Many of you have asked, and yes, the book review contest is back! And the prizes are going up. First prize will receive $1,000, a lifetime free subscription comp (if wanted), and the review will run on this newsletter. Two runners-up will each receive $500 and a year free subscription comp and, if they wish, I will publish their reviews to this website, though they will not be sent out to the email list but will be in the weekly digest post. I can distribute funds via Paypal or Venmo so please make sure you can access one of these if you plan to enter the competition.
There are not a lot of restrictions or rules here, though there are a few. I’ll accept reviews of any book provided that a) they are 2000 words long or less and b) were originally produced for this contest and not previously published anywhere else, even if it was on a low-traffic blog. Please don’t submit anything that exists elsewhere online, in whole or in part. There are no content restrictions on books and no preference for fiction or nonfiction, but use your head. (It would perhaps not be a great strategy to review Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and while submitting a very negative review of my book would be a ballsy move I must warn you that it would be unlikely to be successful.) My suggestion would be that you avoid books that I have reviewed in this space, but that is only a suggestion and I can certainly imagine rewarding a review like that. If you’re wondering what I’m looking for in a review, I’ve got you covered.
Please email your submission to fredrik.deboer@gmail.com, and make sure that you do so with the email address associated with your account so that I can confirm that you’re a subscriber, or at least let me know your official subscriber email address. (This is important.) Attaching your submission as a Word document is strongly preferred but if you can’t do that I will work around it. Reviews will be anonymized by having someone assign numbers to each email address, and I’ll read the submissions blind so that I’m not influenced by who wrote each review. To facilitate this, please do not put the name of the book in the filename or in the text of the email (so that I don’t match the book with your name just by opening the email), and don’t put your own name in the file itself. (Self-references to your job, experiences, expertise, etc. is fine.) The filename bookreviewcontext.docx and the subject line “book review contest” are fine. Winners can be identified by pseudonyms if desired, both the winner and runners-up will be invited to link to a personal website and/or social media, and once the winners have been declared everyone is of course free to publish their entries wherever else they would like. You retain all copyright rights (copyrights?) aside from my right to host your essay here.
I will accept submissions until 10:00 PM EST on Saturday, October 1st. I hope to announce the winners two weeks later, but I reserve the right to extend the review period if the number of submissions is more than I can handle in that timeframe. I certainly hope to announce winners by Halloween, but these might be famous last words. If after the contest submitted reviews are posted elsewhere online I would be happy to post links to them in a Weekly Digest post.
Also, it’s time for August subscriber writing. Please see here for details and make sure to email me at fredrik.deboer@gmail.com if you do submit to make my life easier. Deadline for this month is Monday, August 29th! Also, please use the following format in your submission if you can remember to:
Your Preferred Name, Your Piece of Writing's Title with Hyperlink
one-sentence synopsis of your piece
That really makes my life much easier. If I messed up previously and promised to include your entry this month, please email to remind me! And if you don’t use the fredrik.deboer@gmail.com address, I have no sympathy if I fail to include you. I look forward to seeing what you come up with, and I’m dedicated to having fewer mistakes than last time.
Finally, I want to highlight again that I’ve written a free ebook on being a freelance writer, which you can find on my website in pdf, epub, and mobi formats. I’ve got two Big Five book contracts and most every major newspaper and website I can think of in my list of credits, so I know of what I speak. So check it out if interested.
2000 words or less seems like it's going to disqualify a whole lot of books Freddie
Looking at the book review post from 8/30/21 - will there be a second annual Lit Week this year?
(Apple has suggested I represent Lit Week with this emoji: 🔥)