BlueInk Reviews is a unique and personal company, formed by three book publishing pros with a single-minded purpose: to respectfully and professionally find and celebrate the best of self-published books.

When it comes to judging book quality, getting the word out on self-published books, and understanding the intricacies of the traditional book publishing and book review industries--well, we’ve walked those walks for an awfully long time.

Between us, the three BlueInk founding partners have obtained more than a million dollars in advances for self-published books (and many millions of dollars in advances for traditionally published books). We’ve worked at executive level positions at traditional publishing houses for more than 15 years, where we’ve paid lots of money to publish books that were originally self-published (and scores of other bestsellers as well). We've spearheaded renowned literary agencies more than 25 years, and we have reviewed or shepherded professional reviews to publication for more than 1,000 books. We've edited, licensed rights, and negotiated contracts for hundreds of books. And yes, we've even written books -- five of them (well-reviewed, of course) between us. We are well known within and without the book publishing world.

These experiences feel very important to us. And we believe they should be of utmost importance to you as you investigate the possibility of obtaining a professional review for your book.

Everything about BlueInk Reviews--from the thoroughness of the reviews, to the respect we give our roster of hand-picked, independent reviewers,to the care we take to get the word out about our Notable reviews in a manner that will actually reach the readers you seek, to the thoughtfully orchestrated navigation of the BlueInk website—everything was born of our experience in books and our personal passions for quality.

Book reading and book publishing is personal. That’s the ironic thing—so many self publishers feel that corporate publishing is commerce-driven and impersonal (which, of course, has much truth these days), but when you get down to the people publishing, stocking and selling the books, you will find it’s the personal relationships and good old-fashioned integrity that still drive most key decisions.

And that’s what we’re about. Our reviewers are terrific writers and well-qualified because we know how to judge these skills (and in many cases our reviewers are personally known to us, or were vetted by people we know and trust). Our reviews are taken seriously by publishers, agents, booksellers and librarians because we understand their professional needs and constraints. We respect their time and they respect our opinions.

Our take on paying for a book review.

These are daunting and exhilarating times for writers. Exhilarating because, of course, you can get your words out with the click of a “blog this!” button. Daunting because we’re all learning together that getting the word out is a tiny part of the battle — “out,” alas, doesn’t always mean “read.” Just when objective reviews are most essential to getting seen, standard print book reviews are suddenly inaccessible not only to self publishers, but also to traditionally published books. Newspapers and magazines are folding around the world, and one of the first sections to lose funding in the papers that are still alive is the poorly funded book review section.

Online, you can get reviewed by anyone and everyone. But what’s an amateur review worth? Will these reviews make your book stand out? And if you do pay for a review, will readers and book professionals take it seriously? That’s the key question, isn’t it.

A book review is only valuable if it’s both trustworthy and known to be trustworthy.

Therein, as you’ve guessed, lies the heart of our vision.

We believe paid reviews are the way of the future for all books, self published and traditionally published. There simply isn’t any other authoritative filter out there that is reliably accessible to all. And we believe we meet every standard of trustworthiness to fill this need, for all the reasons mentioned above.

By creating and maintaining best practices in a field with few rigid ethical guidelines, we work hard to deserve the trust that our customers -- you -- must seek in any professional book review service.