Writers - Where to get your book reviewed

[Seb]

Getting your book reviewed is one of the best means of reaching an audience. The idea here is to list and discuss way and means of achieving this.

[Seb]

The following site gives an exhaustive listing of places were indie authors can get reviews.

Simon Royle

Daunting indeed.

Any suggestions which of these is the best?

[Mark]

Hi Seb. I recently purchased the Indie Reviewer Guide at http://www.stepbystepselfpublishing.n... for .99. I've had a good deal of success soliciting reviews from the reviewers in that book.

[Melinda]

Hi Seb,

I haven't been on here in a while, but interestingly just blogged on this topic. I'll check out the link you posted, but wanted to share my experiences, as well.

One piece of advice I received is to look on Amazon and check out reviews of books similar to your book. If any of those reviewers catch your eye, Google them to make sure they're legit, and if they are, query for a review.

I just recently had Appalachian Justice reviewed by someone at Midwest Book Review by following that advice. The reviewer had some very nice things to say - the full review should be ready in a couple of days.

Melinda

[Merrill]

Really good info. Thanks! I've need to get some reviews on my books as I ramp up for the next release.

[Seb]

Melinda

Thanks. That's a really useful idea! In what form and by what means did you make the book available for review?

p.s. Haven't seen you too much on WKB recently?

[Seb]

Mark

That was .99c well spent!

[Seb]

Merrill

When do you expect to publish the next one?

[Melinda]

Hi Seb,

No, I've been working hard to get my dissertation proposal approved,so have been buried in my office the last couple of weeks. I feel like I'm ignoring any and all marketing/writing, etc., but haven't had much choice.

I requested a pdf from my publisher. I just refuse to send print editions out anymore, because of the three I've already sent out, I haven't heard back from any of the three. I really struggle with going in the hole with the book just to get reviews! So I requested a pdf to send out, and they sent me one. I just make it clear from the start that that's the format I'm able to send, and so far no one has had a problem with it. I've sent out three or four of those that I haven't heard back from, as well, but at least it isn't costing me anything!

Melinda

[Mark]

Seb wrote: "Mark

That was .99c well spent!"

Cheers!

[Merrill]

Seb wrote: "Merrill

When do you expect to publish the next one?"

Book 2 in the series will be out in the spring. I hope to have book 3 out by the end of the summer.

Merrill Heath

[Seb]

Merrill, Good luck with all that hard work!

[Seb]

Mark / All

There's an on page list of reviewers and even a list of lists at that link of yours:

Step-By-Step-Self-Publishing

Another useful link!

[Seb]

Melinda

Good to hear that you have been busy! Like you, I have to do lots of other stuff that gets in the way of writing (or is that becoming more the other way round?). Hope you're soon back into writing and self promo mode!

[Melinda]

Thanks, Seb. :-) Believe me, so do I!

[Melinda]

Hi everyone - I hope everyone will check back in soon, because I need to let everyone know that Tracy Riva from Midwest Book Review is open for queries for reviews. If she selects your book for review, she'll post not only on Midwest (which goes to a bunch of different sites and also sends out newsletters to libraries - they're quite respected) but to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and even Goodreads. She just reviewed Appalachian Justice for me and has already posted on Amazon and B&N, and will post here on Monday. That's all in addition to her posting on MBR.

Her email is rivawriter@yahoo.com. She's very quick with her reviews and very in touch along the way.

Good luck!

Melinda

[Mark]

Melinda wrote: "Hi everyone - I hope everyone will check back in soon, because I need to let everyone know that Tracy Riva from Midwest Book Review is open for queries for reviews. If she selects your book for re..."

Hi Melinda. Thanks for sharing that. I was wondering if she reviews ebooks or paper only. Do you know?

Thanks,

Mark

[Melinda]

Hi Mark,

I sent her a pdf of "Appalachian Justice." The Midwest Review site says they only accept print copies, but she had no problem with my pdf copy. After sending out a few print copies to the black hole of reviewer land, I refuse to send those anymore.

Good luck - let us know how it goes!

Melinda

[Melinda]

More news regarding reviews - author, blogger, and book reviewer Albert Robbins is asking for authors to interview and books to review. He's quick - had my interview up on his blog and linked to several other places (including hubpages) within just a few hours. He's now reviewing "Appalachian Justice" for me.

If anyone is interested, he's at arobbins 78 "at" gmail dot com. He's also on Goodreads as arobbinsiii. If anyone wants to check out the interview format/questions, mine can be found here:
http://hubpages.com/hub/authur-interv...

Melinda

[Mark]

Melinda wrote: "Hi Mark,

I sent her a pdf of "Appalachian Justice." The Midwest Review site says they only accept print copies, but she had no problem with my pdf copy. After sending out a few print copies to..."

Hi Melinda. Just heard back from Tracy and she's added mine to the review list. Seems very professional. Thanks for the heads up. :)

[Melinda]

Awesome - good luck!

Melinda

[Seb]

Melinda

Thanks for those suggestions. I've sent email requests to Tracy and to Arthur.

I liked Arthur's feature/ interview with you!

Seb

[Melinda]

Good luck, Seb! And thanks. :-) I really liked Arthur's questions.

[Seb]

Melinda

Thanks. I've had a reply from Tracy and sent her my book. She thinks she will need about 4 weeks. I emailed Arthur, but nothing back so far. He must be busy!

Seb

[Melinda]

I think that's the timeline Tracy gave me, too, but she got to it much more quickly than that, so hopefully it won't take her that long with yours.

I sent Arthur my review copy about a week ago. Haven't heard back from him yet, but I know he's been doing author interviews on his blog, so he's probably just really busy.

Or...he just really hated it and doesn't know how to break it to me (my paranoid author self-talk!).

[Mark]

Melinda wrote: "I think that's the timeline Tracy gave me, too, but she got to it much more quickly than that, so hopefully it won't take her that long with yours.

I sent Arthur my review copy about a week ago...."

That's the way of it isn't it? They turnaround too quickly and you think they didn't read it. They take too long and you think they must have hated it. :)

[Melinda]

It's never ending, Mark - and it's exhausting!

[Mark]

Melinda wrote: "It's never ending, Mark - and it's exhausting!"

One of the best selling indie authors, can't remember who, was asked what would he change if he had it to do over again. He responded with something along the lines of "not worry so much about rankings and reviews". :)

[Melinda]

LOL! Excellent advice. Now if only I can get myself there. :-)

[Seb]

Melinda / Mark

Wise words!

Someone wrote in a blog somewhere that if you get to 50 reviews your sales become self sustaining and you no longer need to do promo. And so can get on with writing. It's one of those theories that's impossible to test. What came first the sales or the reviews?

Seb

[Mark]

Seb wrote: "Melinda / Mark

Wise words!

Someone wrote in a blog somewhere that if you get to 50 reviews your sales become self sustaining and you no longer need to do promo. And so can get on with writing. ..."

Yeah, I heard it was 25. :) In any case, I've heard from almost every successful indie writer that reviews make a huge difference.

[Melinda]

Really? That's good and bad. Good because I'd love to see a huge difference. Bad because I'm a LONG was from either 25 or 50!

[Mark]

Melinda wrote: "Really? That's good and bad. Good because I'd love to see a huge difference. Bad because I'm a LONG was from either 25 or 50!"

Yes, but you're on your way. I only have half a dozen but I have another 8-9 in process. It's just a lot of hard work, isn't it.

[Melinda]

I think what surprises me most is how time consuming it is. I thought I'd just write a book, you know? I didn't realize I'd work harder after writing it than I did writing it.

Congrats, by the way - did I see you on CheapReads?

[Mark]

Melinda wrote: "I think what surprises me most is how time consuming it is. I thought I'd just write a book, you know? I didn't realize I'd work harder after writing it than I did writing it.

Congrats, by the..."

Yeah, me too, pretty much. I mean I figured I would be doing some promo but I HAD NO IDEA that it would be like this. At least I'm promoting something I believe in rather than selling asbestos or something.

Thanks for the congratulations. Yes, I'm getting a nice sales bump from CheapReads. One of my best days ever and some of my highest Amazon rankings! :)

[Melinda]

That's fabulous! Congrats again! :-)

[Seb]

Hi again,

Yes, self promotion takes up too much time! But without it, there wouldn't be an audience.

Well done with Cheapreads, Mark. Seems to take a long time to get a review from there.

[Mark]

Yes, CheapReads is a bit back logged but well worth the wait. Since then I showed up on thefrugalereader.com and ereadernewstoday.com. And again had one of my best sales days ever each time. I highly recommend both of the options - Elizabeth and Greg, respectively. With their help, sales for the 1st half of March exceeded all of January and February combined!

[Seb]

Mark, Thats' great. I'll give those a try! Thanks for the info.

[Seb]

Here's a partial list of sites where an indie author might get a review:

http://dailycheapreads.com/
http://dailycheapreads.co.uk/
http://syriasays.com/
http://booksandpals.blogspot.com/p/su...
http://e-finds.blogspot.com/
http://elizabethswigar.wordpress.com/...
http://gracekrispy.blogspot.com/p/my-...
http://www.kindleobsessed.com/review-...
http://redadeptreviews.com/
http://becksbookpicks.blogspot.com/
http://www.sciencethrillers.com/
http://candysraves.com/
http://twoendsofthepen.blogspot.com/
http://e-finds.blogspot.com/
http://indieparanormalbooksreviews.bl...
http://crazycraftercatlady.blogspot.com/
http://freebookreviews.blogspot.com/
http://www.bookchickcity.com/
http://www.milorambles.com/
http://www.thefrugalreader.com/
http://www.ereadernewstoday.com/

Disclaimer: I've no experience of any of these and don't offer any as a recommendation. Some have started charging for reviews, so care is required.

Please submit any other sites that you know of and I'll collect them all together in a single list.

Seb

[Melinda]

Thanks, Seb! Some of those I'm familiar with, but some of them I'd never heard of. Very helpful! :-)

[Andre Jute]

Seb wrote: "Here's a partial list of sites where an indie author might get a review:
[Long list]."

That's excellent work, Seb.

Can I just say that no writer should ever pay for a review. It will be worthless because sooner or later every bookbuyer will discover that the reviewer charged, and then the writer will look like either an idiot for being taken or a cheat paying out of desperation.

Notice that Red Adept, who has a good reputation for her reviews, also offers editorial services -- but says up front that she won't review books on which she took money for editing. The reason is obvious: to protect the reputation of her reviews from even the smallest taint of suspicion that they can be bought.

[Seb]

Andre

Just so. You may get a quick lift in sales for a paid for review but the royalty on that is seldom enough to break even on the deal, so why do it? ; )

Seb

[TC]

Hi guys,

I'm new to the group, Seb kindly pointed the way on the Amazon.co.uk kindle discussion boards. I'm purely a reader, I don't think I have the creative talent to be an author.

Since I got my kindle in Nov last year I've started reading far more than before and I've been sampling authors I would never have come across or possibly considered had I come across them previously. As such I started a blog a) to keep track of all the books I've been reading and b) having been told by some indie authors how helpful reviews are in spreading the word to try and make myself a bit useful too.

I wish I could boast the following of Red Adept et al but that's a long way off for me. However I like to review indie authors and would much rather read an e-book than a hard copy. My blog is www.tc-bookedup.blogspot.com if anyone wants to take a look. I also post my reviews on here and Amazon.co.uk (and .com on request)I'm far too excited to have recently made it into Amazon's top 1000 new reviewers on the .co.uk site, think I need to get out more.

If you like the blog and think your book could be a fit for the genres I usually review and would like me to consider reviewing yours please drop me a line on here.

I hope this doesn't come across as pushy, especially for my first post in the group, but as Seb was asking for more to add to the list I didn't think people would mind.

Tracy

[Melinda]

Thanks so much for posting, Tracy! I think everyone will agree we're thrilled to hear from anyone willing to take a look at any of our work. :-)

I'll take a look at your blog, and I'm in desperate need of reviews (or buys, or likes, or tags...) on Amazon UK, but I'm not sure my book will appeal, because it's sort of a historical fiction novel set in West Virginia. If you think it might, please let me know! The title is Appalachian Justice

Thanks,
Melinda

[J.A.]

TC, look away for a moment - I'm talking about you!


Guys, definitely go check out TC's blog - I've been reading it for a while and as a reader I find her reviews very useful. (Of course, as a writer I'm biased because she just gave me a good write-up, but she picked up on a lot of the stuff I was trying to convey. Apart from being very pleasing, it was a really useful to know that it had all worked, from a technical point of view.)

Ok, TC you can look back now. Were your ears burning?
;o)

JAC

[Seb]

TC

Great to hear from you and to welcome you here. (There's a little more space to spread out than on amazon!).

The blog looks great and the coverage in your reviews is really impressive.

Congrats on being featured in the Top 100 reviewers on amazon UK!

I don't normally request reviews, but maybe you would consider
Take No More. I think it would fit in with the kind of books you have been reading.

Best wishes


Seb

[TC]

Hi again,

Melinda, I started Appalachian Justice earlier, going to really get stuck in a bit later, now my little 'un is asleep.

JAC, I'm not very good at doing what I'm told so thanks, you're making me blush! And thanks Seb for the compliments. I'm afraid you need to add another 0 to that ranking, I'm just inside the top 1000 but working on improving that. I'll take a look at the link in a minute and drop you a message.


TC

[Melinda]

Thanks, TC - I really appreciate it. :-)

Melinda

[Seb]

TC

Sorry about the typo! At least it is a complementary typo! : )