kit. Any time you pitch a bookstore, library, podcast, or media outlet, include the full review text, your best pull quote, the publication name, and a link to the published review. It’s the fastest way to show a buyer your book has been vetted by an independent editorial source.

Social media. Turn your best sentence into a graphic. Canva has templates for this. One strong quote, the publication name, your cover. Post it on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Don’t post the full review — tease the line that makes someone want to read more.

Email list. Send your review to your subscribers the day it publishes. It’s social proof for people already interested in your work and gives your list a reason to share.

Author website. Create a Press or Reviews page and add every review you receive. Bookstore buyers and event organizers check this before saying yes to you.

City Book Review also offers blog tours, press releases, and librarian email campaigns that are designed to extend your review’s reach beyond the initial publication. See our Marketing Services page for current options

Professional reviews from City Book Review can significantly strengthen your pitch to bookstore buyers and librarians. Libraries in particular rely on professional reviews when making acquisition decisions. To maximize your chances, ensure your book is available through Ingram (the primary distributor for bookstores and libraries), include your City Book Review review in pitch materials, and consider our press release service to announce your book to media and retail contacts. Our blog also publishes guides on bookstore and library outreach for self-published authors. We also provide bookstore and library email outreach and blogger outreach.

Yes. City Book Review is an established professional review service since 2008, recognized by publicists, libraries, and publishing professionals as a trusted source for independent book coverage. City Book Review is listed in industry directories including Poets & Writers and is recognized as a credible alternative to services like Kirkus and BlueInk Review. Reviews are written by independent critics and readers, not by authors or their publishers, which is what gives them editorial credibility. Since 2008, City Book Review has published more than 70,000 book reviews.

Yes. City Book Review is not a vanity review service. Every review—whether sponsored or free—reflects the reviewer’s honest professional opinion, including an appropriate star rating from 1 to 5. Sponsored reviews are not identified differently from non-sponsored reviews on our site. Our reputation is built on editorial integrity, which is why publishers, authors, and librarians trust our reviews as credible assessments of a book’s quality.

City Book Review uses a 1-5 star rating scale, where 5 stars indicates an exceptional book and 1 star indicates significant issues with the work. Every sponsored review includes a star rating alongside the written assessment.
The ratings reflect the reviewer’s honest professional opinion across factors like writing quality, story or argument strength, pacing, and overall readability. A 3-star review indicates an average book with notable strengths and weaknesses. A 4-star review signals a strong, well-crafted book recommended for its target audience. A 5-star review is reserved for standout titles.
If you don’t like your sponsored review, you can exchange it for an ad on our website or an author interview.

City Book Review offers several advantages over competitors like Kirkus and BlueInk Review. Our sponsored reviews are significantly more affordable while maintaining professional editorial standards. Reviews are published across our network of city-specific review sites—including San Francisco Book Review, Manhattan Book Review, and seven others—giving authors broader exposure. Unlike some competitors, City Book Review does not label sponsored reviews differently from editorial selections, and we offer complementary marketing services like blog tours and press releases to help authors maximize their review’s impact.

City Book Review is the parent organization and review service. San Francisco Book Review, Manhattan Book Review, Seattle Book Review, Portland Book Review, Chicago Book Review, Los Angeles Book Review, San Diego Book Review, and Tulsa Book Review are the individual city-branded publications where reviews are actually published. Kids’ BookBuzz is the dedicated children’s publication in the same network.

When you submit to City Book Review, your review is assigned to one of these city publications based on reviewer availability and fit. The review will carry that city publication’s name, which is what you’ll attribute it to in your marketing materials. “San Francisco Book Review says…” is the publication credit, not “City Book Review says.”

This structure gives your review broader online visibility than a single-site service, since each city publication is a separately indexed domain. One sponsored review can appear on a named publication that readers and librarians in that city recognize.

Yes. The Book Launch Blueprint is a personalized marketing strategy report combined with up to $1,000 in City Book Review services to start executing it. The report covers Amazon optimization (title, keywords, categories, A+ page recommendations), a content and SEO plan, social media strategy, reviewer and blogger outreach, a 30-day advertising plan, email marketing guidance, and a day-by-day 60-day launch plan. After a consultation to review the report together, the included service credits go toward reviews, press releases, blog posts, or any other CBR services that fit your strategy. Total value of the report plus services is over $2,000. Current price is $1500. [Get started here.]

The consultation is a walkthrough of your personalized Book Launch Blueprint report with a City Book Review marketing expert. We go through the Amazon recommendations, the content calendar, the outreach strategy, and the ad plan together so you leave with a clear picture of what to do first, what to outsource, and how to sequence everything for maximum impact. The consultation is included in the Blueprint package price, and you can come with questions. Most authors use it to identify the 3-5 highest-leverage actions to take in the first 30 days.

Yes, we can take your printed book review and turn it into a video slideshow that will be posted on our YouTube channel, the website the review was done on and you can use it in your own marketing.

Our Shelf Reach program can get your book on a bookstore shelf for 90 days. Unlike other programs, ours works with indie bookstores that will accept your book, order it from Ingram and put it on their shelves for 90 days. The first 30 days is a face out (the full cover showing) and then the other 60 days, spine out. We’ll get you a sales report when the 90 days are over.

Yes. City Book Review runs a dedicated email campaign that puts your book directly in front of more than 3,000 librarians across the United States. Librarians are one of the most valuable audiences an indie author can reach: they make purchasing decisions for entire library systems, they recommend books to patrons by name, and a library placement means your book gets read by people who would never have found it otherwise.

The campaign sends a professionally written promotional email featuring your book, its review, cover, and purchasing information to our curated list of library acquisition librarians. These are librarians who have opted in to receive book recommendations from City Book Review, which means they’re actively looking for titles to consider, not being cold-pitched.

To get the most out of the librarian campaign, your book should be available through Ingram or another major library distributor before the campaign runs. Librarians can recommend a book all they want, but if it’s not orderable through their purchasing system, it won’t get into the collection. If you’re not yet set up with Ingram, that’s the first step.

The librarian email campaign can be run alongside a sponsored review or as a standalone service. Many authors combine a City Book Review sponsored review with the librarian campaign so the email goes out with a published editorial review already attached, which significantly strengthens the pitch.

Yes. City Book Review runs a bookstore email campaign that reaches 1,200 independent bookstores across the United States. For indie authors, getting into bookstores without a traditional publisher or major distributor behind you is one of the hardest parts of the business. This campaign puts your book in front of the buyers who make those stocking decisions.

The campaign sends a professionally written promotional email featuring your book’s cover, review, genre, and purchasing information to our curated list of independent bookstore buyers and managers. These are the people who decide what goes on the shelves, and reaching them directly with a credible editorial review behind your book is the most effective cold introduction an indie author can make.

A few things that improve your results before the campaign runs: make sure your book is available through Ingram or a comparable distributor at standard trade terms (typically 40-55% discount, fully returnable). Bookstore buyers won’t stock a title they can’t order through their regular purchasing system, no matter how good the pitch is. Having a City Book Review editorial review to include in the campaign also strengthens it considerably. A buyer seeing a named publication review alongside your cover and buy-link is a much stronger ask than a cover and a synopsis alone.

The bookstore campaign is available as a standalone service or combined with a sponsored review and the librarian campaign for a coordinated push across both retail and library channels simultaneously.

Yes. City Book Review publishes author interviews across its network of city-branded publications, including San Francisco Book Review, Manhattan Book Review, Seattle Book Review, and the others in the network.

An interview does something a review alone can’t: it gives readers a reason to connect with you as a person, not just evaluate your book. That connection is what turns a one-time reader into someone who follows your work, buys your backlist, and tells other people about you.

From a discoverability standpoint, an interview also creates a second independently indexed page about you and your book on a named publication. When someone searches your name or your book title, that interview page shows up alongside your Amazon listing, your author website, and your review. The more credible indexed pages attached to your name, the stronger your search presence, and the more likely AI recommendation tools are to surface you when readers ask for books in your genre.

Interviews can be arranged alongside a sponsored review or as a standalone placement. Many authors time the interview to go live around their launch date or a promotional campaign, using it as a fresh piece of content to share with their email list and on social media while the review handles the credibility work.

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Book bloggers are some of the most trusted voices in reading communities. A recommendation from a blogger with 10,000 engaged followers in your genre can drive more sales than a press release to 500 general media contacts. They write for readers, not industry gatekeepers, and their audiences actually buy books.

City Book Review coordinates blogger outreach campaigns that connect your book with bloggers whose audiences match your genre and target readers. Each placement results in a published post about your book on an independent blog, which does several things at once: it creates another indexed page on the web tied to your title, it puts your book in front of an engaged reading audience, and it generates social sharing when the blogger promotes their own post.

Over time, a cluster of blogger posts around your book builds the kind of distributed web presence that both Google and AI search tools interpret as genuine reader interest. That’s different from a single review on a single site. It’s a pattern of coverage that signals your book has real traction.

Blogger outreach works best when combined with a sponsored review, so bloggers can reference a published editorial review in their post. It can be run as a standalone campaign or as part of the Book Launch Blueprint, where it’s sequenced into your broader marketing timeline alongside your Amazon optimization, social strategy, and librarian or bookstore outreach.

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