World, Writing, Wealth discussion
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How do you get reviews, Ann?
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My pleasure, Mr Graeme! Hope it helps someone!! Or lots of someones ^_~
Oh, snap! I gotta share this too cuz the vast amounts of awesome simply cannot be contained!!I emailed a blogger back just to thank her for a review they posted yesterday. Here's her reply...
8hrs ago:
I am so glad you loved it!!
One of our blogger friends would like to read for her blog.
here's her information if you would like to contact her
3hrs ago:
I may have emailed a few more blogger friends about the book...I will keep you posted!
16mins ago:
My friend's from a little blog ( only 50K likes on fb) lol --- is a little busy to read right now (and isn't a 3rd person fan) but she's going to post about the book on FB saying she's hearing a little buzz about it!!
Not a review but a shout out! Hope it helps with a few sales
Yeah, if anyone doesn't have time to submit to blogs...
*wry grin*
Oh, and just for the record, I did NOT ask her to promote for me at all. I NEVER ask. Ever. I did, however, ask her if there was anything else I could do to help their blog. I already did an interview that was posted with the book review.
Okay. No more sharing. I swear.
♥♥♥,
Ann
You're most welcome, Mr Eldon! *fist bumps* Lemme know how it goes!!
YW, Miss Alexa!! And thank you, Miss Marie cuz....I gotta share more. I just gotta! Holy Mother of Goodness!! This is freakin' surreal!!!
Me:
Okay, [blogger]...
What did I do to deserve your awesomeness? And OMGoodness! How can I ever, ever, ever repay your kindness??? Seriously. Anything. Anytime.
I'm blown away. Thank you. Sincerely. Wow.
Her (29mins ago):
WE just love supporting authors! Keep writing amazing books - that's all we want for you and need from you!
We are starting our Sunday Funday takeovers...on September 25th we are having one and we need someone to takeover our Reading Room (almost 2500 members)....
we have a 1/2 an hour open between Aleatha Romig and Penelope Ward and Vi Keeland...you interested?
That's one hell of a sandwich to be in!! - they both will draw quite a few peeps - you can play games - do giveaways - whatever you want!
Me (just now):
Holy sh*t! I never ever cuss and that totally just left my mouth. No joke. Romig? Ward? Keeland? Holy effin' sh*t!!! Lemme fangirl for a quick second and say OMG, yesssss!!! I am absolutely interested! And I promise to do my best too!!
Hugs the living daylights outta [blogger],
Ann
Yeah. I ain't professional in my emails haha!!! But OMG, guys! Go look up those three authors!! OMfreakinG!!! I'm not okay right now. I might have a heart attack. Oh, wait. I'm fine. That's just excitement.
Okay. I'm done. Unless she keeps emailing stuff that can't be real. Can't. Be. Real.
That's awesome!! Author takeovers can be amazing, and yours will definitely be!
Thank you so much, guys! Heh. I was just trying to help someone with this thread. Now y'all have to listen to me squeeee LMAO!
Awww, thanks, Miss Mehreen!I didn't actually do anything. Just happened to meet the best blogger ever haha! In fact, I've met a number of incredible ladies recently. Yeah, I adore them something fierce!! Oh, and here's the blog:
http://www.upallnightbookblog.com
It's all romance/erotica...
*snickers at spacey weirdos*
Hugs,
Ann
Annie wrote: "Awww, thanks, Miss Mehreen!I didn't actually do anything. Just happened to meet the best blogger ever haha! In fact, I've met a number of incredible ladies recently. Yeah, I adore them something ..."
You do what you're good at. Well done Ann!
congrats congrats Ann, that's good news :D Your book is an awesome readps was going to email you but I forgot, everyone just likes you naturally that your podcast episode has been downloaded over 300 times in less than a month. I didn't even promote it 'cause I've been busy
@Miss Mehreen: You're too sweet! TY!!@Miss Segi: Yay! That's awesome!! Win-win, eh? More traffic for you and more people listening to my voice...
(╥﹏╥)
That's them crying, not me. I'm still happy hahaha!!
@Miss Denise: Thank you! I'm glad it helps a bit. That was the whole point before I got all excited LOL!!
I'm not 100% sure if Kobo accepts mobi. I've always uploaded an epub. I believe they convert it to epub anyway...? Okay, I'm gonna go check for ya cuz I'm totally talking outta my butt right now LMAO!!
brb
EDIT: Okay. Just checked. You can upload doc, docx, odt, epub, or mobi. BUT it's converted into a Kobo formatted epub.
(That's the first time I've ever read the FAQ guide thingy. Never even opened it before. Heh.)
Denise wrote: "FYI, I saved your author website because I might use some of your ideas. If you don't mind. :) And I'm adding it to my Blog site. Danke Schoen!"Umm. Should I even pretend to posture here? Or just tackle hug you now? ^_~
Save, add, multiply, do whatever the heck helps ya, Miss Denise!
Technically, you need to have a different ISBN for individual ebook formats. The ONLY exception is if you're the only one distributing it.
Sooo my mobi (Amazon) and epub (Kobo) each have separate ISBNs. I do provide a pdf to certain advanced readers but since it isn't sold through any other retailers, I don't bother assigning an ISBN.
Oh, and before anyone informs me that Kindle books have ASINs and therefore, don't require an ISBN...
I know. I just like having it anyway. Tee hee.
@Miss Denise: I'm a lucky Canuck so I can sprinkle my free ISBNs all over the darn place hahaha!! Enjoy yoga ^_~@Mr Tim: Is that buzz you hear? I thought it was my brain short-circuiting...
Hi Annie.Wonderful news. Great to hear. Good luck with the blogging.
I'm not sure if that's true or not Tim. Honestly the only thing I know Amazon does is send an email a few months after purchase to ask for a review. Beyond that I think we're on our own...
I think that's author urban legend, Tim :)There's a meme floating around facebook that says when you get 50 Amazon reviews, your book shows up on other lists like "also bought" and goes out in a newsletter. On other memes, this number changes. None of my books have 50 reviews, but they show up on the lists all the time.
I am a serious Amazon Prime junkie and a Kindle Unlimited subscriber. I have never seen a newsletter, and if it exists, I don't know how someone would go about getting it. Do any of you get this newsletter? I get one from KDP but that is the closest thing. I get emails prompting me to review my purchases, and I believe there is a newsletter for Kindle Scout.
If you ask me, Amazon lists are purely based on algorithms by sales and ranks. I don't think reviews have anything to do with them directly. Indirectly, sure (more reviews = more sales and marketing potential).
One of the reasons blog reviewers are amazing is because many of them are willing (even eager) to review indie books. My first two reviews ever were from bloggers and I am so grateful to them! It is free advertising space on their blog, which is a winning situation, regardless of how much traffic they get. If I type my name into google, the blog reviews come up. So it does not have to be readers that happen to know about this blog or that, then go to it expecting book recs...there is much more that the blogs are doing for us imo.
Can you tell I love book bloggers?
Annie, I am soooo happy for you. You are the next big thing in romance for sure!!
@Annie - congrats!! Bloggers are great, though it's certainly a waiting game (at least in the fantasy realm), so it's best to plan as far in advance as possible. Maybe I've just happened upon the busiest bloggers, but many of them have big, bold headers at the top (or the equivalent) saying they are closed for reviews while they work through a massive slush pile. I'd say that's been the rule more than the exception so far, which can be frustrating.
I've continued working my way through the book review directory site (which lists blogs) that was posted here last month, but since I am running a blog tour next month, I've asked the tour guide for their list of blogs in order to avoid any redundancy.
Tim wrote: "Personally, I'm much more interested in the opinion of someone who read the book because it caught their eye than someone I've requested to judge it..."Larger blogs have a review team. All the reviewers are avid readers and choose books they WANT to read. The blog I've been talking about? There are 7 main ladies and NONE of them chose my book. It was actually a "secondary" reviewer who did.
Oh, and this isn't intended to sound douchey (hope it doesn't!) but it kinda sorta doesn't matter what your personal preference is. It matters what actually reaches the readers, right? Just my thought process, though. And we all know how reliable that sucker is LMAO!
@Mr Graeme: Thank you, kindly, good sir!
@Miss Marie: Thank youuu! And I agree. 100%.
There are millions of ebooks on the Zon. Lemme keep it simple and round down to just 1 million, eh? Now IF they advertised for each book only once a year, that would still be 2,740 books every single day. You wanna be on a list with nearly 3,000 books? You wanna be on a list with even 300 books? No, of course not. People would start complaining about Amazon helping TOO MANY indies then. Cuz that's what us lowly humans do. Complain about shizz and make excuses hahaha...haha...ha...ugh. We're such pansies.
Our own Miss Marie has had amazing results. Why? Because she works her butt off. And she's consistent. Remember that when she gets "lucky". Luck is just the byproduct of perserverance, eh? ^_~
@Mr EM: Aww, thanks!!
Re: Bloggers are great, though it's certainly a waiting game (at least in the fantasy realm), so it's best to plan as far in advance as possible.
True, true (no freakin' chance), and true.
1. I ♡ bloggers cuz yeah, they're great!
2.
3. Umm. You definitely wait longer for love than a fantasy *giggles*
Seriously, though, over 50% of the books on KDP are Romance. I've submitted to 90+ blogs in 30 days and have received 8 reviews so far. Does anyone reeeally wanna compare wait times? *wry grin* It's not even a waiting game. It's a numbers game. You keep moving forward and they keep trickling in.
4. ARCs. If you want reviews for a particular release date? Yes, you'll need to plan ahead. Most blogs have this in their review policy. Read their review policy, guys. I feel like I've said this before. Review policy...
*smirks*
Would you mind sharing your results as well, Mr EM? I'd love to know how many you've submitted to already and how many have accepted/reviewed. No obligation, obviously!! But I'm guessing your ratios are rougly the same as mine. Assuming you write good queries. Cuz my letters are sorta da bomb diggity ^_~
And OMG! My fingers totally word vomited again. Sorry, everyone!!
Hugs,
Ann
EDIT: Who else never proofreads before posting? C'mon now, don't lie...
I never proofread....that's what the edit button is for haha
PM doesn't have an edit button...*sobs uncontrollably*
I just texted someone "your welcome" this morning and I haven't stopped thinking about it since haha.
*feels Miss Marie's pain**cries out in agony*
Kidding!! Okay, totally not kidding. That stuff haunts my day haha!
Annie wrote: "...Yes, I (carefully) break the No Contact rule haha!..."It's not a "No Contact" rule; it's a U.S. federal law, haha.
It also risks consumer boycott.
Honestly, it's uncommon a book blogger wouldn't provide an email address specifically for authors to use to contact them for reviews (asking for the contact means it's not spam and not illegal unless you falsified who you were or failed to honor an unsubscribe request.).
Never do that --contact someone about your book who did not ask to receive such contacts--from a U.S. email address you want to keep (and potentially years from now you could be facing FTC fines if anyone files a complain with them in additional to involved ISPs -- they just take a long time to process because not their mandated priority).
Just because the commercial product you are emailing about is a book doesn't exempt you from federal CAN/SPAM laws.
Most bloggers have review submission information that includes a contact email. That's different because it means it's no longer "unsolicited/unasked commercial contact"; they gave you permission to contact them to get reviews. In that case, in your email I'd still specifically mention that "you are receiving this contact because asked in your review submission guidelines [link]" type of phrasing.
While goodreads has tacitly aided spammers by now deleting certain shelf names we used to use to boycott spamming authors messaging about their books, they still allow some, the messages can still be flagged as spam and readers/reviewers definitely still talk and post lots of places that can get you or your book boycotted or tagged as "do not review/author spams."
An unasked contact about your book is spam (aka unsolicited commercial contact). There's no legal exception because the product is a book nor because you are the author nor because it's indie or self published.
It's not an issue with bloggers that ask for such contact, with goodreads profiles that say they can be contacted, or posting in groups that are setup to connect authors with reviewers (or threads within groups that are setup for that purpose).
Not all sites, of course, are subject to U.S. law. Not all site policies have spam and "no commercial use" policies like goodreads. Some site TOS even require participating reviewers accept author contact or outright give up CAN/SPAM protections for messages and posts on their site.
Just displaying an email publicly is not the same as soliciting commercial contact. It's also illegal to harvest publicly displayed emails for mailing lists where you should use caution purchasing or using those (I'm fairly sure the parties harvesting the email addresses would be the ones in legal trouble if they presented the mailing list as if the receipients voluntarily subscribed but your emails and messages can still get reported as spam and your book boycotted).
Not necessarily fair or helpful to authors just trying to get their book reviewed to be treated like vi*gra salesmen and that poor Nigerian prince with his banking issues, but legally your book is still a commercial product, U.S. just treats personal speech, consumer speech and commercial speech differently; if you are emailing/messaging/posting about your book that's commercial speech where your protections are pretty nonexistent versus the consumer protections of those you contact.
Just check blogs, group posts/rules and profiles to make sure you are contacting readers/reviewers/bloggers who asked to be contacted.
(It's also not an exception or a loophole to say you just sent one message/post/email. One unsolicited commercial contact is still spam, it's just not bulk spam.)
ETA: not exactly on topic but also be careful to not confuse the blogger's email contact address with their kindle device email (in case they gave you that to send the review copy direct to their kindle).
Debbie's Spurts (D.A.) wrote: "It's not a "No Contact" rule; it's a U.S. federal law, haha."I was just referring to PMing readers haha! Thanks for the info, though!!
Annie wrote: "Tim wrote: "Personally, I'm much more interested in the opinion of someone who read the book because it caught their eye than someone I've requested to judge it..."Larger blogs have a review team..."
Ha, all good points. And to be clear, I wasn't trying to imply fantasy is any more of a slog than romances, of course, I was just referencing fantasy because that's all I know thus far.
Not sure how to present my stats - do I include the blogs that were good targets but had the big, bold headers saying "No New Submissions" (i.e. treat them as automatic rejections?)? If so, then I'm sitting on 4 submissions accepted out of 42. If not, then the 42 denominator drops to 12. Of the acceptances, the review time is supposedly 4-12 weeks; as of today, none have been completed for my review.
Annie wrote: "People keep PMing me this question and as much as I love helping everyone individually, I don't wanna keep repeating myself. Sooo...Okay, [insert your name]. Here's my not-so-secret intel to date..."
Love the ARC form o you use Beta readers too and have same template?
@Mr EM: I have zero "guidelines" and lots of curiosity *smirks* That's perfect! Thank you for sharing!!Yeah, I came across a TON of blogs no longer accepting reviews. Personally, I don't even track them cuz they're essentially not a review blog. At least not currently anyway *shrugs*
Sooo it looks like 1 accepted: 3 submitted is about right, eh? At least based on our massive study group of 2 people LOL!! Yeah, I reckon most blogs get inundated. Some have taken weeks to even reply *more shrugging*
What do you generally include in your query letters, Mr EM?
@Mr Philip: Thanks! Glad you liked my form (that's not actually a legit form haha)!!
Well...
I'm too last-minute to have beta readers. To give you an idea, I completely rewrote the final chapter of my first book from scratch. 2 hours before releasing it. Not exaggerating at all. I barely have time for an edit much less a beta *sigh*
IF I did have beta readers, I wouldn't leave it open to the public like that. I'd be very choosy, handpick readers myself, and email them directly. That's just me, though.
Hugs,
Ann
DISCLAIMER: When I talk about emailing readers directly, these are ALL people who reached out to me first AND I have an open dialogue with. Nobody arrest me! LMAO!!
EDIT: I love you, edit button. Loooove.
Miss Annie, I'm so glad you pointed out that authors need to read a blogger's review policy! I couldn't tell you the number of emails I've simply deleted because the author was too lazy to read my policies.I don't have many and they're not complicated, but apparently some authors think it's okay to mass email the phrase "review my book!" with no other info. Drives crazy!
I can also recommend, as an admin for a book group on FB, that authors look for book groups in their genre on FB. Not just any group is good though. Make sure it's groups with active members, groups that aren't just ad space. Many of the good book groups have admins/mods that also act as the group's review team. A lot of those groups have 2,500+ members that will see those reviews.
Ehh, please ignore any typos or word vomit in that last post. I'm on my phone and apparently I have poor writing skills when I can only see the last10 words I've typed.
Eeek!! *big-squeezy-hugs Miss Courtney*
Thank you sooo much for sharing a blogger's perspective!
It actually drives me nuts when authors say they don't have time to read the policies. Umm. I look at EVERY single one. Closely. And write a personal message to that particular blogger. Sure, it takes some time. But I'm essentially asking someone to spend hours reading and reviewing my book sooo...
Yeah.
Oooh! Thank you for the FB group suggestion too!! I'll get on that ASAP!!
More hugsss,
Ann
EDIT: With how much you help indies out? Ain't nobody gonna judge any typos here. Or else...
*flashes katana*
Okay, [insert your name]. Here's my not-so-secret intel to date...
Complimentary Copies:
Both posting in R2R threads and reaching out to readers. Yes, I (carefully) break the No Contact rule haha!
18 copies
12 complete
Review Rounds:
Will never sign up for one again. Lots of people dig them, though.
6 copies
5 complete; 1 person flaked out *eye roll*
Book Blogs:
submitted to 90+ in the past month
accepted by 30+
8 complete
TOTAL:
Reviews from complimentary copies: 25
"Natural" Reviews: 29
Hate to tell ya, but it takes time to submit good queries. Personally, it takes me an hour to submit to ~10 blogs cuz I peruse their site, read their review policy and write a personal letter to each one. Did I mention read their review policy? Oh, I did? Okay, cool. Read their review policy.
And one last thing. I require ALL advanced readers for book two to have reviewed book one first. And no, I do NOT provide a free copy of book one. Here's what my MY ARC SIGN-UP SHEET looks like.
Hope that helps a bit!
Hugs,
Ann