EVERYONE PLEASE READ

Hi,

Here are our rules and guidelines. Please read through and if you still wish to join, I will send you an invite. We'd love to have you.

Shawn

Rules and guidelines of the Review R Us Review Group


We're keeping this as simple as possible. So here are the rules:

There will be no reciprocal reviews (if it happens that you get assigned a book or author you have read, then let your group captain know, and we will change the order)

Honest, constructive reviews only, when a book is out of your genre, look at some other reviews and maybe an explanation of the genre before doing your review.

Post reviews to publisher’s store, Amazon, Goodreads, and any other site the author requests. (see the rule about reviews under 3 stars)

Reviews should not be previewed, unless they fall under 3 stars, please do not send them to the author for approval. I know this sounds harmless, but this can lead to personal attacks and accusations of cronyism. I also ask that any review below 3 stars be sent to the Team Captain.

If you have more than one title, you can offer your reviewer a choice of what book they want to review. This is exp true with erotica, if you are on a team other than the erotica only one. But consider going through one Team with one book, then the next Team with another.

The initial goal is for authors to support each other with reviews (let's face it, reviews are hard to get), but avoid, as far as possible, suspicion of cronyism. That's why we don't allow reciprocal reviews. The reviews we do (and they do take time and effort, if done properly) will be constructive. No, I hated this book, or I loved this book. See the Links section to some outstanding reviews if you need an example of how to do a thorough review) It should include a short summery of the plot, what you liked and didn’t like, with reasons for each.

This is not a crit group, please don't ask for or expect the reviewer to act as a beta reader, a lay editor, or to read a book that was not edited prior to publication. The exception is an ARC, and it must be clearly noted that the book is an ARC and you must have a publication date for the book, and again the purpose of the group is not to provide you with a crit or an edit of a MS. All ARCs must have a page on Goodreads, and at this time, can not be pre self published.

Insults, personal attacks, or troll like behavior, will not be tolerated. Reviews are about the work, not the author. Treat everyone as you would like to be treated. Respect your fellow author. Read as if you bought the book. With that in mind, if you rate a book below 3 stars, please do not tell the other reviewers that the book was "bad" or put down the author's work or the author in the group.

How things work:

Each Team will have 10 to 12 members who will participate in 4 review rounds. You don't get to choose genre, sorry. It is luck of the draw. There is a TEAM PG (Team 7 forming right now), for those who will not or cannot, for whatever reason, review sexually explicit material, but be aware that groups only get a start date and a thread, when they are full, and it may be awhile if you choose to join this group. There is XXX TEAM (Team Erotica) as well, for those who write and like to review sizzling erotica.

If you can't stand the book you're assigned to review, there are no DNF's, please read the book and rate it on the mechanics of the book, and do not state that this book was not your normal genre, but you were assigned it. Review the book as if you bought it. And always respect your fellow author. Sometimes, if you really hate the book, ask your Team Captain if you can trade reviews with someone, as long as it follows the non-reciprocal rule, then that’s fine.

IF you have some other reason you won't be able to post a review, please let your team Captain know that you are not going to review it. A courtesy message to the author is in order if this happens. It is up to the team Captain to see if someone else in the group will pick up the review. If you're the author who was expecting a review, post in the MISSING REVIEW THREAD if no one in your Team can pick it up. If you have extra time, then check this thread; pick up a book that is missing a review, keeping in mind the no reciprocal review rule.

No recriminations please! NO angry 1 star review on Amazon, or a low rating with no review on Goodreads of the author's work that couldn't do your review. This is voluntary; we're busy people, things happen that we have no control over. By joining the group, we all agree to do our best to review the books assigned to us in the time allotted. That said, if you don't participate, you can't expect to get reviews, yes, things happen, but it's not fair to get reviews without giving them. So, if you are going to miss out on a round, then you will be removed from the Team if you miss more than one round with no explanation or trying to work things out through your Team captain. You can sign up for a different Team at a later time, if you have extenuating circumstances. The Team captain and the mods will decide if you get a second chance.

I am crazy busy, and I try to answer all issues as soon as I see them.

How you sign up:

Once you join the group you will be assigned a Team. One Team at a time please, with the exception of the XXX group, you can join a mainstream Team, and wait for the XXX Team to fill, and use a different book for the other Team. Once you are on a Team please sign in on the database under your Team number.

On the message boards, each Team will have one thread. I will start that thread with who reviews who, and the dates the rounds need to be finished on, once the Team is filled. Once the thread is up, your Team has started. Everyone needs to sign in, to do this, you post your name/pen name, and the link to your book that you want reviewed, include publisher. Once everyone is signed in, then you can start contacting those you will be reviewing. Go back to the thread for your Team and contact the author who will be reviewing your work to arrange to receive the book. It is up to you to contact that author and for the authors to contact you. Post on your Team thread that you have received the book and for what round. Also post when you are done with a review and include links to the reviews.

List your books in the library area, this way others can find them and hey you may make a few sales.

You need to follow the review rounds in order, if for some reason you need to do them out of order, then contact your Team captain. You can start immediately, if you have signed in and the author you are reviewing has, get started! You can post a review early. You can move on to the next round once the current one is finished. If you will have a problem finishing a book and reviewing it before the end date contact your team captain, and let the author know. Again, respect your fellow author.


It is the author's responsibility to get their book file to the reviewer, in the format the reviewer requests.

When the file is received, it is the reviewer's responsibility to post a link to the reviews they have done on their team thread as confirmation the review was done. It is the author's responsibility to let their reviewer know where they want the reviews posted. Be kind here, don't expect the reader to post a review to 10 different web sites! 3 to 5 is about right.

If a review is less than 3 stars, please contact the author about where they want it posted. Or if they do at all, this is not saying that reviews must be more than 3 stars, but it may just be that the book was not for you, and no one wants to trash someone's work. Be honest and constructive, the review is about the book, not the author.

Each has a Team captain/mod, if there is an issue, go to your captain, this way there is only one voice, and email, to the mods and will help things run smoother. Don't overwhelm the captains, see if you can resolve the issue yourself first.

I will be finishing the last of my four reviews before the end of the month. However, I'm highly disappointed that people signed up for this, agreed to be a part of it, and then dropped the ball. While I understand we are all busy and things do happen, it's sad it's come to this...

I will not be participating in another round.

Thank you to Robert for your only review of my book.
Jenn