Top 5 Ways to Get Honest Reviews
With reviews, come increased sales right? But how do you get people to buy your book to write the review? I recently read a blog post about how NOT to get these reviews (paying for them) click here to check it out. So I wanted to cover how you can go about it ethically.
Here are the top five ways to earn reviews:
- Have a Release Party: Online release parties are great and the give you an opportunity to show readers why your book is worth is the three dollars they could be spending on a coffee. It also gives you an opportunity to see who is really interested in your book and give them a free copy. Decide and announce how many free copies you will be giving away before hand and stick to it. Adding a “Thanks for Attending post” with a photo like the one above is also a good idea.
- Start a Reader’s List: That’s right an e-mail list. This is one of the most important and most over looked methods of marketing out there. A lot of you are wondering OK how do I get people to sign up? I’m so glad you asked! Nick Stephenson is an amazing person you should be paying attention too! In an interview with The Creative Penn he said you need something the reader wants. Something that they can’t get anywhere else. A free novel is great, especially if it’s the first in a series. If you only have one book, you will need to get creative. If I was on top of things, I would have made FBI files for all my characters before How to Get Arrested was released. I planned on it but life happened. I will still be doing that but it will take some time and bit of research to make sure they are realistic. This works for my books because in the first season they are being investigated by the FBI which hinders their ability to fight monsters. You need to find something that works for your book.
- Make Your Book Free for a Week: Amazon is tricky in this respect. A lot of people on Amazon download books because they’re free and never read them which is not helpful. For whatever reason iBooks, on the other hand, seems to have people who actually read the free books. I really can’t tell you why it is, I just know that it has been the case for everyone I heard who tried it. I will update this after mine is free on there for a week.
- Ask Your Family and Friends: It would be awesome if all your family and friends wanted to read your book. Reality has a tendency to be slightly less awesome, however. So instead of asking them to read it, ask them if there is anyone they know that they would want to give it to. Ask them if there is a birthday coming up. (December is really the best time to do this) Then give them a copy for that person. Once your readers list has grown you can contact them this way too.
- Ask Other Authors: Other authors are the best reviewers because generally, they are reading more books than the average human. They eat, sleep, and breath books. Literally, ask us. And if they aren’t they should be. It’s an excellent way to improve your craft. If you exchange books for honest reviews, make sure you read the sample and vet the Author thoroughly first! Don’t choose a reviewer who only gives 4 or 5 stars, as that will cheapen your review. We will be posting how to give an honest review to a book that isn’t great in the near future and I will be sure to link this to it.
The bottom line, it’s hard to get reviews when you first start out. It’s going to take a long time and you might want to give up along the way. I hope you don’t. I hope you keep writing and I hope you keep trying to find new readers.
So those are my five top ways to get reviews. Did you have success with any one approach? Tell us about it in the comments!