Book reviews are important for a number of reasons. But acquiring a full book review for your published material is not that easy. Learn the myths of book reviews and the things needed to land one.
Myths
Before we discuss how to acquire book reviews, let us take a look at the common misconceptions about book reviews.
Book reviews can help boost sales if your book isn’t selling. This is one of the biggest myth in marketing books. Best-seller works and timeless classics have one thing in common- great narrative. While book reviews are important, they possibly cannot pull up your book’s sales.
Book reviews are exclusive for traditionally published books. Of course, book reviews are for every book whether they are self-published or published by established publishing companies. In fact, book reviews help level the playing field for independent and self-published authors.
Books not sold in bookstores or online cannot be reviewed. Again any printed or digitally-published material online can be reviewed. Just because it’s not sold in Barnes & Noble doesn’t mean it’s not up for review. Books available only in eBook format can also be reviewed, especially now that eBooks are gaining popularity.
Books reviews are only for recently published and new books. Books can be reviewed anytime. However, it makes perfect sense to gather book reviews as soon as your book is finished or at least within one year after its publication.
Now that we have identified the myths of doing book reviews, let’s now proceed on the ways books can be reviewed.
How to Get Book Reviews
- Expert Reviews. These are reviews done by persons of authority and who are experts on the matter. They can be best-selling authors, veteran book critiques, esteemed members of a prestigious club, social media influencers, bloggers, and even academic personalities. Expert reviews carry a lot of weight than any other type of review. Imagine if best-selling author John Grisham reviewed and recommended your book to the public or if literary icon Anne Rice gave your book a 5 out 5-star rating. It’s only a matter of minutes before your books start selling like hotcakes.
- Reader Reviews. As mentioned above, book reviews serve any purpose. For those actively marketing their books online and aiming for positive or a five-star rating from sites like Amazon and Goodreads, book reviews help increase your online visibility. Having 50 reviews and above gets your book into Amazon’s “algorithm”. One way to gather reviews for your book is to actually ask your readers and fans to leave reviews on your site forums, social media platforms, and various book reviews sites. Friends and colleagues can be a great help in building your reputation online.
- Third-party Reviews. Trade reviews from professional service providers. These reviews are observed by various sectors of the publishing industry- book retailers, publishing houses, media, distributors, literary critics, and the academe. Some of the established trade reviewers include BlueInk Book Review, Kirkus, IndieReader Book Reviews, Foreword Clarion, Manhattan Book Review, San Francisco Book Review, and the Publisher’s Weekly.
Maximizing Book Reviews
The best way to make full use of your book reviews is to publish these reviews on your author website. Another way is to create accounts on review sites and have these reviews posted there. Perhaps, the most sweeping and one of the most important aspect is the social media syndication. Aside from the possibility of creating traffic to your website, social media signals (likes, retweets, share, following, etc.) help build your online reputation, increase your online visibility, and help cement your authority as a published author.
ReadersMagnet Book Review Services
ReadersMagnet offers publishing and book marketing services which include the book review services. Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, and Foreword Clarion are among its partners. For a trustworthy and quality book review, contact ReadersMagnet today!
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