Join us to find and share great books. Build an online bookshelf, write reviews, and post your favorite excerpts. Show your support for your local bookstore, find out about local and global events, join book clubs, and connect with friends new and old.

Join Dust Jacket Review

Where do I start? >>back to top

The first step: Create your free membership.

To do that, click on the "join DJR" at left (or just click here). Choose your member name and password, and enter your email address. We will send you an email with a confirmation link - once you click that link, you will be able to log in to Dust Jacket Review and get started.

Ok, I'm logged in to my new account. What next? >>back to top

The first step is to build you bookshelf. Search for your favorite books. When you share your reading experiences, you share something about yourself.

There is a search box at upper right. Type in the book title and hit enter.

Search results will appear. You'll notice a small icon after each title (it looks like this: ). If you click that icon, several options will appear. Click the option to add to your bookshelf - another box will appear where, if you like, you can add a brief comment about the read. Does it remind you of a favorite character? Your travels? School? Share your experiences via books.

What can I do at a book page? >>back to top

All sorts of things. Let's start at the top and work our way down:

Add to My Bookshelf button to add the book to your virtual shelf.

You may also click Review this Book to begin writing a book review.

Click Contribute an Excerpt to lend your favorite passage from this title.

We also have links to other online destinations where you can purchase or discover borrowing information about the book.

We will display the latest review, if any, on the main book page. You may see more reviews by clicking see all reviews

Add basic book information in the Synopsis - just click on "edit" to contribute.

Recommended Reads is the best place to offer and find book recommendations. If someone likes the book on this page, what other related books do you suppose they would like? Click "recommend a book" to make your suggestion.

Moving down the page, try posting a public message under "Book Quick Quips".

Writing book reviews >>back to top

To get started, click "start a review" in the left navigation. A popup will appear where you can search for a book title, and clicking the title will load that book in our review editor.

Using the review editor, you can write your assessment of the book. The editor includes some interesting options:

Spoiler tag. Hide sensitive info in your review by using this -
```
[spoiler] hidden text here [/spoiler]
```
Reponses. Start a dialog with responses to reviews. Click "write a response" on the bottom of reviews.
Subscriptions. DJR members can subscribe to their favorite reviewers. We'll notify you whenever one of your subscriptions publishes a new review. Find subscription links on member profiles and on their reviews.
Badges. If you have your own web site -- whether a publication, bookstore, blog, etc -- we can connect your reviews and profile with your personal site address. Sign up here.
Rate reviews. Give reviews a rating from 1 to 5 -- help our members find and share the most insightful reviews.

You may either publish your review, or you can choose to save your review-in-progress for later completion. Other people will be able to see your published reviews both on the corresponding book page and on your profile.

What is the options icon? ( )? >>back to top

While browsing books, notice that every book title is immediately followed by our options icon.

Click this icon to display a number of options for that book. The menu will appear on-the-fly, so it won't interrupt your browsing, and you can choose to add to your bookshelf, recommend to a friend, start a review, and more.

What do I need to know about my profile? >>back to top

Every DJR member has a personal profile. Most of your other activities on DJR are consolidated to your profile - the books you shelve, the books you earmark, the reviews you write and the excerpts you like, etc. More on the different sections below.

Click on another user's name to view their profile. You may control the privacy settings for your profile under account settings.

What About Friends? >>back to top

Exchange messages, book recommendations, and browse the bookshelves of your friends at Dust Jacket Review. To link up with a friend, click the "send friend request" option on their profile.

If your friends haven't found DJR yet, invite them to join. The more the merrier.

What are review subscriptions? >>back to top

If you find someone who writes great reviews, subscribe. We will keep track of your subscriptions and let you know when a new review has been published.

Find a link to subscribe on other members' profiles and on their book reviews. Also, keep track of how many subscribers you attract yourself.

What are these DJR badges? >>back to top

There are 5 kinds of badges on DJR - the basic badge is "DJR Member". Everyone has one by default, and it is not linked.

The other 4 badges are linked to a member's personal literary site - whether that member is a Writer, Small Press, Agent, or Bookseller. We've recently added a 6th badge to represent Book Clubs on our site.

If you would like to obtain a linked badge, sign up at our contact page.

Supporting Local Bookstores. >>back to top

You may choose a bookstore to support around DJR. The bookstore you choose will appear on your profile and on your reviews, along with its location and a link to its Google Maps listing. Choose a local bookstore to support in your account settings area.

Tools for Writers

Adding your book to Dust Jacket Review >>back to top

You are free to add new books at DJR.

Here are the steps for adding a book:

Log in to DJR.
At upper-right, click the link, "add a book to DJR".
You will arrive at our book adder. Type in the Title, Author(s), and ISBN. Click "Add This Book".

It is that simple. If you have any trouble adding your book, just let us know: support (at) dustjacketreview (dot) com

Getting your book noticed >>back to top

Here are steps writers can take to get their work noticed on Dust Jacket Review, as well as on search engines like Google.

Sign up for a badge that links to your own website. The linked badge is free and will appear on your DJR profile, search results, and any reviews you post. Write to us with your web address and DJR username: probadge (at) dustjacketreview (dot) com.
Add information about your book. Search by title to make sure your title is in our database. If it is not, you may add it directly. Each book gets its own page on Dust Jacket Review. You are free to post synopsis information, reviews, and excerpts. Adding this content will make it more likely for your book to appear in search results and on our homepage.
Add your books to your bookshelf. Shelved books are more likely to appear in search results. Also, add shelf comments which will also appear in results and on our home page. From your bookshelf on your profile, you may add keyword tags to help other people find your book too.
Post events. If you have an upcoming reading, or even just a virtual event here on the web, you may post it in our events area. This is a public calendar for our reading community. Once posted, you may also invite up to 10 people at a time by clicking the "Spread the Word" link on an event page.

Adding Excerpts >>back to top

You may also add an excerpt of your book to DJR.

Here are the steps for adding an excerpt:

Search for the book title, and click on the title on the search results page.
This will bring you to that book's page. Near the top, click on the link to "Contribute an Excerpt".
Fill in the required information and click submit. Please take note of our excerpt guidelines.

Some notes about books and excerpts >>back to top

You should be aware of various things that can be done with the books and excerpts added to Dust Jacket Review:

Email excerpts. Click "email this" to send an excerpt to a friend.
Post excerpts on your profile.. Spice up your profile with a favorite excerpt. Just click the "add to my profile" link that is at the bottom of any excerpt on DJR. If you have an excerpt to share, click the "post an excerpt" link at left to contribute.
Recommend books to your friends -- one of many options. After any book title on DJR, there is our options icon ( ). Click this icon for a number of options for that book title - so you can recommend to a friend, build your wishlist, or add to your bookshelf. And it is on-the-fly, so it will not interrupt your browsing.
Tags. Please help our members find great books by keyword tag! You may now add tags to the books on your shelf. In addition to organizing your shelf by keyword, this will help other DJRers search and find great books.

Posting and sharing events >>back to top

Join DJR to post and spread the word about literary events.

Here are the steps for posting an event:

Log in to DJR.
At top, click on the "events" tab.
You will arrive at our events page. At right, click on the "Post an Event" link.
This will bring you to our event form. Fill out the information to list your event.
Your event will have its own page where members can sign up to attend and help spread the word.

Some notes about events:

Invite attendees. Click "Spread the Word" on an event page to send an invite to friends. You can fill out up to 10 DJR usernames or email addresses to invite.
Email the Organizer.. You don't need to be the event organizer to post an event. On our form, it'd be helpful to fill out the organizer's information - and email address so we can let them know that you've posted an event on their behalf.
Coming soon. We will be creating a mass invite tool for event organizers. Stay tuned.

Book covers! >>back to top

Soon, oh very soon, our members will be able to add book covers. Until then, just shoot us an email if there's a cover you wish we had: support (at) dustjacketreview (dot) com

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