Reviews, reviews, reviews!

Every independent author wants to succeed. Every self-published writer wants to see his/her book(s) up there in the stratosphere, comfortably sharing shelf space in the high clouds with bestsellers. For most of us, that’s not likely to happen, and realistic authors like me accept that. My hope, as a self-published writer who is diligently trying to establish a following, is to develop a steady, loyal fan base, one large enough to encourage me to keep writing. That process has not been an easy one.

Indie writers are handicapped from the start. Responsibility for everything, from editing to book covers, and especially for marketing is in your hands. If you are financially constrained, as I am, it makes it difficult to establish a foothold, as you are limited in what marketing strategies you can employ. Free social media is, of course, a readily available tool, but one that increasingly disappoints. My experience has shown that you must already be a known commodity or, at the very least, have established credibility among readers before they are willing to risk their money on you.

Here’s where the catch-22 for indie authors rears its ugly head. Reviews influence readers. Readers will tell you that they don't, but I believe it is always in the back of every reader’s mind. Good reviews impress, and the more of them there are the better the chance for sales. So how do indie writers get reviews? Mainstream reviewers for major publications or similar media don’t review self-published works. Independent writers must rely on the reading public to provide their reviews. If your book doesn’t have any reviews, readers are not going to buy it. But you first need readers to buy it to get reviews. It is a classic catch-22 dilemma.

Now, you could always offer your book free for a limited time and hope that one or more who acquire it will also review it. I have offered mine free on several occasions, but no reviews have resulted. Some bloggers will review books if you provide a free copy. It's a wonderful idea, and I’m sure it works quite well. The problem I see is that even that avenue is not ideal. Seeking out individual bloggers willing to read and review self-published books is time consuming, and more often than not you will find they are not currently accepting submissions. It is somewhat the same with those wonderful freelance individuals (like those at Goodreads) who offer to read authors' books and write reviews. They cannot accommodate every author desiring their service, but it is nice having anyone out there willing to do this for you. I find, however, that most only read and review specific genres (romance, YA urban dystopian werewolves or the like), and those genres tend to be ones that don't include mine. If your genre doesn’t fit within those parameters, where do you go? Your choices are narrow.

I guess the point of this post (if there is one) is to suggest that there has to be a better way for independent writers to receive reviews. I wish that an organization existed whose sole purpose was to offer free reviews of self-published books. An author would provide a free copy of an e-book to this entity, which would then electronically send it to all individuals listed in a vast computer database who have committed to writing reviews for books in that particular genre. Reviewers would have the option to select from the list only those books that interest them. The hope would be that from a sizable membership every book submitted would find some interest, at least from a small fraction of reviewers, even if just one. The ideal would be to generate multiple reviews from this deep pool of reader/reviewers. Is it feasible? I have no idea. There probably aren't that many people out there interested in writing reviews, so I'm sure it would be unworkable. Oh well, it was just an interesting fantasy, which happens to be one of the genres I write in—sort of.