Read. Review. Discuss.
At THWR, reading is our first true love. The Himalayan Book Club is a natural outcome.
On an average 90,000 books are published in India every year. So why don’t we see new names more often as bestsellers? How many of these actually reach the readers? How do readers discover new authors?
The Himalayan Book Club helps writers have their books discovered. The Himalayan Book Club tries to bridge the gap between the reader and the author.
We invite book-lovers to be a part of this club where they can read books (some even before they are released!) and review them.
We invite authors to offer their books in this club so that they can spread the word about their book among readers. We promise good books, and fun interactive meet-the-author sessions as well.
Join us, to be a part of the community!
What we're reading
Featured Authors
Reviews and visibility for authors
Visibility and Book reviews can make or break a book. Your book is ready. It’s recently been launched, or is very close. You want readers to find out about your book, and a bunch of reviews for your book as soon as it is launched. What do you do?
At the Himalayan Writing Retreat we love to support new writers. We believe your your hard work should be acknowledged and noticed. No better place than with reviews on Amazon.in or on Goodreads.
We have started the Himalayan Book Club with this goal in mind. You, dear author, can submit your published or soon-to-be published work with our readers. Once we have your request form, we will offer your book to our resders. If the book is not out yet, an Advance Review Copy (ARC) is also welcome. Those reviewers who find it interesting will download / order it and may review it.
Read Importance of Book Reviews to sell books in India to know why reviews are important for marketing your book.
Our club members are all avid readers. They may review your book on Amazon.in. They may write a review on Goodreads. Or on both.
We are picky about the books we choose. Only one in 3 books is accepted into the club.
Any accepted book (and author) get the following benefit:
- Emailer about your book to our 200+ book club members
- Reviews from interested readers (you need to provide books)
- A meet-the-author session on zoom
- A recording of the session on our youtube channel
- Your interview on the HWR website in this section
- A mention on our social media channels (instagram, facebook, twitter & linkedin)
Price of the above package : INR 18000.
Price for HWR Alums: INR 15000.
The cost of the book is on you. Please note we do not guarantee that all reviewers who download the book will write reviews.
Let your book create a unique readership of its own!
How can you join the Book Club and share your books? Step 1 is to fill up this form:
Disclaimers
- We are not responsible for the ratings or reviews your book earns. We recommend that you submit your book to the club only if it is professionally done and error-free. While a reviewer may love a story, it would be a pity to get bad reviews because of avoidable errors and bad spelling and grammar.
- Time taken to evaluate any book received will be 7 calendar days.
- We get many books on offer from authors, and we prefer to work with professional, responsive individuals. We request anyone we work with to respond within 7 calendar days. If we do not hear back from the author within a week, that book will be dropped from the Book Club.
- Meet-the-Author will be an hour-long recorded session on Zoom. This will be later on uploaded on our YouTube channel. The session will be open for all and authors are free to invite people from their circles too. HWR does not guarantee any number of attendees to these sessions.
- These sessions will be a conversation between the author and a member of Team HWR.
- We accept only 2 authors in a month for the Meet-the-Author sessions. These are on a first-come-first-served basis
FAQs
You can share the details of your book through this form: Authors Registration Form for reviews – Google Forms.
If your book is yet to release, you can share some excerpts from it with us at info@himalayanwritingretreat.com
We will evaluate your manuscript and come back to you within one week.
It is only an acceptance or a rejection for the book in the Himalayan Book Club. We do not provide any other feedback on your book.
We do not provide any such services. You can find professional editors and beta readers on our blog at Book Editors in India for Fiction & Non fiction
No, it will not be hosted on our website or blog. However, it will be added to our Goodreads profile which will reflect on the Himalayan Book Club page of our website.
We do not review books on our website/blog. Only our book club members write reviews on Goodreads and Amazon.
You need to now inform us how do you plan to offer your book to the Book Club members.
If you are looking for verified reviews on Amazon:
1) Make your book free on Amazon for specific dates. We will then share those dates with the book club members and ask all of those who are interested, to download it on those dates only.
2) Send us an Amazon gift voucher towards the book cost for all the review copies and we will give Kindle/physical copies (depending on your choice) of your book to our book club members.
If you are okay with unverified reviews on Amazon then you can share a PDF with us, preferably a watermarked copy that states Exclusive copy for Himalayan Book Club. We will share it with the interested members of our book club.
Please note: Himalayan Book Club will not dispatch physical copies from their end to the reviewers. We will also not share the addresses of the reviewers for the physical copies to be dispatched from your end.
If you wish to give out physical copies, there are two ways – One is to send us the total amount as a bank transfer/ single Amazon voucher OR send us individual Amazon vouchers for each physical copy which can be then shared with the interested reviewers.
No, we do not send out physical books ourselves. Only through Amazon.
With the Google form, we understand the genre, language, and other details about the book. Based on these details, we will find suitable reviewers who are interested in reading books from this genre.
Once we have a list of interested reviewers, we will request you to provide the review copies to them. The reviewers have one month to read and review your book either on Amazon. in or on Goodreads or possibly both.
No, we do not guarantee five-star reviews even if you pay. We can only promise honest book reviews. They may be good reviews. Or not so good. We do not guarantee positive book reviews.
Yes, you can. Any book released after 31st March 2021 can be submitted to our book club for review.
An ARC, also known as an Advance Review Copy is usually used by publishing houses and authors to create a buzz about the book before its release. It is usually available 3-6 months before the release of the book. The aim of sending out ARCs is:
· To gain professional reviews.
· To understand the initial reactions to the book and plan the promotions accordingly.
· To seek endorsements that can be used on the jacket of the final print edition of the book.
An ARC helps an author get reviews before the book is released. These reviews help in promoting a book on different social media platforms. The end goal is more sales of the book.
ARCs are usually only online and not printed books.
No. We will let the reviewers interested in your genre/format/language know that your book is available. They may then choose to download your book based on their preference and the blurb of your book.
No. We do not take such requests or assure any minimum number of reviews.
Yes. Some 40% of our reviewers do not like to read eBooks, and prefer printed books. So offering only eBooks will reduce the number of readers. For maximum reach, we suggest offering both formats.
Yes. We welcome books that are not in English. We have book reviewers who read Hindi, Bengali, Telegu, Tamil, Kannada, and Gujarati. We also have a few reviewers for Urdu, Punjabi, Sanskrit, and French. Please be aware that readers of non-English and non-Hindi books may be very small in number.
We accept all genres except poetry books, religious books, or books based on religion (Fiction and Non-fiction).
We currently have over 200 members in the Book Club. Depending on their interest we will reach out to you for review copies (subject to your book being selected) and share it with them. However, we cannot guarantee how many reviews and by when can they be expected.
Meet-the-Author sessions are normally part of the package.
You can either include your interest in the form or write to us separately about it to info@himalayanwritingretreat.com
This includes a session on Zoom which will be recorded and further shared on our YouTube channel. The session will be open to all and you can share the link/invite with everyone.
We will share a list of probable questions along with the suggested dates and time schedule (usually 2-3 weeks post our discussion) for your approval.
Please note, Himalayan Book Club does not guarantee the number of participants in the session.
Also note, if due to any reasons the author decides to withdraw from the session, the amount is non-refundable. In case of unavoidable circumstances, we can change the date and time twice after which Team HWR will no longer hold any sessions for the author.
