Guidelines.

Your book

For publishers and authors interested in a book review. — First of all, congratulations to your completed book! We are looking forward to learning more about it. At Paralibrum we accept any form of submission: as an electronic file, webpage or printed book.

We are open to reviewing books that have been on the market for a long time as well as texts that are still sub rosa and only to be revealed in the future. What guides our selection is quality, not timeliness. As should go without saying, we guarantee complete confidentiality and respect of copyrights.

In general our key criteria for accepting a book for review are: (1) Personal interest in the subject as we commit to reading it in full, (2) available schedule of an expert critic in the domain of the book, (3) relevance of the topic to the field of Western Magic and Mysticism.

Please take time to read our specific Review Guidelines here (PDF one-pager).

Your review

For independent writers who would like to contribute a review. — Whether it is a book, art show or occulture event you are passionate about, we’d love to hear your expert opinion on it.

Of course, you can also offer your general availability as a Paralibrum Contributor. We are always on the hunt for more bright and critical minds to join our team of bibliophile volunteers. In this case, please specify your areas of expertise and occult interest. Also know, as part of writing a review, we will ask you for a short profile of yourself which will be shared on our Contributor page.

Please take time to read our specific Review Guidelines here (PDF one-pager).

You can get in touch with us through the contact field further below on this page.

Our approach

The worst case for publishers and authors is if if their work is read without the care and attention it deserves. At Paralibrum we have high standards for our reviews. Therefore we cannot commit to a timeline by when we complete and publish any new reviews. Quality takes it time, as of course you know as authors and publishers. Our standard for Paralibrum is to share regular new reviews, yet they will come organically as our schedules permit.

The word expert stems from the Latin term for experienced and skilled. That is precisely what we expect from our reviewers: to hold both practical and theoretic experience in the domain of the work they are reviewing. Of course, at the end of the day we are all humans - and each opinion is subjective to a degree. That is why — especially for non-fiction book reviews — we expect accurate quoting and source references from all contributors.

What we value above all are depth of expertise, independence of perspective and fairness of judgement. Each book review will be unique as, outside of our high quality standards, our contributors have full creative freedom to their approach.