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Better Ways to Spend Your Marketing Money Than Buying a Kirkus Review
Find more strategic ways to spend those hard-earned 600 author dollars
Gasped. I gasped when I heard some years back that you could buy a review from Kirkus, one of the most respected sources of book reviews in our world. I haven’t stopped gasping as the cost of a Kirkus review for indie authors winds ever skyward. It’s now $599 for a 500-word review (7–9-week turnaround time); $750 to have their esteemed verbiage delivered to your inbox in 4–6 weeks.
Whew. That’s a lot to shell out to have a prestigous name say a few words about your book, especially given that everyone knows this is a pay-to-play situation.
[Note: Kirkus still does its non-paid book reviews the traditonal way for select traditionally published books. One not small benefit of paying for a review is that you can choose to have yours listed on their site for librarians and others to discover at no extra cost.]
I’m not dismissing the value of a Kirkus review…entirely. It’s up to any individual author, but I do think that there are ways most authors can make $600 go further on behalf of their book/s.
Take a look at some of the numbers below and do your own math. Which things adding up to $600 make better sense for…
