The 3 Most Effective Book Review Locations

What are the most effective places to post book reviews?

That's the question I set out to answer in my recent post, "Book Reviews: Helpful or Not?"

In order to get my answer, I created three polls.

In the first, I asked," Do you rely on book reviews when choosing which books to buy?" Twenty-five visitors responded before I closed the polls last night. Here are the results:

Yes  24%  (6 votes)

No  8%  (2 votes)

Sometimes  60%  (15 votes)

Other  8%  (2 votes)

In the second poll, I asked, "Where do you read book reviews?" Fifty visitors responded. Here are the results:

Amazon  42%  (21 votes)

Barnes & Noble  6%  (3 votes)

Books-A-Million  0%  (0 votes)

Christianbook  4%  (2 votes)

Goodreads  20%  (10 votes)

Shelfari  0%  (0 votes)

On blogs  22%  (11 votes)

Other  6%  (3 votes)

In the third poll, I asked, "Where do you post book reviews?" Sixty-seven visitors responded. Here are the results:

Amazon  31.34%  (21 votes)

Barnes & Noble  5.97%  (4 votes)

Books-A-Million  1.49%  (1 votes)

Christianbook  10.45%  (7 votes)

Goodreads  20.9%  (14 votes)

Shelfari  2.99%  (2 votes)

On your blog  19.4%  (13 votes)

Other  7.46%  (5 votes)

After studying the results, I determined that book reviews are helpful. Eighty-four percent of those who responded to the first poll indicated they use book reviews to make their book-buying choices some or all of the time.

As a debut novelist with a book coming out soon, the findings show me that locating a group of readers willing to serve as influencers and post reviews is a good use of my time and limited number of author copies.

And where are the most effective places to post reviews? I wasn't surprised to find out that Amazon, Goodreads, and personal blogs are the three places the majority of those who responded go when they want to read reviews.

Based on this information, I would suggest that authors responding to those who have agreed to serve as influencers ask them to consider doing three things:

1. Post a review on Amazon

2. Post a review on Goodreads–if they are members of that site

3. Post a review on their blogs–if that's something they like to do

• • •

Did the findings of the polls surprise you, or were they what you expected?

If you're a person who serves as an influencer at times, do you think the list of possible ways to help promote a book is realistic and do-able? Why or why not?

image from iStockphoto









Filed under: Reading, Writing Tagged: effective book reviewers, Keli Gwyn, most effective book review sites, tips for book influencers