So I’m going to do something a little different today and talk about Smashbomb!

I cross post my reviews to four places: my local library, Amazon, Goodreads, and Smashbomb. I’ve been cross-posting to Smashbomb since late 2017 – I reviewed them way back then, when the site was young. It has continued to grow and evolve and really become something quite cool.

Smashbomb is basically a social network for reviewing things. They have lots of categories; they’ve expanded a bunch from 2017, and now have Apps, Books, Movies, Music, Podcasts, Tabletop Games, Tech, TV, Video Games, and Videos. I’m of course most active in Book Reviews, but I also dabble in Tabletop Games and Movies. (I probably ought to branch out to Music, too!)

Their only downside is that occasionally they don’t have a book in their database yet when I want to review it, but it’s pretty easy to add books to their database. I actually have a spreadsheet of what books I’ve cross-posted where, and I need to go back through and add a bunch of them to Smashbomb! You also get credit for adding and updating item entries, so there’s a benefit to adding things yourself.

It’s almost gamified, with the kudos points. You can earn kudos for reviewing things, and people can award kudos to reviews or comments they particularly like. Once you have enough kudos, you can start entering their giveaways! (It’s a low number – 50 – for most of the giveaways, but high ticket items set the floor higher.) All they ask is if you win a giveaway, you write an exclusive review for Smashbomb.

There are leaderboards, for who has reviewed or rated the most things, who’s earned the most kudos, who’s added items to the database, and so on.

They’ve also added Orbs – groups – which I haven’t quite got the hang of yet, but I’m working on getting more involved in.

I do wish the notifications were separated a little more – specifically comments, and posts in orbs, which I might want to respond to, from everything else. I can go to “Show All Notifications” and filter down to just comments, so it’s not all bad, but that means I have to go check for comments because they tend to get buried in the hotbar drop down of notifications. I’ve already submitted that as feedback, which they’ve been VERY responsive to in the past. Another reason I like the site so much!

Smashbomb has also just started a “Publishing Partners” program for bloggers or other online content creators, where they help publicize your content if you talk about the website a bit. (Full disclosure, that’s why I’m writing this up, though my old review of Smashbomb has never stopped getting hits, which amuses me to no end.) I highly recommend getting involved on this site for other bloggers. I’d continue using the site and cross-posting book reviews anyway, but this is an added bonus!

If you’re already on Smashbomb, or if you go make an account, let me know your username and I’ll go follow you! I’d love to spread the love (and kudos!) around!