The Reader Leaderboard’s public page features books with active review activity. This article explains how books get featured and what authors can do to help.
How books surface on the public Leaderboard
The public page features:
- Most reviewed this month — books with the most approved reviews in the last 30 days
- Highest rated — books with at least 5 reviews and the highest average rating
- Recent reviews — a feed of newly-approved reviews across all books
- New books — books added to the platform in the last 60 days
What you can do as an author
- Add your books to your profile with cover images and accurate metadata — books without covers get filtered out of featured surfaces
- Encourage existing readers to review — if you have an email list of past readers, send a one-line ask to leave a review on The Smile Channel
- Be present in the community — reciprocity is real; reviewers tend to read books by authors who’ve reviewed their books
- Don’t pay for reviews or trade reviews dishonestly — quid-pro-quo trades get caught and de-featured
Editor's pick
Periodically, the team highlights a book under “Editor’s Pick” on the homepage and Leaderboard page. There’s no application — the team chooses based on quality, relevance, and the author’s broader engagement with the community.
What you can NOT do
- Pay for reviews. The platform has no paid review system. Anyone offering paid reviews is operating outside the rules.
- Coordinate reciprocal reviews (“I’ll review yours if you review mine”). Genuine reciprocity is fine; coordinated rings of mutual reviews get flagged.
- Use multiple accounts to inflate reviews on your own books. The system catches this.