7 Sites where authors can list books FREE

So your book is published, but you’re in charge of marketing it. It’s listed on the retail sites you or your publisher chose and on the reader review site Goodreads. Where else can you list it for readers and reviewers to find without spending your advance (if you received one) or your royalties before any are earned?

Here are some sites that allow you to list free at least one book, and some allow as many as you have published! Do check out their particulars thoroughly on your own, including any book-deal email subscriptions as well as requirements and rates for advertising on those. For some of these sites, it’s been a while since I listed my first—or first two—books. Their criteria or features may have changed.

Readers Gazette is for Kindle authors only and requires you wait to be accepted after you apply. Books must be at least 20,000 words and 80 pages. Novels, children’s books, books of poetry, and cookbooks are acceptable. No erotica. The great thing about Readers Gazette is that they Tweet my books’ listings regularly each week. Then other authors RT those tweets, and I RT theirs.

Readers’ Favorite Book Reviews and Award Contest allowed me to list both my books, and the first book was reviewed at no cost. When I did not pay for a review of the second book, that listing was eventually removed. Although the site lists some celebrities as award contest winners, I’ve read mixed opinions about the contest’s overall validity. The 2016 contest claims 650+ winners and finalists in 120+ categories. The contest is not free but boasts cash prizes and “chances” at other recognition. I’m going to keep my eye on Readers’ Favorite until I’m more sure about it.

YA Books Central describes itself as “one of the largest professional book recommendation sites targeted towards tween and teen readers.” List your books free, and then hope that one of the many teen reviewers on the site will want to read and review your book. If you would like to review a book, you must join the YABC Community to do so. I plan to email YABC and pitch one of my books for a review. An author can also request an ad kit containing advertising information and rates.

Clean Indie Reads does not take non-fiction except narrative non-fiction that reads like a novel and only takes clean novels for middle grades and up.  Take a look at their listing for my Bird Face series to see what’s included in a listing. The site states, “As long as your FB identity shows something to do with being an author (and it’s “clean”), expect to be approved within about 24 hours.” Information about submissions is there and on their group Facebook page, which also has cross-promotions info. Clean Indie Reads has members who are active Tweeters and RT other members’ tweets.

You can also get free listings on BookGorilla, UndergroundBookReviews, and Ripley’s Booklist, which offer reasonable prices for spots on their email lists and other advertising, last I looked. Ripley’s Booklist is rather new and specializes in Young Adult and New Adult, which I appreciate.

This is certainly not a complete list of all the sites where I’ve listed my books free, but these are sites that I will likely continue to use and may even be willing to spend money with.

Note: If you happen to be a member of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), look into adding your books to their Fiction Finder. Criteria for indie authors and for authors whose publishers are not on the recognized publishers list have recently changed.

If you’re an author, which are you favorite sites for listing your books? If you’re a reader, where besides the retail sites do you go to search for books and read reviews?

The Writing Life

I’m trying to settle back into real life after the amazing adventure fellow Scriblerian Linda Samaritoni and I embarked upon
last week attending the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) Conference in Nashville. And I have to tell you it’s kind of lonely, real life that is. Oh I came back to a family happy to have me home, an exciting 4^th birthday party for our grandson, and even overnight guests we don’t get to see often enough.

But you see, all of these people are what we in the ACFW refer to as “normals”. They aren’t writers. They don’t continually participate in an alternate universe inside their heads. They don’t carry on conversations with very real, yet ultimately imaginary people. At least most of them don’t. They don’t dissect every motive and response and conversation in every TV show and movie they view. And boy, do they wish the writers—the “non-normals”—in their life would chuck that annoying habit.

Linda and I at the ACFW Conference Gala

Writers are a unique breed. We know our brains work differently than do “normal” brains. We accept that fact and try to convince our head-scratching family and friends to accept us as GOD made us, all the while realizing they probably never will truly “get” us.  

Back to the conference adventure. My mind was literally racing in a hundred different directions as Linda and I headed south. The myriad details of life had piled especially deep in my brain for weeks. I wondered if I’d have the ability to put all of that stuff aside and be fully present at the conference. I’d so looked forward to being with my writing friends and soaking up the classes, the workshops, the writerly atmosphere, but I worried I’d be too strung out on the daily-life-grind to immerse myself in the conference experience.

I needn’t have worried. Even as I scanned familiar faces across the expansive Omni hotel lobby, my mind began to settle in. Within hours, I was home. Not small-town-Indiana home, but at home with my fellow writing community.

I’ve said it probably fifty times in the last five to seven years since I got serious about writing, “There’s nothing like being with other writers.” Absolutely nothing in the world. I tell those new to the writing life to snatch every second of “writer time” because there’s nothing like surrounding yourself with people who get what it’s like to be a writer. Being with folks whose brains functions as yours does, well, it’s tough for even a writer to describe how amazing that is.

I came home from the conference armed with answers to specific questions and direction for my publishing journey and determination for pushing my YA series out of the “still working on it” phase, where it’s been languishing for years, and into the “publishing phase”. But in order to accomplish that, it’s time to move past the “missing my writing friends” stage and forge ahead.

I’m reminded that we weren’t intended to do this thing called life alone. Not one of us was meant to navigate this world in a solitary fashion. We need each during the gut-wrenching times as well as the over-the-moon celebrations. We crave the camaraderie of friends and family in the doldrums of daily life as much as we do in the moments, both joyous and grievous, that steal away our breath. We’re wired to walk this road in tandem with others.

In the crazy busyness that surrounds most of us, it’s easy to ignore the longing of our soul for those deep connections. I challenge you to make time to embrace the connections in your life, to nurture the relationships that feed your soul’s cravings. Let others lighten your load as you help to shoulder their burdens. Don’t try to be strong or tough and do this life alone.

We Scriblerians do this life together thing quite well despite the many miles that separate us. I hope each of you finds a niche where you can be yourself with fellow travelers. 

Call Beth a “cheerleader for abstinence”!  She’s passionate about saving sex for marriage and believes strongly in accountability and mentoring as crucial tools to success in postponing physical intimacy until marriage.  She’s equally as passionate about “renewed waiting”. Because SEX is worth waiting for. YOU are worth waiting for. She’d love to hear from you! Comment here OR email her at waitingmatters@gmail.com. And connect with her on Facebook at Beth Steury, Author.