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Get More Reviews For Your Book

By on November 15, 2016
Get More Reviews For Your Book - Writer's Life.org

Getting reviews for your book on well established and trusted websites such as Amazon and Goodreads can work wonders. Similarly, a lack of reviews or a few negative ones can badly affect your novels success.

I remember first putting my own novel on Amazon. I was fully (naively) confident that I would be able to get loads of reviews. I had over 300 whole friends on Facebook; surely they would want to buy and review my book for me, right?

Unfortunately, I was wrong on many levels.

Firstly it turns out even your best of friends have lives of their own and when it comes to asking for reviews you would be surprised at the many things that will get in the way. By the time you have asked a fifth time the fact that she was a bridesmaid at your wedding and godmother to your child seems to have no bearing on it at all...

Also, many sites (Amazon particularly) have filters to ensure that reviews are genuine. On Amazon, two people who live at the same address, for example, can’t both review your book. If they suspect that you have a relationship with the reviewer in any way, they tend to block them from reviewing, or worse still, delete the review.

This is both good and bad. In fairness the same rules apply to everyone, and it is important that customers can trust the reviews. Saying that selling books is very hard, and your friends and relatives may have genuinely loved the book, and if a book is passed around a household and they all want to leave a review, why shouldn’t they be able?

However, this post isn’t about the shortcomings of the Amazon review and rating system! It’s about how you can get more, genuine, positive, reviews for your book.

So how do you do it? Well, you ask them. There are plenty of reviewers out there who will be willing to read and review your book; it’s just a case of finding them. You can contact bloggers, reach out to fans via your social media accounts, or do a Goodreads giveaway or other book competition offering a free copy of your book in exchange for a review. Also having a good marketing plan before you publish your book will mean your book will be exposed to a wider audience - the more people that buy it, the more people that are likely to review it.

Of course, getting someone to review your book isn’t as simple as just asking and getting, and it is even harder to make sure that reviews will be positive. Truth be told you can’t guarantee that reviews of your book will always be great, but you can do certain things to increase your chances!

Write a brilliant query email

Reviewers tend to get bombarded with requests, so make your query stand out. Make sure you pay attention to any guidelines, find out the name of the person and address them directly. Make sure you include a link to your book and a word and page count.

Sell it to them

Give the reviewer a summary of what your book is about, its genre, who it would appeal to and why you think they would like it too. Doing this shows you have bothered to do your research and put some time and effort into contacting them - which makes them want to do the same for you.

Call in the professionals

So many books get bad reviews because they haven’t enlisted the help of a professional proofreader or book cover designer to help them. Misplaced comma’s, spelling mistakes and inconsistencies in your novel will be picked up and commented on and will put other readers off buying your novel.

Getting reviews for your book can be tricky, but keep persevering, and you will get there!

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

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