Should I get booksprout? > Likes and Comments

Hi,

I haven't posted in a very long time but I'd like opinions on whether I should get a booksprout account. I have booksirens, smashwords, net galley, and of course Amazon (US and CA).

I have no problem finding ARCs but lately so many of the authors that are looking for beta or ARC readers are posting links to booksprout, which I don't have.

Hope this isn't a repeat post. I did a search and nothing came up.🙂

Hi. You look like you're spread pretty wide already. I'd say booksprout is one of the less expensive options, but not necessarily a must-have. I personally have found it very comparable to booksirens in terms of ARC reader discoverability.

I like booksprout because more of the authors I read have ARCS there. I have also found new authors from there as well. No spam from them, either.

Karen, it sounds as though you already have enough places to find readers, so I would look at whether Booksprout fills a gap rather than adding another dashboard. The useful question is probably whether the readers you want are already finding comparable books there.

Thanks folks. You're probably right that I have enough places to look.

Honestly I would not recommend Booksprout. You pay for it and are not guaranteed that anyone will even apply. From what I noticed, most books get 1-5 reviewers at most, and some of them do not leave reviewes. Those who do, might not even give you a decent one. I don't mean a good review. I mean one that is meaningful. I wasted a lot of money for a single review that looks sloppy, like the person never actually read the book. And they are obliged to add a line at the end that they received a free copy of the book for the review, which doesn't really look trustworthy when you know you had to pay for it. Organic reviewes are much better. If you really need ARC's I would suggest checking facebook groups or reddit. There's a lot of groups where readers are looking for new/free books in exchange for a review and are actual readers happy to help new authors.

As an author, using booksprout didn't really work for me. I write tech/military thrillers and the ARC readers seemed to be looking primarily for romance genre. I left BookSprout and am exploring other options via REVVUE and Pubby.

Scarlett wrote: "Honestly I would not recommend Booksprout. You pay for it and are not guaranteed that anyone will even apply. From what I noticed, most books get 1-5 reviewers at most, and some of them do not leav..."

I couldn't agree more with what you said, Scarlett. It sucks when you get a review that has nothing to do with the book you wrote. That has happened to me many times. These days, the only reviews I'll pay for the service are from editorial review sites such as Readers' Favorite, Literary Titan, and others alike. At least, as an author, you know that the reviewer is qualified to write an honest review that applies to your book. And in my experience, I have not had any editorial reviews written by AI, which is a positive feature. In addition, since there is so much AI slop online, I think potential readers are placing more weight upon editorial reviews than the quick and generic ones left by readers who claim to have read our books.

Another thing I would like to mention is that it seems that a lot of potential readers are asking AI agents such as Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT for book recommendations instead of navigating the Amazon book listing screens. That happening so, it is surprising that those same AI agents primarily pull up the information they return from editorial reviews our books have available on the internet. That for us authors is a win. Potential readers will get much more honest and substantial book recommendations than what they'll read on an online reseller's site. Cheers!

Kerrie wrote: "As an author, using booksprout didn't really work for me. I write tech/military thrillers and the ARC readers seemed to be looking primarily for romance genre. I left BookSprout and am exploring ot..."

Hi, Carrie! I can relate. I'm so sorry. But I'll tell you: REVVUE is no different. It also favors commercial romance and beach-reading titles. If your books have already garnered a few reviews, try Readers' Favorite, Literary Titan, or other editorial review sites. Best of luck to you!