It has been over three years since indieBRAG, LLC launched its quality standards certification service for self-published books, a first for the industry. Since then, we have received an average of 100 book nominations a month and awarded over 500 B.R.A.G Medallions. We are proud of our library of high-quality indie books and we are grateful to the over 200 readers who have played a vital role in accomplishing this important and necessary task.
As those of you on our global reader team know, we offer general guidelines to help in the evaluation of each book; however, the final determination to award a B.R.A.G. Medallion is whether or not a reader would recommend the book to their best friend. Until now, we have not provided feedback to authors beyond a final “Yes” or “No” decision. This is due to the limitations of our current book submission and review process. However, that is about to change!
In response to many requests from authors and readers alike, we are significantly upgrading our operating system. While we are not yet ready to share the details, once the new system is implemented authors will be provided with constructive feedback in addition to the final decision regarding a Medallion. Importantly, this will not constitute a book review as that is not our mission; rather it will be a ‘report card’ that rates each book on a select list of relevant criteria. While this feedback will have obvious benefits for indie authors, we believe that the new review process will appeal to our readers as well, in that it will allow their thoughtful assessments to be shared with authors, while still protecting reader confidentiality.
To develop and implement this new system requires a major investment of time and money. As such, we expect to increase our processing fee but it will still be far below what other companies charge for book reviews. Additionally, to facilitate a smooth transition, book submissions will need to remain closed until the new system is launched later this fall. So stay tuned for more details over the coming weeks.
We hope you agree that something this important is worth waiting for! In the meantime, we thank you for your continued support and patience.
Geri & the indieBRAG Team
I’m so glad to hear this! If a book doesn’t make the cut, I think most authors would want to know why. Great change to the already awesome program.
A wonderful idea! And it’s no surprise. The Medallion is the unique concept in the Indie novel universe. And indieBRAG is the innovative leader in managing the publishing revolution. With this sort of willingness to adapt and evolve, the Medallion will become the gold standard that readers rely on, the one reliable filter that guarantees a good read.