Top 5 Mistakes Authors Make When Requesting a #bookreview #amwriting #amreading #MondayBlogs

Welcome 2017! Just before the New Year, I wrote about my year in review. You kind of have to, don’t ya? I tried to make that blog as upbeat as possible. Not everything is upbeat, however, because now I’m going to talk about five mistakes authors make when asking for a book review. I’ve written other blogs about this, but I keep seeing the same – dare I say stupid? – mistakes over and over again. These five mistakes drive me bananas! So, without further ado, here we go:

Using a private e-mail address with a cute name. My personal favorite? You and your partner’s name joined with the word love. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it is. Because it’s not professional. Indie authors get enough flak about our lack of professionalism. There’s no need to make it easy for the haters.
Using an e-mail address which is directly related to one of your books. This also doesn’t seem like a problem. If you’re only planning on writing one book, it isn’t. But if you are going to write more books? Houston – we have a problem. You’ll have to start over with gathering e-mail addresses. Reviewers and bloggers will be confused about who you are. Your e-mails from your new address may in fact go into their trash boxes because this is not the e-mail address they have on file. You’ll have to rebuild relationships. Marketing a book is hard enough without adding unnecessary work.
Reacting badly to friendly criticism. When I first started getting review requests, I’d often give the writer a few tips. For example, if there were typos in the e-mail, I’d say something like “I don’t know if you noticed, but…” Sounds friendly enough, right? Um, no. The vast majority of responses I got were nasty. Who do you think you are? They ranted. I can tell you what I’m not – a reviewer of your book! I no longer point these things out to writers. I simply hit delete on any e-mail that contains more than 3 typos.
Reacting badly to no. This one pisses me off. I’ve actually taken the time to read your e-mail and respond to it. Trust me, that doesn’t always happen. And then the writer has the gall to write to me that I should reconsider or that it’s my loss. Really? You’ve just been put on my never gonna read list.
And my top pet peeve about review requests – general emails. If you can’t bother to figure out my name (hint: it’s in the e-mail address), I’m not bothering to read your request. Delete. And if the request is super long with no hint that you have no freaking clue what I like to read or who I am, forget about it. Delete.

I could go on and on, but I promised to list only my top five. How about you? What are your top pet peeves with review requests?

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