Often my biggest struggle reviewing self-published books occurs, not in writing the review, but while cross-posting it to Amazon and Goodreads, where I’m compelled to assign a rating. And, since not every author knows that a three-star rating on Amazon equates to a two-star rating on Goodreads, I’m occasionally questioned on my choice.

Now I personally find star ratings irrelevant at best and would bypass this step if I could; I want my words to speak for me alone. However, I’ve come to acknowledge the importance of ratings to some authors’ egos and marketing efforts.

As a compromise, I’ve decided that, effective today, all my reviews will get a three-star rating on Amazon and two stars on Goodreads. But authors can, for a price, bump up that star rating. He or she could purchase one or two more stars—I’m thinking at $100 per star—and promote the rating up to five stars on Amazon and four on Goodreads. A fifth star on the more discerning Goodreads would be negotiable.

Note that this option would be entirely at the author’s choice entirely and all such transactions would remain strictly confidential. Of course, the actual text of my review would remain unaltered.

What about the potential discrepancy between content of the review and the star rating? Here’s the ironic thing: I believe people tend to skim over five-star reviews; they’re drawn to those three stars or less. So by upgrading the score, your overall rating improves and people will skim over the negative stuff that may help your craft but, arguably, scare off readers from reading the gory details.

Nick on his recent book tour in Tokyo!

All the way from a mountain in Ecuador, LLBR is pleased to welcome its newest reviewer, author Nick Vasey!

Nick Vasey was born in 1968, raised in various parts of Australia, and completed a Commerce degree in accounting, marketing and law in 1989 at Murdoch University, in Perth, Western Australia. Thereafter, one year of working in a multinational accounting practice was all it took to convince him to quit the typical career-path, and go travelling instead. Wise choice.

Over the next fifteen years Nick had a variety of adventures in over forty countries around the world. It would be safe to say that travelling itself became his primary passion. These experiences have confirmed in Nick a profoundly libertarian streak, and repeatedly proven to him that governments rarely have their citizens’ best interests at heart, and by default, should therefore be regarded with extreme scepticism.

Two of these years of global gallivanting (94/95 & 97/98) were very joyously spent living, working and partying in the nightlife industry, or mizu-shobai (water-trade), of Roppongi, Tokyo, Japan. The purpose each time was simple; to save as much money as possible in order to fund further travelling adventures. Suffice to say these two years in Roppongi proved to be more than sufficient in terms of providing both the material and the motivation for writing the novel.

Out of curiosity, in 2004 Nick briefly returned to Australia and plugged back into the ‘Matrix’ for a while, but found he still had no use for it. Dumbfounded and disappointed by people’s mindless pursuit of material wealth, AFL Football and reality-TV, in 2008 he quit the first-world altogether, for a more tranquil life in the Southern-Sierran township of Vilcabamba, Ecuador.

Nick and his wife Laura now live simply, with their many animals, in the mountain-top sanctuary they have named ‘Motu-Iti’. Currently, Nick is probably building a hummingbird feeder, and thinking about writing his second novel.

Since LLBR started in 2008, we’ve reviewed almost 300 books.  We’ve probably rejected more than that. Sadly, we can’t read them all.  But we can give you a chance to promote your book even if we don’t review it.  And indie authors love free promotion, right?  Well, here’s your chance.

We’re starting a new project on the site this year called “Spotlight On…The Story Behind Your Story!”

We want to hear why you wrote and self-published your book.  We’re not talking about soap box stories of how you always wanted to write a book and see it in print.  We want to read stories about you writing a book for a sick or dying loved one, you did it to make money to build a college fund for your kids, you wrote it because your ex husband said you’d never finish it, you wrote it for your sick grandmother because she encouraged you to, and so on.

Real heart felt feel good stories!  The story behind your story!

So, in 1,500 words or less, email us at llbookreview@gmail.com with your story.  Also, include a jpg picture of you with your book.  And if your story involves someone else, put them in the photo with you and your book too!  We’ll post your stories here on our site for everyone to read and enjoy.  So, the spotlight’s on you!  We want to read your story behind the story!

Feel free to email us with any questions.  Otherwise, send us your spotlight stories today!

Last week, I posted an inquiry on Facebook asking other authors if they knew yet how much our books were worth for the first month of Amazon’s new lending library fund.  I expected to get a bunch of “Duh!” comments, but thankfully didn’t get a one.  I guess no one else knew either, or they were avoiding the chance to shame me and just didn’t answer.

For those that don’t know, as an incentive to get you to make your books available for free on Kindle so that they can be “lent” to Prime members, Amazon set up a fund which sets aside so much money per month to be divided up by how many books were lent that month.  December’s fund was $500,000 dollars.  $6 million is the total dedicated to this project for all of 2012.  There’s more information available about it here.

Well, Jeff Bezos or some other Amazon behind-the-scenes person must have heard my cry.  An email went out yesterday announcing the results of December:

Hello from KDP!

We are excited to share with you that the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL) is off to a great start! Customers borrowed 295,000 KDP Select titles in December alone, and with the $500,000 December fund, you have earned $1.70 per borrow.

Enrolled authors and publishers, such as yourself, on average received 26% more money in December for their KDP-Select enrolled titles on top of their royalties from paid sales for the same titles. Also, our early results show that paid sales of enrolled titles are growing even faster than other KDP titles.

After reading this, of course, I immediately went to my dashboard to see how many times my books had been borrowed, did the math, and figured out how much I had earned total for December. Not too shabby!  Then the email went on to say this:

It gets better – because of the popularity of KOLL, fueled by seasonal use of new Kindles, and your strong participation in KDP Select to date, we are adding a $200,000 bonus to the January fund, raising the total from $500,000 to $700,000! See the press release for this here:

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1647593&highlight

As a reminder, your KDP Select December royalty information will be available on your December royalty report in mid-January.

That’s right!  They raised the fund total for January!

I usually have a pretty good idea of how much I’m making per month by Kindle sales.  I check my dashboard almost everyday and record each week’s total on my calendar.  I wish there was something on the dashboard showing us a daily total of what our “lending” titles are worth, like a large jackpot sign representing that month’s fund that constantly changes with each book lent.  Somehow, I don’t see that happening.  Unless, of course… Mr. Bezos, sir, are you out there reading this?

I asked C.V. if she’d be interested in having some of her reviews featured on our site this month since it’s that time of year for Horror and Supernatural reads, and she gladly accepted.  C.V. is a fast reader, so I offered her a few books in those genres that had been sent to us requesting reviews and she agreed to read those as well.

So, we are pleased to welcome C.V. as a new reviewer to the LLBR team.  She’ll be focusing on the horror, thriller, and supernatural genres. Welcome C.V.! In celebration of the season, look for several supernatural reviews from C.V. throughout the rest of this month!

C.V. Hunt is truly fascinated with all aspects of the horror/supernatural genre. She is the author of the Endlessly series, with the first two books available now. C.V. lives in a small town in Ohio with her husband. In her spare time she likes to read, write, paint, listen to music, go hiking, ride her 4-wheeler, and – if there is time left over – watch horror movies. If you would like to get to know her better, check out her blog, www.authorcvhunt.com.

Lloyd Lofthouse earned a BA in journalism, and then a MFA in writing.  In 1999, Lloyd visited China for the first time to research his first novel, My Splendid Concubine, which eventually resulted in two historical-fiction novels known as “The Concubine Saga“.

By the time he completed the saga in late 2007, he’d visited China several times.

After the launch of the Concubine Saga in 2008, Lloyd appeared on more than 30 talk-radio shows across America as a China expert on shows such as The Dr. Pat Show, Travel Talk Radio and twice on Smith and Riley.

The Concubine Saga earned honorable mentions from the 2008 and 2009 London Book Festival, the 2009 San Francisco Book Festival, the 2009 Hollywood Book Festival, the 2009 Los Angeles Book Festival, the 2009 Nashville Book Festival, the 2009 DIY Book Festival and was a finalist of the National Best Books 2010 Awards.

His short story, A Night at the ‘Well of Purity’ was a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards.

Lloyd Blogs at iLook China, Crazy Normal and The Soulful Veteran. In addition, he is currently editing and revising “Better a Dead Hero“, his next novel.

Watch for Lloyd’s first review tomorrow!

And what does this mean for authors, particularly those who have self-published their work only on Kindle?  Well…new readers, new exposure, and new sales we hope. But what about new reviews?

To date, my own three books have a total of 26 reviews combined.  The latest was posted 2 months ago. I’ve sold 25 books via Kindle this month, and sold a total of 78 last month. In other words, sales via Kindle have been steady so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll stay that way with the release of these new models. 

However, despite the steady flow of sales via Kindle, I’m not getting any reviews.  I’ve come to accept that I just don’t think Kindle owners review books!  I wanted to write a post about this, but thought I’d do a bit of research first – starting with a poll to find out if people review books in general. 

Just check out the poll over on the right side of the site and cast your vote today!  All I want to know is if you review books you read, and if so, where do you post those reviews.  Thanks for voting!

Jaime Hypes is a freelance writer with a BA in Sociology and Anthropology, with a focus on Gender Studies.  She enjoys writing through this lens on just about any topic, and rules nothing out.  Currently living in the Kalamazoo, MI area, she keeps busy writing for a variety of sources, but has been most recently focusing on the many opportunities blogosphere has to offer.  The 29 year old lives with her partner, two cats, and many books- all of which keep her equally entertained.  Visit her blog at twistingthelens.wordpress.com.

Check out Jaime’s first review tomorrow!

Authors can start by signing up here!  It’s all powered through Twitter.  All you need to register your books is the ASIN number assigned to your Kindle version at Amazon so that the program can find your book, and an email address to which requests can be sent.

Once you register a book, you’ll immediately get an email from Evan requesting your signature so that you can take the whole program for a test run.  It’s pretty cool too.  You start my typing your message and signature. You get to see how the signature will look on the Kindle device, and you can actually choose the font type for your signature for how you’d like it to appear.

Readers can visit www.kindlegraph.com to see what books are available and with one simple click, they can request the author’s signature. Wow!  This takes virtual book tours to a whole new level.

Indie authors: This is yet another excellent way to get exposure for your book!  Watch a tutorial of the program here!  There are currently 3500+ books available now from 700 authors! And don’t forget to follow @kindlegraph on Twitter to keep informed on how this program grows!

Google has announced its plans to launch a Google eBooks-optimized e-reader on July 17.

Called the iriver Story HD, the e-book reader is designed to give users easy access to the 3 million free titles Google holds in addition to a few hundred thousand paid titles, with a price and design that is very similar to Amazon’s Kindle.

The Story HD appears to be an evolution of iriver’s Story e-reader from 2009, a model that was praised for its wide support of e-book formats.

The Story HD has a similar design that includes a QWERTY keyboard, though this edition has plated gold accents on the keys and frame.

A long, thin four-direction button centered above the keyboard appears to handle page turning, meaning the Story HD is a step behind the newest Nook’s touchscreen page-turns for the same price.

Google notes that in addition to reading e-books from local storage, users will be able to read books directly via the Story HD’s WiFi connection without having to download the book to the device. The Google Books API is also open to all publishers, retailers, and manufacturers, so anyone can put their content on the store.

Given that Google Books is one of the most widely accessible e-book platforms — computers, Android and iOS devices as well as Nook and Sony readers can all access the e-book content — we expect the hardware and user experience will have to deliver in order for the reader to make an impact on a market where other brands like the Nook and Kindle already have significant momentum.

The Story HD is priced at $139.99 for a WiFi-only version, available in Target stores nationwide July 17.