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So you want to start a book-reviewing blog, eh? Well, the first thing you need to do is get an account with a domain that hosts free blogs (unless you want to pay to have your blog, which I really don't think you do). I would personally recommend Blogspot for its ease of use and versatility in design. However, two other good hosting services are LiveJournal and Wordpress. Any of the three will work just fine.

Once you have chosen a service and registered, you will need to set up your brand new blog. You will probably get to choose your own URL (web address) - for example myblog.livejournal.com. You will also need to pick a name for your blog. For simplicity's sake, make the name and the URL similar, so people will be able to find you easier.

Now comes the fun part: designing your page. Pick your template, fonts, and colors, but remember: Be professional. You also want to stay away from colors that are hard to read, such as yellow letters on a white background. And please - avoid blinking text at all costs.

Before you start posting reviews, provide your readers with a little information about yourself and your qualifications (either as a sidebar item or an introductory post). Are you an author? Editor? Have you reviewed books professionally? Let people know you're not just another schmoe with a website (unless, in fact, you are).

Once your blog is set up, it's time to answer some questions. What books are you going to review? Books you already have? Books people will send you? Books your friends have written?

If you'll be reviewing books you've already read or you already own, then skip ahead to the next paragraph. If you'll be trying to get review copies of books, it will be hard to break in as an independent reviewer. Post some sample reviews first, then solicit small press editors and authors for review copies, offering a fair and honest review, including ordering information and a link.

Avoid reviewing books containing anything you've written, be it short stories, columns, poetry, or anything else. Reviewing something you've contributed to is a conflict of interest, and will not gain you any points with your audience.

Now for the actual reviews. Always be professional - don't say a book "sucked" or you "hated" it. But certainly don't be afraid to be negative. If a book is bad, tell your audience what made it bad - poor character development, contrived plot twists, unrealistic dialogue, etc. Give your readers enough information to make an informed decision about the book for themselves. You may not like that a book contained a lot of accented dialogue, but someone in your audience might.

Don't try to skimp with short reviews. Always keep your reviews above 200 or 300 words, and include ordering information for the book at the end of the review (even if you give it a negative review) along with a brief description (title, author's name, publisher, hardcover or paperback, number of pages, retail price). If possible, include a link to where the book can be purchased.

Try to come up with your own unique rating system, or at the very least, say whether or not you would recommend the book. You're going to want people to keep coming back to your blog, so make it easy for them. To make your site more user-friendly, keep an updated chart or list of books you've reviewed on the sidebar (with scoring/rating information) so people can see your ratings at a glance, and compare different books. And always respond to comments from readers, be they positive or negative.

Once you start to attract regular visitors and can solicit review copies, you may want to consider adding advertising (if generating revenue is one of your goals). But be warned that many readers will avoid a site with ads, especially if the ads are large or overbearing.

If you get a lot of visitors and want to keep track of them, you can use a third-party website such as StatCounter.com, which is free and will track both repeat and unique visitors. You can display the counter somewhere on your page, or you can make it invisible so your readers can't see it (but you still can).

These tips should help you get started with a book-reviewing blog. Be professional, polite, and informative, and be sure to tell authors and editors that submitting a book to you does not guarantee a review. You will come across books now and then that, for whatever reason, you'll be unwilling or unable to review.

Learn more about this author, Greg Schwartz.
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