ATTENTION: As of 9/11/2020, The Romance Remedy program is discontinued. I might revisit it at a later date (with some fundamental changes), but as of right now, even though readers are engaged and happy to download free books, too many of them just aren't holding up their end of the bargain by leaving reviews. And there might've also been a few authors who didn't have realistic expectations. Ahem. You know who you are. But regardless, thanks so much to those who did participate. And I'm sorry that this whole grand idea didn't work out perfectly. Maybe someday...  

Romance Remedy
Think NetGalley—but WAY less expensive and only for romance authors

Whenever we ask romance authors what we can do to help them, they usually say one of two things: a) write my blurbs for me, or b) help me get more reviews. Well, we did something about the whole blurb thing. Now we thought it was time to help out with the review thing, since it’s fairly common knowledge that more reviews = more readers. So...you’re welcome.

The goal
Our readers want lots of books to read. You authors have lots of books that you want readers to read. Why not offer our readers one of your books for free in the hopes that they’ll leave you a review? It’s a win-win for everyone!

Have questions? Great. We’ve got answers. 

How does it work? 
If you have a book you want to submit to Romance Remedy, fill out this form. We’ll choose up to 20 books a month to feature on our site, and directly to our followers on social media and through our newsletter. If chosen, your book will remain on our site for 1 month. You’ll send us your MOBI file, and we’ll send it straight to the Kindles of any of our readers who request it.

Note: Book listings on the Romance Rehab website will include the cover, listing of tropes found in the book and the full book blurb.

What’s the cost?
Nothing’s ever free, is it? Yeah...sorry about that. We have bills to pay, just like you. If your book is chosen, we’ll send you a PayPal invoice for $25. For that amount, you’ll reserve your spot on our site’s special Romance Remedy page. We’ll promote that page regularly throughout the month to our social media and newsletter followers. 

How will you choose which books to feature?
We’d love to feature everyone’s books, but because we want to keep things simple for our readers, we just can’t do that. So, we’ll choose the books we feature monthly (no more than 20) based on:

1. The blurb. Does it sound like something we’d read?
2. The cover. Is it professionally designed?
3. The existing reviews. Are they largely positive? (Note: we don’t have any rules about how many reviews you need to have in order to be considered.)
4. If we’re having trouble making a decision after all that, we might check out the Amazon sample. 

We’ll also give preferential treatment to any books/authors we’ve favorably reviewed in the past, and any current customers of our blurb services. However, being a customer and/or having a positive review on our site doesn’t guarantee you entry into this program. 

What type of books will you be featuring?
We’ll only be featuring romance novels. That means no women’s fiction, speculative fiction, literary fiction, poetry...you get the idea. Only romance. But, the good news is that we’ll consider any type of romance: paranormal, historical, contemporary, new adult, urban fantasy with strong romantic elements, romantic suspense, LGBTQ+ romance, romantic erotica—we’re pretty open minded and we don’t discriminate. We’re also open to new releases, old releases, and Kindle Unlimited books.

We will, however, only be offering this service to readers on Kindle. Sorry to all the Nook and Kobo users out there. 

Does submitting to this service violate the Amazon or Kindle Unlimited TOS?   
Nope. We’re not selling your book on our site, so you wouldn’t be violating the KU exclusivity clause. And we’re not giving out books explicitly in exchange for reviews, so we’re not violating the TOS. We are offering free copies—just like NetGalley and Booksprout does—with the understanding that not leaving a review would be a dick move on the part of whoever takes their free copy. Offering free copies in the hopes of getting reviews is no different than any standard ARC program, and ARCs are not in violation of Amazon’s TOS. 

How many followers do you have?
We gain new followers every day, but currently, we’re at a little over 10K. Our site gets over 5K brand new visitors each week, and that number is climbing. (*happy dance*)

How can you guarantee my book won’t end up on a pirate site if I use this service?
Sadly, we can’t. Book thieves are awful, horrible people who will figure out a way to steal even if every conceivable safety measure is taken. We’ll try to limit theft by:

1. Sending files directly to Kindles, not via email
2. Kicking anyone who we determine is a thief out of the program forever
3. Promising that we’d rather flush our Kindles down the toilet than steal from authors ourselves. So, if your book gets stolen...it wasn’t us. 

That’s about the best we can do. Sorry. Like we said, thieves are insidious and diabolical. There’s not much that can be done to stop them.

How will I know if Romance Remedy provided any value?
Good question. Luckily, we have a good answer. At the end of each month, we'll provide participating authors with the total number of downloads requested for their book.  

Disclaimers

• We can’t guarantee how many reviews you’ll get if you use this service. If we put your book up on our site and promote it, we’ve done our part. If your book doesn’t appeal to our readers enough for them to request a copy, sorry, but that’s not on us. So, no refunds will be issued if you don’t get the number of reviews you want out of the service.
• We can’t guarantee you’ll get GOOD reviews out of this service. If readers don’t like your book, that totally sucks, but it’s not our fault. 
• Paying for this service indicates that you won’t hold Romance Rehab responsible if your book ends up on a pirate site. (We can guarantee only that WE won’t give pirates your book. We’ll do what we can to protect it, but...see above message about dirty pirates.)
• We can’t guarantee that your sales will increase as you get more reviews. 
• We can’t force our readers to leave you reviews. We’ll let them know it’s a dick move to take a free book and not do ANYTHING for the author in return. But requiring a review in exchange for a free book is a violation of Amazon’s TOS. We’re making a polite request for reviews, not demanding anything. So, yes...it’s a gamble. You might give out some books to folks who don’t review anywhere. But our bet is that some of them WILL leave reviews. Most of our readers are pretty nice folks, after all.       

Any other questions? Let us know! We’re happy to discuss. Contact Jennifer at: jennifer@romancerehab.com. ​

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