Connect
To Top

Meet Patricia Moosbrugger of BlueInk Review in South Denver

Avatar photo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Patricia Moosbrugger.

Patricia, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
We started BlueInk Review ten years ago. Patti Thorn had recently lost her job at the Rocky Mountain News when the paper went out of business. She had been working there for 28 years, the last 12 as editor of the book’s pages.

I had recently moved from New York City to Denver. The New York publishing industry was in a bit of a slump and as a literary agent who had left NYC, I was interested in pursuing a new career.

Patti Thorn and I were both looking for a way to work with the growing self-publishing industry and decided to start a company offering book reviews to self-published authors. Self-published authors were still rather scorned at that time and it was very difficult for them to get professional, credible book reviews. We, thus, came up with the idea for our company. We would start a fee-based book review service and offer professional reviews, written by professional mainstream reviewers. Authors could then get credible book reviews and we could keep the book reviewers busy, as book pages were disappearing from newspapers across the country.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The road hasn’t always been smooth. When we started, we were actually working with a third partner. There were constant disagreements about direction, timing. Eventually, Patti and I split apart from the third partner and went our own way. There was a lot of trouble after that with litigation against us and threats of taking us down, which took a year to resolve.

We also made some mistakes with the technology along the way. The first web developer we worked with had their own proprietary web platform. Of course, that should have been a red flag right away, but we went with them anyway. What “proprietary” meant was that they controlled everything and we had no possibility of making even minor changes to the site without their expertise. So, every small change along the way got more and more expensive, to the point that we had to find a new developer. We changed to a WordPress site after a few years. But the original company didn’t freely give us all our files, and it was a huge expense and very labor intensive to make the changes.

We also secured a very big client right off the bat when we started the company. So, we became a little complacent in our comfortable situation. When the company suddenly reduced their business, we were left a little high and dry. It forced us to become much more aggressive in our marketing efforts in order to recover.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with BlueInk Review – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
BlueInk Review is a book review service. Our reviews are written for readers, booksellers, and librarians. While we review mainly self-published books, we can review any book. We use professional book reviewers who have generally written for mainstream publications, popular blogs or have edited for publishing houses. We work with roughly 100 book reviewers across the country and are thus able to match any book we receive with the BlueInk Review is a book review service. Our reviews are written for readers, booksellers, and librarians. While we review mainly self-published books, we can review any book. We use professional book reviewers who have generally written for mainstream publications, popular blogs or have edited for publishing houses. We work with roughly 100 book reviewers across the country and are thus able to match any book we receive with the appropriate reviewer for the genre or subject matter: mystery books to mystery reviewers, math books to a math professional…

Our model is different than The New York Times, say because we charge the author upfront for the book reviews. BlueInk Review is a book review service. Our reviews are written for readers, booksellers, and librarians. While we review mainly self-published books, we can review any book. We use professional book reviewers who have generally written for mainstream publications, popular blogs or have edited for publishing houses. We work with roughly 100 book reviewers across the country and are thus able to match any book we receive with the appropriate reviewer for the genre or subject matter: mystery books to mystery reviewers, math books to a math professional…

We are thus a source of a guaranteed book review for authors who want to pay for such a thing. And the fee paid allows us to also pay the book reviewers and keep them in business. Many people think that if you pay for a book review, you’ll get a good review and it can’t be objective. That is not the case with us. We do not promise good reviews; we promise professional, credible book reviews. In fact, our website has hundreds of reviews of all kinds: positive, negative and everything in between. As a kind of concession recognizing the payment issue, we do allow authors who don’t like the review to request that the review not be posted or distributed to any of our partners. So, if an author receives an unfavorable review, they can make it disappear, effectively.

We’re proud of our business and how it has grown and evolved over the years. We are one of three companies that are highly respected and reputable in this field. Readers, librarians, and booksellers take our reviews very seriously. And, we offer a much-needed service to independent authors. In this world of reviews for everything from restaurants to vacuums, it’s very difficult to establish credibility for your product without credible reviews. We provide that service.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
We’re looking forward to expanding our business to include traditionally published books in addition to self-published titles. As more and more newspapers and magazines are cutting down on book review pages, even traditionally published books are having a hard time getting professional book reviews. We feel we can be a great source of book reviews for all types of books.

Pricing:

  • Standard book review (8-9 week turnaround time): $395
  • Fast-track book review (4-6 week turnaround time): $495

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
Patricia Moosbrugger

Getting in touch: VoyageDenver is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

Related Items

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More in