Obtaining Trade Reviews

We all appreciate reviews. Reviews from other writers, especially can help us focus on areas we have overlooked when polishing our manuscripts. I’ve been very fortunate in having received real, usable notes over the years from agents, editors and other writers, that have helped me make my first novel, The Red Gate, as good as I can make it. 

When the time comes to sell the novel, however, the only review that is important, is the one that comes from the trade.  Without trade reviews, the work, no matter how good, can languish.  That’s where I am now, seeking a pathway into one of the bastions of Big Publishing: The Trade Review.  I’ve found that trade reviewers rarely will even glance at a self-published novel — no matter the genre — well excepting Romance, which seems to always have a ready market.   Despite many TRADE JOURNALS acknowledging the advent of POD as the vanguard of the next big thing, they persist in perpetuating the old saw, that if you publish your own work, it’s because the work is not good enough for a REAL publisher.

Do any of you in the Publetariat ether, have any experiences obtaining trade reviews of their work, that I might implement in getting the word out?