The last page has been turned and the final sentence read. You have to tell someone about this amazing book; the whole world should know!
Today, Kingdom Pen is making that possible. KP isn’t global yet, but we are on the World Wide Web, which is close enough. 
Book reviews can be difficult to write, but we’ve simplified the process just for you! One of our editors, the talented Josiah DeGraaf, has written up guidelines that doubles as a how-to for writing book reviews!
Once you’ve written up your stellar book review, simply put it in a Word document and email it to kingdompenmag@gmail.com with the subject line: “Book Review.”
We look forward to receiving your reviews!
KP Guide to Writing Book Reviews
Fiction Book Reviews
The goal of this guide is to give a general sense of direction for subscribers who want to write fiction book reviews to be published on Kingdom Pen. Book reviews should try to hit all of the different aspects included below, and preferably should follow the suggested format. But if you feel like the book review would work better with the elements below in a different sequence, reviews need not strictly follow the suggested sequence (although it is recommended).
Summary of the Book
Begin the review by describing what the book is about. A good way to do this would be to start with a one-to-two-sentence hook and then go on to explain what the book is about. Now, since this is a book review and not a book report, you don’t want to give away the whole plot of the book (don’t include any spoilers). Rather, you want to give a general idea of the book’s premise and what it’s about in order to entice people to read the book. One to two paragraphs would probably suffice for this section of the review.
If this book has won any awards or has been really popular, include this information at the end of the summary.
Review of the Book
Moving on to the actual review of the book, explain to the reader why this is a good book and why it is worth reading. For the book reviews that KP publishes, we prefer to only publish reviews of books that we’re actually recommending, so at this point in time, we’re not going to publish negative book reviews. However, if there are any weaknesses that you see in the book, please include a brief discussion of those weaknesses as well, since we do want to give a balanced review of the book. In listing the book’s strengths, try to include specific things in the book that you liked as well as general things, although of course you’ll want to avoid spoiling major plot developments in the book.
Since KP is focused on helping Christian writers to write well, a quick discussion of the book’s worldview, to whatever extent it’s present, would be appreciated. In addition to this, since KP is focused on helping Christian writers to write well, if there are specific aspects of the book that you think writers could learn from, please feel free to include some particular discussion of those aspects as well.
Content Advisory
If there are any parts of this book that you think might not be suitable for younger or less mature readers, please include that in this section of the review.
Nonfiction Book Reviews
The goal of this guide is to give a general sense of direction for subscribers who want to write nonfiction book reviews to be published on Kingdom Pen. Book reviews should try to hit all of the different aspects included below, and preferably should follow the suggested format. But if you feel like the book review would work better with the elements below in a different sequence, reviews need not strictly follow the suggested sequence (although it is recommended).
Summary of the Book
Begin the review by describing what the book is about. A general explanation of the book’s thesis and the different points that the author makes would be good. You don’t need to be too specific because those sorts of descriptions are better sorted to the review portion. However, a general discussion of what the book is about would be good. One paragraph would probably suffice for this section of the review, but two paragraphs would be fine as well.
If this book has won any awards or has been really popular, include this information at the end of the summary.
Review of the Book
Moving on to the actual review of the book, explain to the reader why this is a good book and why it is worth reading. For the book reviews that KP publishes, we prefer to only publish reviews of books that we’re actually recommending, so at this point in time, we’re not going to publish negative book reviews. However, if there are any weaknesses that you see in the book, please include a brief discussion of those weaknesses as well, since we do want to give a balanced review of the book. In listing the book’s strengths, try to include specific parts of the book that you liked as well as general parts, and explain what specific lessons or applications you personally took from the book. When relevant, an explanation of the author’s specific arguments would be good, but try to avoid stating the author’s entire line of reasoning, since we do want the reader to read the book as well.
While nonfiction books don’t need to be explicitly focused on writing, since this is a website for writers, if this book is not explicitly on writing but you still see applications in the book for writers, please try to include that as well in the review.
Content Advisory
If there are any parts of this book that you think might not be suitable for younger or less mature readers, please include that in this section of the review.
-Josiah DeGraaf
Oh boy… I would LOVE to do this if I could write a book review in fewer than a hundred thousand words! I can’t just review a book. I absolutely have to pick it to pieces.
And I have the utmost respect for those of you who can be both articulate and concise. 😀
Oooh, nice addition! I have one or two in mind to review, but no time to work on writing those yet. Soon, though. 🙂