Paid Kirkus Book Review - worth it?

Kirkus has been around for years and is a respected book review magazine esablished in the 1930s. A positive review with the Kirkus name could be a real feather in an author's cap and used as a pull quote on a book jacket or any marketing and promotional material. I'd definitely consider shelling out the money for a review.

It's a gamble, though. If they don't like it, you've spent $425 for a sucky review (or more if you expedite the process). They'll keep a lid on it, though, if it's bad and you don't wish the negative review to be made public.

I'd definitely do it.

I've never taken Kirkus's paid-for reviews very seriously: as soon as a review is paid-for there's the suggestion that the reviewer was trying to please their client--the author. And since Kirkus introduced the paid-for reviews, I've taken their free reviews less seriously too.

But I am grumpy.

If I were you I'd just get as many free reviews as you can. A single review is very unlikely to bring in enough sales to generate $425 which is a staggering amount. Don't spend more than you can safely afford to waste. And don't react badly to any of the reviews you get, even if they're negative. There's been a rash of that lately (including on my little review blog) and it's really not good.

Old Hack said:

A single review is very unlikely to bring in enough sales to generate $425 which is a staggering amount.

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This. It's really quite simple: don't spend any money that won't likely result in sales at least equal to what you spent.

IOW, let's say you earn $2 profit per book sold. If you spend $425 on a paid Kirkus review, that review needs to generate at least 213 sales that you wouldn't have otherwise made just to pay for itself. If it only generates, say, 50 additional sales, you've just lost $325.

A well-meaning friend gave me a newspaper article recently. It was one of those self-publishing success articles. I can't remember the details -- I wish I could -- but the author had paid Kirkus for one of their indie reviews and also for special placement in their magazine. (The review was positive.) She said it helped to generate sales. I think the sales figure was $230,000 worth of books sold in a matter of about six months.

I can see, though, if only the positive paid reviews are made public -- because who would let their bad review go public? -- that it would seem to dilute their value.

The $425 is a lot of books to sell before you'd break even. The gamble would be that your book would sell in the thousands.

I totally see where Old Hack is coming from on this. Once money changes hands, you have to question the integrity of the one being paid for the review.

When I discussed this with my husband, he said, "Hmm, I should start a review service."

Mclesh said:

but the author had paid Kirkus for one of their indie reviews and also for special placement in their magazine. (The review was positive.) She said it helped to generate sales. I think the sales figure was $230,000 worth of books sold in a matter of about six months.

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I'd be curious to know how many of those sales were attributable to the Kirkus review.

Of course, balanced against $230K, even if none of the sales came from the Kirkus review, the $425 wouldn't be a very noticeable expense.

For most folks, I'd think it wouldn't earn back what they paid.

Terie said:

For most folks, I'd think it wouldn't earn back what they paid.

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Terie, I think you're right about that.

The paid for reviews go on a separate part of the website and not in the magazine. Their value IMHO is approximately nil.

Looks like Kirkus has branched out into several, uh, author services.

Old Hack said:

I've never taken Kirkus's paid-for reviews very seriously: as soon as a review is paid-for there's the suggestion that the reviewer was trying to please their client--the author. And since Kirkus introduced the paid-for reviews, I've taken their free reviews less seriously too.

But I am grumpy.

If I were you I'd just get as many free reviews as you can. A single review is very unlikely to bring in enough sales to generate $425 which is a staggering amount. Don't spend more than you can safely afford to waste. And don't react badly to any of the reviews you get, even if they're negative. There's been a rash of that lately (including on my little review blog) and it's really not good.

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I agree with this ^^. I feel like the only readers who recognise Kirkus are those involved in the industry. Sure, it would be great to have a nice review from Kirkus, but I don't think it is impressive to the average reader.

Like Old Hack said, one single review, even if it is from Kirkus, is unlikely to bring in enough sales to cover the expense.

In contrast, my spouse argues with me about doing giveaways, or gifting my book to acquaintances that show interest. But I think giving away a single book that cost me $4 is worth the risk, especially if I think the reader is likely to recommend it to 10 of her friends, who may buy it.

I think in regards to any Indie budget, you have to think about the potential result vs the amount of money you are spending.

People capable of recognizing Kirkus are capable of recognizing Kirkus Indies which is not the same thing.

Mclesh said:

A well-meaning friend gave me a newspaper article recently. It was one of those self-publishing success articles. I can't remember the details -- I wish I could -- but the author had paid Kirkus for one of their indie reviews and also for special placement in their magazine. (The review was positive.) She said it helped to generate sales. I think the sales figure was $230,000 worth of books sold in a matter of about six months.

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By chance was that the WSJ article about The Mill River Recluse? The author of that book paid Kirkus almost 600 for an expedited review but didn't mention how much of her revenue came from that particular source. She also used low pricing (.99 on Amazon) and spent over $1k on marketing (so I'm inclined to think the $1000 spent on banner ads and etc. probably did more than the reviews...

Note that the WSJ article was from two years ago, before we learned, for example, that John Locke's startling success was based on paying people to download his book and review it on Amazon.

Have there been more self-publishing success stories since then? Yes. But I suspect that the percentage of success stories has actually gone down, as the number of successes is still very small while the number of self-published books has exploded.

I don't think self-publishing success stories are very news worthy anymore. Especially since most of the people doing well are doing so with multiple titles. They don't need one bestseller, just a dozen well-selling books. Of course that depends on how you define 'success' -- to me, it's being able to live on the money you earn as a writer. To others, it's getting a bestseller.

I wouldn't bother with Kirkus. Spend your time finding blogs to feature your book instead. You want reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and blogs in your genre. Most bloggers will put a review on all three, and will do it in exchange for a free copy.

The price alone is enough to steer most people away, I would think. As others have mentioned, you'd have to sell a LOT of books to recoup that alone. And you're not guaranteed (and never should be) a positive review.

I get paid $200 (by my publication, not the writer) to write an approximately 1000-word in-depth review. So, even laying aside the ethical issues here, I could never pay $425 for a capsule review. It seems wildly overpriced. I wonder how much of that the review's author receives.

And when I see a Kirkus blurb on a self-published book, all I know for sure is that the author had deep pockets. I'm not saying the reviews aren't honest, but a paid review is a strange thing. It may not lead to insincere glowing appraisals, but it could cause punches to be pulled here and there, or boring books to be dressed up with bland praise, if the writer feels any pressure not to be negative. (That said, the pressure can exist in regular journalistic reviewing, too, and is why people often decline to review things they know they won't like.)

In my experience, anyone at a general interest publication (or blog) who agrees to review a self-published book is doing it because they like the book, even love the book. No one has a shortage of books to review, even sorta OK books. No one will waste time picking apart some poor writer's bad self-published book. (Old Hack's blog is different because it's specifically focused on giving straight talk to the good, bad and ugly of self-publishers -- a very useful function IMHO, but not one most publications can serve.)

So, instead of paying for a review, I'd write the best book I could, revise the hell out of it, then cast a wide net until I found a blogger or other reviewer who loved it enough to want to tell his or her readers about it. No substitute for sincere enthusiasm.

After doing this for two and a half years, I think there's one thing that creates big sales and that's a book: 1) whose cover, title, and description appeal to a large number of people, making them think 'Gee, that book looks interesting,' and 2) whose content lives up to the book's initial promise.

Seems like if you have those things, reviews come more easily and word of mouth builds naturally. Without those things, I don't think any ad, review, giveaway or other form of promotion will earn back its price tag.

Maybe if a book's content is great, word of mouth can help overcome a lack of "curb appeal," to use a real estate term, but it's not easy to make that happen.

Quite frankly, no. Kirkus may be 'respectable', but a paid review is a dent in the production budget - $425 the author does not have for editing, for artwork, printing and associated costs (depending on your publishing pathway), etc.

I have chosen NOT to buy SP books that have such reviews as well as those without them in the past for a variety of reasons, and the greatest of review would never have changed my mind.

The passage of hundred of dollars from the author to the reviewer taints them regardless.