The Book Blogger List – What Questions do Authors Ask?
Welcome back!
As many of you know, I created and manage a list of book bloggers – of book reviewers. This list has been in existence since 2013 and I’ve listed well over 4000 book bloggers since it’s inception.
Along with listing newly submitted book bloggers to the site, I also answer questions submitted to the site. These questions highlight some of the common points of confusion.
I thought I’d share them here to help serve as a resource:
Find below 10 of the most common questions I field from authors.
1) Do all book bloggers leave reviews on Amazon?
The short answer is no – in fact many book bloggers have been the target of Amazon’s removing reviews for some perceived infringement of rules. If you are focusing your attention on only obtaining reviews posted to Amazon, read each blogger’s review policy or instructions to understand what they will do. (Or simply inquire.)
2) Are book bloggers just a review service?
Again, the short answer is no. Book Bloggers have a site on the Internet – call it a blog or call it a website – and they are interested in developing an audience on that site. Many bloggers are running their blog by themselves and simply don’t have enough time to read and review all the books they are offered. To compensate for that, they may offer to promote the book through a feature on their blog. This feature may be an interview or simply the posting of the cover, blurb and buy links to a book. These are generalized comments – make sure that you consult the information on each blogger’s site to determine what they do.
There are review services available. There are sites like NetGalley where readers who don’t necessarily have a blog but share their thoughts in other ways can obtain books for review. There are also a variety of commercial promotion services that have developed a database of reviewers and will, for a fee, offer your book to their collection of reviewers.
3) Do you have a list of book bloggers who are located in XX country?
I am commonly asked for a list of book bloggers from a certain country. I’m given a variety of reasons for the request that range from a book only being released in a particular country to a promoter trying to focus their attention on promotion in a certain country.
I don’t actually keep track of the geographical location of the bloggers I list – though many will include their country of origin in their description. Because there are no walls on the Internet, any blog that is available on the Internet can be accessed from any country. To my way of thinking, the country of residence of a blogger is irrelevant. Although I’m Canadian, I have a blog that my stats tell me has its primary audience in India. I don’t have a clue how that happened :).
4) I’ve submitted to 15 or 20 bloggers and haven’t gotten any reviews
This is a common comment from authors. And it is difficult to respond to. I don’t know who they have approached and what the content of their query note is so I can’t judge. That being said, I can respond with generalities. I know from my surveys that the majority of experienced bloggers receive more submissions than they could ever hope to read. I also know from notes my blogs have received that, regardless of instructions, authors will put a press release in an email and send it off as a submission. Many will not read instructions from the blogger and therefore place themselves in the position of having their note deleted without being read. And many bloggers won’t respond to submissions if their answer is “no” because “no” answers simply cut into valuable reading time. Before you raise your eyebrows, one of my blogs receives about 200 submissions a week. Think how much reading time could be spent sending out “no” responses…also, one of my sites that reviews only romance regularly receives submissions for other genres of books – usually the author claims that there are “romantic elements,” as if that will put the book up my alley.
If bloggers are well targeted for genre of preference and the submission is well written and does a great job of convincing a blogger, the success rate should be higher than 1 in 15 or 1 in 20.
5) Would it be possible to just get a list of email addresses from you. I’m very busy and simply don’t have the time to peruse each listing.
I receive a note similar to the above several times a week and have done since the site was created six years ago. Authors who are looking for a list of email addresses are in the wrong spot. Not only are book bloggers interested in forming a relationship with authors, as I mentioned in the introduction, one would assume that the author would create a standard letter and mass mail it to the list. According to my survey, a very small percentage of bloggers respond to a form letter – and usually only in response to known authors or publishers – folks they have dealt with in the past.
The next point to make on this subject is that most bloggers want to be contacted in a particular way and with a particular set of information. Many of them use a contact form or submission form to collect information. An email that doesn’t fit their criteria will be deleted.
Because of the recent changes in privacy laws, in most countries permission must be given prior to communication. Since I have never asked for permission to hand out email addresses, I don’t have permission to offer these addresses.
The final response I give to a question such as this is to encourage these authors to contact a commercial service that they can pay to coordinate reviews of their book.
6) I am only interested in contacting bloggers who are focused on true literature and will recognize a great book when they read it.
I’m being somewhat general with the above question. I receive many questions about contacting bloggers who have various skills, various post secondary degrees, etc. To these queries I try to encourage the authors to visit the blogs, read the policies and read the reviews before submitting to a site.
Ultimately, once a book is published, that book is available to be purchased and reviewed by anyone who has the money. General readers don’t have to provide proof of an advanced degree to purchase and review a book. They don’t have to provide proof of understanding of the nuances of the genre they are purchasing – they just need money.
And yes, some people are simply plain mean. They go out of their way to leave a nasty, completely undeserving review on places such as Amazon. It hurts. You need to learn to ignore this nastiness.
As for contacting book bloggers who have a perceived skill to ask them to review your book, if you read a blogger’s review policy and read some of their reviews, you can form a picture of how they will respond to your book.
Several years ago, there was a well-publicized rant on social media by an author whose book had been reviewed by a blogger whom they considered unworthy of their book. The blog was littered with sparkly fairies and other whimsical decorations. The review was littered with spelling and grammar errors. What the author failed to notice was that the review was glowing and the blogger had a following in the thousands. That review probably helped the author sell many books, but the author could only focus on the spelling errors and the fairies.
7) Can I request a book blogger link their review to my website or blog?
The short answer is yes! Most bloggers are interested in building up the audience of their site. For you to encourage your readers to visit the blogger’s site to read the review helps the blogger build their audience. If your readers are interested in what you write, they are likely interested in reading more of what the blogger reviews and will become a follower of that blogger. Likewise, followers of the blogger are likely interested in reading more of what you write. Most readers will have a large number of authors they regularly read – let’s face it – authors don’t write fast enough to keep readers occupied with books :).
Developing a relationship with book bloggers can be a good thing!
8) What are the requirements for you to read/review my book?
This is a query I frequently get through the contact form on The Book Blogger List as well as on my own personal blogs. This is a question that I find pretty frustrating. It is a question from an author who has clearly not read any instructions. When I get this question through The Book Blogger List, the author has to acknowledge that the note is going to the admin of the site and that the admin doesn’t review books. Not only that, there is a detailed page of instructions for authors (labeled “Instructions for Authors”) on the site. If it comes through one of my personal blogs, all have a page of instructions that is clearly labeled.
An author who obviously won’t read posted instructions has one strike against them right from the beginning. I always respond with the encouragement to read posted instructions, but I know that some do not.
9) I would like my book to be reviewed by a well-respected/well-connected book blogger.
This is a query that I’ve gotten so many times that I’ve created a YouTube video to help authors determine the audience of a target blogger. The link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRzpqDuyBcU
To a certain extent, the longer a blog exists and the more posts it has, the more attention it generates. Many bloggers actively grow their audience. An active blog can easily get more than 500 visits each day. Those are a lot of eyeballs reading about a book!
10) Do book bloggers share information about book reviews on social media?
Book bloggers aren’t clones and will run their blogs however they choose to. It is a good idea to click on social media icons on their site to see what they share to their social media streams – see how interactive they are. Likely, as part of their “Review Policy” or “About Me” page, they will outline what they typically do with their reviews.
The listings on The Book Blogger List are now available in ebook format here. I feel that bloggers are great allies to have in the book promotion world. They are one piece of the puzzle – not the whole answer.
In other news, I have a new book and a new course with the title of “Website Tips & Tricks – 15 Lessons to Supercharge Your Author Website” The course has videos and worksheets, that the book doesn’t have, but I’m aware that many prefer learning from a book, so I’ve created both.
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