How do you go after book reviews? Do you hope that reviewers will find you? Do you know how to locate book reviewers and contact them? There are numerous book review directories, for example, and you’ll find individual reviewers’ websites online. Also, you can locate book reviewers by studying the amazon.com pages for books similar to yours as well as these authors’ website pages, to find out who is reviewing their books.
Most book reviewers do not charge for reviewing your book. I’ve had probably over a hundred reviews over the years and I’ve never paid for one.
There are also peer/reader reviews. Amazon.com invites readers to review the books they’ve read. I just wrote such a review this morning for a novel I read. Sometimes I just remember on my own to write a review for a book I particularly liked. But this time, the author posted a plea for reader reviewers at a discussion group I belong to. I’d read the book and liked it, so I wrote a brief review and posted it at Amazon and shared it with our mutual list.
Why did I go to the trouble and take the time to do this? Sure I am busy like the rest of you. But I did this for a fellow author—to help and encourage her. I also did it for myself. I am working on a novel and I hope that other authors who read it will review it.
What do reader reviews do for you? Some readers are swayed to purchase a book because of a review. More of them are swayed by many positive reviews. So if your book happens to have dozens of peer reviews posted at Amazon.com, it is featured in several magazines read by your audience, colleagues post it at their sites as recommended reading, etc. you are definitely going to make more sales. How do I know that? Because the more people who know about your book, the more sale you will make. Doesn’t that make sense?
So if you have been timid about soliciting reviews for your book and if sales are weak, maybe it is time to step up and start asking readers, friends, colleagues, appropriate organization leaders, appropriate magazine editors, etc. to write a brief (or elaborate) review of your book and post it where your potential readers will find it.
For more about how to solicit book reviews, be sure to read Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author. It’s at amazon.com and most other online and downtown bookstores. You’ll also find it here:
http://www.matilijapress.com