Book Reviews Coming to Indie Bookstore Websites

The American Booksellers Association is partnering with Literary Hub to bring professional reviews to book pages on IndieBound.org and IndieCommerce sites.

Starting this month, readers visiting IndieBound.org will begin seeing at least three book reviews, courtesy of LitHub’s Book Marks, on certain title pages. Reviews will also appear automatically on IndieLite sites; stores using the IndieCommerce platform can opt in to have the feature appear on their sites.

“We created Book Marks because we believe in the value of professional criticism,” said Literary Hub Co-founder Morgan Entrekin, publisher at Grove/Atlantic. “Book Marks is not intended to replace the existing online conversation, but rather add to it by offering a snapshot of what professional reviewers are saying about a book. We think this will be enormously helpful, especially for websites that do not currently have lots of reader reviews.”

“We are pleased to be partnering with Literary Hub on this new initiative to share book reviews on IndieBound and to allow stores that elect to do so on their IndieCommerce sites,” said ABA CEO Oren Teicher. “Book Marks provides just the sort of content that members have been requesting. Literary Hub understands and appreciates indie bookstores, and we look forward to more readers and book buyers interacting online with Book Marks.”

Every day, the Book Marks staff scours the most important and active outlets of literary journalism in the U.S. — from established national newspapers to regional weeklies and alternative websites — to log book reviews. When a book is reviewed by at least three outlets, each of those reviews is assigned an individual rating (Rave, Positive, Mixed or Pan). These ratings are then averaged and the book becomes part of the Book Marks database, which contains more than 20,000 individually curated reviews and has received over four million visitors since its inception. 

The Book Marks widget allows anyone to embed Book Marks reviews on their own sites as easily as embedding a YouTube video.

Two indie bookstore websites currently showcasing reviews from Book Marks are Books & Books in Florida and Third Place Books in Washington State.

IndieCommerce stores that wish to have this feature on their website can opt in from this configuration page: Store -> Configuration -> Account Information and Preferences -> Configure Book Settings

Booksellers with questions about the partnership can contact ABA’s IndieCommerce team or Book Marks Publisher Andy Hunter.