What do the different spice level numbers mean?
“Spice” is a term used in the book world to indicate sex in a story. On this site, we use a 1-5 rating system, indicated by pepper emojis: 🌶️
1 🌶️ = Totally chaste. Not even implied sex. Light kissing and touching.
2 🌶️🌶️ = Passionate kissing, descriptive touching, fade to black
3 🌶️🌶️🌶️ = Intense making out, summarized sex scenes
4 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ = Somewhat descriptive but still hot sex scenes that don’t describe body parts
5 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ = Highly explicit descriptions with multiple sex scenes throughout the book. Blazing hot.
How do I submit my book onto Pretty Bookshelf?
If you’re an indie author or small press, you just need to fill out this form. One form is required per book. It’s kind of long, but that’s because I want to give your book the best shot it can at catching a reader’s interest. To that end, I collect all the information I need to create your book page.
Are small press books allowed to be submitted?
Yes! Like indie authors, small presses don’t have the big budgets for marketing, so we want to support you too.
It’s been a few days since I submitted my book and I haven’t heard anything. Was it received?
Processes are currently manual, including the notification email that is sent out when your book submission is received. If you don’t receive an email stating that your submission was received within 24 hours of submission, please check your spam filter for messages from [email protected]. If you’re quite sure you’ve received no confirmation, you may contact us to inquire about the status of your book submission.
I’m confused about what some of the tags mean. How are these tags defined?
Different people, platforms, and publishers have their own definitions for story terms, and not all of them agree with each other. Pretty Bookshelf has placed specific meanings on certain terms to help readers distinguish books that have these specific elements that they like. This page lists some commonly confused terms and how Pretty Bookshelf interprets them.