Hi guys! I want to welcome you to the first part of how to get your book reviewed! This basically sums up a few months of research I did online for all you rookies out there. The next few days will familiarize you with the "reviewing business". And it's all free, no product recommendations at all, I promise! Today also happens to be the kick-off for my book review tour, so you can click here for the schedule. Sweetheart.
And to all my new followers, yes this a review blog. But I wanted to provide you guys with a short course for my sprouting authors (GO INDIE!). Reviews will return shortly.
Also, I have a blog for my book which can be reached here. Under construction. Will look nice tomorrow.
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If you want to skip to the good stuff, see my list at the bottom that directs you to places where you can find reviewers.
I like to view review requests as modeling auditions. Okay, that doesn't make sense, but let me explain.Models can be super talented and still not get picked for certain roles. That could be because they lack talent or stage presence, but a lot of time even the most talented models get turned down simply because they do not fit the vision of the photographer, or the niche of the agency. The same goes for books. When a book gets rejected from a reviewer, maybe the reviewer simply doesn't like that genre. (Even if a reviewer claims they like a genre your book falls in, there are a lot of subcategories)
In some cases, your review request may have ticked off the potential reviewer. We'll go over that tomorrow.
Keeping that in mind, you want to find as many potential reviewers as you can. I'm not talking the top reviewers on Amazon, or someone from Publishers Weekly (though that would be nice). If you're looking for publicity, fine, buy a blog tour. But if you just want someone to give their honest opinion, you need to scrape the bottom of the barrel for anyone who wants to read.
So where do you find these people?
1. Blogs are the best places to go because they promise reviews and publicity, but in most cases, bloggers have TBR piles from two to even eight-months thick. So if you want a review sometime this year, that could propose a problem.
I'm going to give you a list where you can find YA and NA bloggers, by clicking HERE. But instead of using that list and contacting blogs you don't even read, I suggest you create a BlogLuvin' account to find book blogs you truly enjoy. Why? When I first made this blog, I contacted Gabby at one of my favorite blogs (What's Beyond Forks) for advice on how to start my blog. Two weeks ago, I asked her if she would feature my book on her site (her TBR pile stretched to early 2014) and she said yes. And guess what? She remembers me! Building connections, which is something we'll talk about tomorrow, we'll pay off on the long run. Finding friends in the book world is an asset you want to have.
2. Goodreads groups are also great. Biggest turnout, nuh uh. But smaller groups are best to approach because they're just starting out. You just might be the first author to approach them. And small groups want big content.
With Goodreads you'll meet a lot of people who don't have blogs or websites. So they rarely get free books. When small-town people are approach by real authors asking them to read their book, that makes them feel extra special.
If you want to get a few reviews, approach a handful of smaller groups or one large group. Larger groups will probably want nothing to do with you, so I suggest asking groups that are just starting out. Getting approved by at least 5 will give you at least 25 to 30 reviews. Not bad for no money put in, right?
3. Social networks are nice if you have a decent following. By decent, I mean you don't do follow-for-follow, or your number of people you follow doesn't exceed your followers. I haven't tried this myself, but what harm could come out of sending an announcement saying "Hey, any of you want to read my book?"
I hope this has helped some of you who haven't done much research in the industry, but there is still more to come. Tomorrow we'll talk building connections for a higher turnout and the next day we'll discuss our plan of attack.
By the way, please stay tuned on my Twitter account for tour updates. And the Dawn of the Apocalypse book trailer will be releasing sometime today. I'll be sending out a tweet to let you guys know where and when.
Stay thirsty, my friends.
Other Places to Get Book Reviews:
Being a blogger and reviewer, besides a reading addict, I was curious to see this from an authors point of view.
ReplyDeleteYou covered many bases here. It is sad that us bloggers can't accept every book we get a request for. I feel guilty when I can't accept them all.
Presentation is crucial. You don't want the reviewer to have to hop all over to find out about the book and other books by the author. I'll be following this as you go further:)
Can't wait to see your trailer!