Titles for Review
Books | Ebooks | Graphic Novels | Zines | Audio | Video | E-Reviews
Books are selected for their potential interest to a broad spectrum of libraries. Only a few areas of publishing fall outside LJ's scope: textbooks, children's books, very technical or specialized works (particularly those directed at a professional audience), and books in languages other than English. We do, however, consider bilingual editions. Books previously published abroad are eligible if they are being released here for the first time and have a U.S. distributor.
We prefer to receive materials three to four months in advance of publication date since our primary goal is prepublication review. We will accept galleys, page proofs, or manuscripts (only one copy is necessary). Those publishers (small houses) that cannot supply advance galleys may submit finished books, but these should be sent as early as possible with the words "In lieu of galleys" and the publication date affixed to the cover. We generally avoid reviewing books later than date of publication, though we do make exceptions for reference and heavily illustrated works—if F & Gs are not available, send the finished book as early as possible.
Address materials to:
Book Review Editor
Library Journal
160 Varick Street, 11th Floor
New York, New York 10013
Include the following information: Author, title; name, address, and telephone number of publisher; date of publication; price; number of pages; and ISBN and LC numbers if available. Please indicate whether any illustrations, an index, or bibliography will be included; also include a brief description of the book, its intended audience, and information on the author's background.
Regarding review status: LJ does not answer review status queries
For regular updates about our upcoming reviews, please subscribe to our LJ Review Alert service and a list of books to be reviewed in a given issue will be emailed to you a month in advance of issue date.
If you have not seen your book listed in the Review Alert and cannot find it on our web site at the time of its publication, it was not chosen for review. Books that fall into the following categories may still be reviewed up to three months after their publication date:
- Reference
- Coffee-table books that are heavily illustrated
- Art books
- Graphic Novels
- Crafts and DIY
- Library Science
- Poetry
EBOOKS
Effective May 2011, Library Journal will consider for review original (i.e., previously unpublished) novel-length romance ebooks. We will eventually widen our scope to include novel-length e-originals in other popular genre fiction, as well as novellas and original nonfiction works. Simultaneous print/ebook romance titles are not eligible, though we will accept romance e-originals that will subsequently spin off print editions.
LJ will primarily use NetGalley to give our editors and select reviewers access to e-galleys of romance e-originals. If you do not work with NetGalley, you are welcome to contact us about setting up an alternative system. Please continue to submit physical galleys for all other subject areas per our regular guidelines.
While we recognize that ebooks call for tighter production schedules, we aim to review them as far in advance of publication as possible so that our subscribers can efficiently purchase access to titles and integrate them into their collections. Lead time will inevitably shrink, but we’d like to preserve it to ensure that libraries can provide the highest level of customer service.
Following the guidelines below does not guarantee a review, but doing so will increase the likelihood of prepublication exposure in LJ’s print and online forums (e.g., Prepub Alert, e-newsletters, and Xpress Reviews). Although most U.S. public libraries buy access to ebooks through OverDrive, LJ will consider works not available in that channel based on popular appeal and regional and national collection development needs.
E-originals selected for review will run online as Xpress Reviews and, in most cases, in the print Romance column, which publishes six times a year (February 15, April 15, June 15, August 15, October 15, and December 15).
To track the status of your e-original submissions, you must sign up for our free Review Alert, which lists which titles are being covered in a given print issue 30 days before that issue publishes. The Review Alert also includes books recently evaluated in Xpress Reviews and highlighted in our free e-newsletter BookSmack!
Please respect the privacy and objectivity of our reviewers; to communicate important changes to manuscripts or bibliographic data, contact LJ directly at egalleys@mediasourceinc.com.
If you have any questions about these guidelines, please email LJ Book Review Editor Heather McCormack at hmccormack@mediasourceinc.com.
Guidelines for E-Originals:
- E-galleys should ideally be uploaded to NetGalley at least two months prior to publication date; our editors and their reviewers assigned particular galleys require a minimum of 60 days of access to e-galleys to account for production schedules, delays, and life emergencies.
- Publishers must alert LJ that the e-galley is available via email to this address: egalleys@mediasourceinc.com.
- That email must contain an open NetGalley widget to grant LJ auto-approved access to that title. The widget should not be associated with a particular email address, since multiple LJ editors/reviewers will need access. (For help with the widget, contact support@netgalley.com.)
- That email should also contain the following title information:
- Title, subtitle, author, publisher/imprint, publication date, page count, ISBN(s), price(s), e-formats, vendors, and if there are illustrations, photographs, an index, a glossary, a bibliography, or any special features that enrich the reading experience. If the book is part of a series, indicate the series name along with the volume/book number.
- Concise, accurate catalog copy about a title’s plot, scope, author, and marketing plan. Questions we often ask ourselves while assigning that you should answer in advance: Is the book in question a debut? Will it have library-targeted marketing and include reading group guides? Have any of the author’s previous titles hit a best-sellers list or won awards? Is this a midlist author you’re hoping to break out?
- Emphasis for seasonal lead titles. When making our review decisions, we take into account how much push a publisher is giving a book, so talk to us. What are your hopes for a title? How does it build up an author’s oeuvre or expand the genre?
- As stated above, prepublication reviews are our goal, but we will consider works published within the last three months that hold special significance for library collections.
- Take the time to talk to librarians at trade shows and on social media because they buy boatloads of books and grow readers.
Please follow up review galleys with a copy of the bound book. Neither books nor galleys can be returned.
Graphic novels (GN) (including manga and other illustrated narrative titles) are reviewed in the Graphic Novels column in the print LJ six times/year. Additionally, GN reviews appear weekly in our web-only, freely-accessible Xpress Reviews section. For review consideration, advance copies are not necessary; we prefer to review from the finished copy when available (unless the galley is very high-quality). We do not review comics, only hardback or paperback compilations. Please send titles for review consideration as close to the publishing date as possible. Bibliographic information and promotional materials should be included in your package.
Please submit materials:
Heather McCormack
Library Journal
160 Varick Street, 11th Floor
New York, New York 10013
646-380-0736
hmccormack@mediasourceinc.com
Zines are reviewed in the Zines column in the print magazine 4 times each year. For review consideration, please send one copy along with information like the year it was produced, price, creator’s name, ordering/contact information, web address, and distros that stock your zine. For the Zines column, we do not consider publications that have a masthead, an ISSN, or a circulation of more than 2000 (consider submitting these for the Magazines column, guidelines above), and creators must do much of the production and distribution themselves and may not charge significantly more than the zines cost to produce.
Please submit relevant materials to:
Anna Katterjohn
Library Journal
160 Varick Street, 11th Floor
New York, New York 10013
646-380-0729
akatterjohn@mediasourceinc.com
Please submit CDs for review as soon as they are available—whenever possible, at least two months prior to their release. Promotional material must accompany each audiobook, noting publication date, number of discs, number of hours, whether abridged/unabridged, narrator, category, ISBN, and price. Please also specify whether an MP3-CD and/or digital downloadable edition is available.
Submit materials to:
Michael Rogers, Media Editor
Library Journal
160 Varick Street, 11th Floor
New York, New York 10013
646-380-0732
MRogers@mediasourceinc.com
DVDs are eligible for review in LJ if they are designed for an adult audience (public and academic) and were produced no earlier than 2010. Complete editions of appropriate releases should be sent along with information on the program's running time, distribution (name, address, phone, URL), all price information (MSR, rental, shipping/handling, public performance, etc.), ISBN or UPC, and closed-captioning if available.
Please submit materials to:
Bette-Lee Fox
Video Reviews
Library Journal
160 Varick Street, 11th Floor
New York, New York 10013
646-380-0717
blfox@mediasourceinc.com
For review consideration of online databases, please provide further information about your product to Cheryl LaGuardia at claguard@fas.harvard.edu and Josh Hadro at jhadro@mediasourceinc.com.






