Almost a year to the day, Ricardo Fayet of Reedsy returns to HAP (previous appearance: Episode 22 – Reedsy Belongs in Your Author Toolbox) to tell us about Reedsy Discovery, a new book discovery platform designed to help readers find great new releases.

The discovery platform is like a mash up of Net Galley’s review platform and BookBub’s book alerts. Each week, Reedsy’s mailing list (currently ~10,000 readers, mostly fiction) receives notifications on the latest books reviewed on ReedsyDiscovery, with extra visibility given to books that have been upvoted, well-reviewed, and produced through the Reedsy marketplace.

Here’s how it works:

* Authors submit new releases (weeks or months before launch date). There is a one-time $50 submission fee. The author chooses a Reedsy Discovery launch date (can be before, on, or after the actual launch date, depending on your marketing plan).* The book submission should have strong cover art, a great blurb, and a well-formatted sample chapter – same as putting your book up for release. Reedsy has already noted that books with poor formatting or low quality covers do not attract reviewers.* The title is made available to a curated pool of reviewers. Reedsy have handpicked 120+ reviewers out of over 600 applications.* The book may or may not receive a review. If it does, it might not always be a positive one. Reviewers receive an email that a book in their preferred genre is available, and they can claim that book.* Right now, the minimum window between submitting a book for review and the Discovery launch date is 4 weeks, to make sure there’s enough time for a reviewer to pick up the book, read it, and write their review. In the future this may be reduced for authors in genres with more aggressive publication calendars.* Reviewers follow a format that provides not only a long form review and a star rating, but includes a Tweet-length “Blurb” field which, if positive, is a great marketing tool for an author.* On the Discovery launch date, the book goes “live” in the Discover feed, where readers can upvote the title. Books with negative reviews (under 3/5 stars) will be given less visibility. Books with positive reviews will receive most visibility. Books that have been upvoted will receive increased visibility (and may even defy a poor review).* The most upvoted books will be sent to Reedsy’s list of readers every week.

Find out more about Ricardo and Reedsy:

* Reedsy Marketplace* Twitter: @ReedsyHQ* Ricardo on Twitter: @RicardoFayet* ReedsyDiscovery

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