What is an editorial book review?

An editorial book review is an honest book review of a published or soon-to-be published book. Also known as “blurbs,” they are often used by authors and publishers in their marketing material and work a lot like testimonials.

These reviews often come from recognized sources like book review sites, other authors, and experts in the book’s field. You have probably seen these reviews as catchy quotes on book covers, social media graphics, and the book’s Amazon page.

What makes IBR’s editorial book review service different?

IBR provides editorial book reviews of 400+ words within your preferred timeframe (5 weeks, 2 weeks, or 1 week). The reviews include summary, quotable praise, and, if applicable, criticism. The reviewer may not like everything your book does, but they always comment on what good they see in the book too. Our motto: “Always honest, never mean.” On or before the agreed-upon deadline, you will receive the review and be asked if you would like to publish the review on our website.

With this service, you also enter for the chance to be given a Starred Review, to be named as one of The Best Books We Read This Year, to be featured in a genre-specific book list, or to be featured as one of our New Release round-ups on Instagram.

How do you use editorial book reviews to market your book?

In any number of ways! Here are a few examples:

• Add a catchy quote on your front or back book cover.
• Add a catchy quote to the “editorial reviews” section on your book’s Amazon page.
• Design or pay for graphics highlighting a quote from the review and use them on social media, websites, newsletters, and on a book’s Amazon page with Amazon A+ Content.
• Use them on bookmarks, posters, trailers, press releases, etc.
• Include a pull-quote in your pitches to bookstores, libraries, conferences, other reviewers, etc.
• Share the published review as an announcement on social media and your newsletter.
• And more!

Examples:

How do I get a starred book review?

We don’t do 1-5 star ratings at IBR. Instead, we give starred reviews to the top 5-10% of books we read here. Starred reviews are featured at the top of our website, in our Bookshop, and are most often pushed on our social media accounts.

In order to get a starred review, you’ll want to write a book so good that our reviewer recommends it for a company star. After it’s recommended by the reviewer, it is sent out to a different team to determine whether it should get the final star or not.

Can IBR post their review on Amazon?

Nope. But you can! Paying for reviews in the “Customer Reviews” section on Amazon is against Amazon’s policy and runs the risk of our accounts and your account getting suspended or removed. Instead, you can add editorial reviews to your Amazon product page via Amazon Author Central. Here’s how.

Can I choose not to publish the review but still use quotes from the review?

Yes! On or before the agreed-upon deadline, you’ll receive the review in your email inbox, and we’ll ask if you’d like to publish the review. You’re free to deny it for whatever reason you see fit and still use the quotes from the review, whether it be in graphics, in your editorial reviews section on Amazon, or elsewhere. We just ask that you use the exact language we used and attribute it to Independent Book Review.

Can you explain more about your add-ons?

Graphics: You receive two images along with your book review highlighting two of the catchiest pull-quotes from the review. The images include your book cover, the specific language we used to praise your book, our company name, and matching color and element backgrounds. One image is horizontal and can be uploaded to KDP as Amazon A+ Content under the horizontal module, and the other is portrait-sized (1080 x1350) which is of optimal posting to Instagram and other social media platforms.

Book Quote Video: You receive one silent .mp4 video file along with your review. The video includes one or multiple quotes from your book dropped onto a moving background. The quote is usually chosen by the reviewer as something they enjoyed and feel can stand on its own. Once you receive the video, you can upload it to either Instagram or TikTok and add your own background music. (We’d do the music ourselves, but they could break copyright laws and make your post un-postable.)

Advertising: Your book will be featured on our homepage for two weeks listed as an ADVERTISEMENT banner, and it will include the same banner in our Read Indie newsletter.

Can I have the review published on a specific date?

We send our review to your inbox within your preferred timeline: 1 week, 2 weeks, or 5 weeks. That’s when we’ll ask if you would like the review published on our website. Since we publish so many reviews but want to ensure each one has enough time and space on the website, your review doesn’t automatically go up on the site. It usually publishes in about one month after your confirmation, and we’ll send you the link once it’s live.

If your book is publishing in two weeks, however, and you’d like to time our review with the launch, you can definitely request that! We don’t usually guarantee specific dates, but we can aim to publish it within your launch week. We will need a specific reason to push publication up.

My book isn’t available on Amazon or Bookshop.org. Can I still get a review?

You can! We will provide whichever purchase link you’d like, and we’ll share that on our Bookshop button. Please note that we do prefer B&N, small press, or distributor links over Smashwords, InkItt, or personal websites, but we can work with what you have.

Do you use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to write reviews?

No. It is outlined explicitly in our onboarding document that new reviewers do not use AI to write reviews. We seek the reviewer’s original language and genuine opinions in IBR reviews. Our service is about guaranteeing an experienced reader to read and assess your full book; it would be against our mission to take shortcuts when reading books and writing reviews.

What Authors & Publishers Are Saying

“IBR’s reviews have been very effective on my promotional material. I have used them on Amazon’s editorial reviews, the book description, social media promotions, and even a poster. They play a huge part in helping each book in my series keep momentum. And they are a delight to work with! They really love authors and books.” – Sherilyn Decter, author of The Bootleggers’ Chronicles

“Independent Book Review’ website. Samantha Hu’s Samantha Huii has provided my book with a highly detailed, insightful, and beautifully expressed review. Her constructive feedback is extremely useful, and her overall analysis is both clear and accurate. Thank you for running such a wonderfully intelligent and affordable reviewing service via Independent Book Review.” – Laura Fields, author of Infinity Connection

“Independent Book Review offers a wonderful service. They reviewed my book in a timely manner, and more importantly, they were able to grasp the importance of my memoir’s theme. I was greatly pleased with their honest review and recommend their services most highly.” – Marc Hoberman, author of Adversity Defeated

“This review is fantastic. It’s fair, well-written, and incredibly quotable. Hands down, this is a much better review than I’ve seen from [some of the other] prohibitively expensive sites. To put in car terms, I feel like I got the Aston Martin of reviews for the price of a base model Ford Focus. I am very pleased and happy with the service.” – J.R. Alcyon, author of Five Fathoms Beneath

“It was a breath of fresh air to work with Independent Book Review. They have done so much for me in a short time, and their review was honest and refreshing.. ” – Howard Milsted, author of Eyes from Above

“Tessa Wegert reviewed my short story collection, “Her Final Act and Other Stories”. Even before I submitted it for review I knew I was asking someone else to do something I, as the writer of the stories (and novels!) could not do myself, or perhaps only miserably. I always knew a short story collection had to be generally more difficult to review than a novel because the reviewer must assess multiple stories, each with its own plot, characters and themes while a novel engages the reviewer with a single, extended plot, character arcs, background building and expectation for the characters’ transformation. So I was excited to learn what a review of my collection of fourteen stories would look like. How delighted and surprised I am to see how Tessa Wegert brought the memories, cultural divides, love and loss inherent in all the plots into a coherent summary, reading like an inviting story itself. She’s made me feel happy about my fourteen “children” who are now living in one room with me instead of each in a separate one with the door closed. Thank you so much, Tessa Wegert!.” – Gisela Fitzgerald, author of Her Final Act and Other Stories

“IBR offers excellent services and support to indie authors. I can’t recommend them enough for their care and professionalism.”.” – Deborah Adams, author of the Waypoint series

“As with previous reviews by IBR staff, I was very impressed by Erin Britton’s review of my literary novel “Her Most Deadly Rival”. Her analysis of the characters and plot taught me things I was not always conscious of myself, and so her review is a fascinating read for me. The generous length of the review also showed me the great amount of time she spent on this assignment. I look forward to submitting another manuscript to IBR..” – Gisela Fitzgerald, author of Her Most Deadly Rival

“I had IBR review my fantasy saga Sword of Cho Nisi and am very happy with the outcome. They delivered exactly when they said they would in a timely fashion and provided worthy reviews that proved the reviewer read every word of my manuscript, and not only read, but felt the essence of the story and followed along as a writer hopes all readers will do. I will be using IBR for all my novels. Thank you so much for taking the time and effort! I’m glad you’re here providing Indie authors a way to shine!.” – Dianne Gardner, author of the Sword of the Cho Nisi series

In the Media

🎧 Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) Podcast (December 2025) – Listen

🎧 Get Your Book Seen and Sold podcast – Listen

🎧 Now Appalachia – Listen

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