If there was one thing I heard over and over from the many successful authors I met last weekend, it was that reviews are crucial to selling books. This is not a surprise to me–I’ve long had a feeling that reviews are an important part of an author’s currency. At Chanticleer Author’s Conference, I learned why this is the case, and what I can do about it.
Are reviews really that important?
They must be, because looking back over my notes, just about every presenter at CAC mentions them at least once. But before I explore why, let me make a distinction: there are two kinds of reviews, editorial reviews and reader reviews. Both are important, and both carry different kinds of weight.
Editorial reviews are reviews written by someone with influence and authority in the publishing world. Kirkus and Publishers Weekly are the two big ones, but an editorial review could also be a review published in any small magazine, or a review from an organization like Chanticleer, the company responsible for CAC. Editorial reviews, particularly a glowing one, are good to have for a few reasons. Obviously, they increase your status as an author, because someone with influence and authority has endorsed your work. They also help your book reach your audience, because part of what these reviewers do is publish the review publically, and many people in the book industry are looking at these reviews.
The catch to editorial reviews is that you do have to pay for them (usually–Publishers Weekly is an exception, however according to their website they “review a relatively small percentage of the books submitted.”) The costs range greatly. If your budget is small, my advice is this: rather than blow it all on a costly Kirkus review, break it up across several less expensive, less prominent services. That could actually increase your exposure (a wider group of different professionals following different publications), your book will stand out among a smaller crowd, and the chances of at least a portion of these services giving you a great review are better. While Kirkus will give you an option not to have a bad review published, that’s still almost $600 potentially down the drain. You might be better off to take that money to the nearest casino.
Where can you find other review services, and how do you know how effective they will be? Start by sending copies to your local newspaper or a local magazine that reviews books. Also, consider your genre and look for publications that review books in your genre. For pay for review services, this site lists some inexpensive ones and there are more listed in the comments at that site. Personally, I’m partial to Chanticleer. To gauge what you’ll get for your money, look for (or ask for) testimonials. Ask other authors if they’ve tried them (a Goodreads Indy author support group can be a good place to do this).
Once you have an editorial review, one of the bonuses is that you get to fill in that spot on your amazon book page where it says “editorial reviews” with something other than your bio.
Now, editorial reviews are most effective at increasing your credibility as an author with people in the publishing industry, such as bookstores large and small, distributors, agents and publishers, librarians, etc, but what about the readers? Who actually pays attention to these things outside of the publishing industry? The fact is, most readers probably won’t care if you have a Kirkus review or not. What they want to know is, what did other readers think?
For that, you need reader reviews. Think about it–if you visit a book’s amazon page and see five reviews, even if all of them are five star, you are going to think differently about that book than if you visit the page and see over a hundred reviews with a variety of stars. Obviously, most human beings on this planet can get five people to write them glowing reviews, even if it’s their mother, spouse, sister, bff, and cat. The trick to selling books to readers is to get reviews from strangers. How do you get reviews from strangers, when no one is buying your book yet?
One of my big takeaways from this weekend was from Michael Hurley, whose book The Prodigal not only won the Chanticleer grand prize for 2013, but also recently received an option deal for the movie rights. I was really fortunate to be able to pick Michael’s brain at CAC because this guy has tried everything known to man to sell his book. When I asked him what the single most important marketing tactic he’s used has been, his response was: blog tours. Why? Because they generate reviews.
You can do the leg work of setting up your own blog tour, which requires sifting through the multitude of book blogging sites out there to find sites that will host you with a review, interview, excerpt, giveaway, etc. Or, for anywhere from $30 to $1000, you can hire a blogging company to do this for you. A couple of the ones Michael mentioned are Book Nerds and Enchanted Book Tours, but a quick google search of Book Tour Company will reveal many options.
Another way to get reviews is to trade reviews with other authors. This has the double benefit of ensuring that you never have a gap in your reading list. Where to find other authors? CAC was a great place–I have a feeling I’ll be trading reviews with a few people I met last weekend. Goodreads Groups are another good place. You might also follow review sites for books in your genre, and approach other up and coming authors listed on those sites.
One author I learned from last weekend, Kate Vale, has built her following on Goodreads by generously reviewing other books. She has posted nearly three hundred reviews on Goodreads, and the fact that she is helping other readers find books they love is bringing fans to her. Now, I’m not a prolific reader like Kate, (who I believe said she reads three books a week!) but I can post a review whenever I do read a book. As in most things, you have to give to get.
There are a few other options. I’ve used Story Cartel, and while I got a few reviews, it didn’t seem worth the cost, and I don’t know if I’ll do it again. Other authors have used it with mixed results. One thing I haven’t tried but might is contacting top reviewers on Amazon and Goodreads in my genre and requesting reviews. Goodreads Giveaways are great for various reason, but another result can be reviews from winners.
One of my favorite things about CAC was that everyone there appeared to be on the cutting edge of the new era of publishing. I met several authors who are creating their own solutions to the challenges we all face. One of these was an author who created an app called BooksILove. BooksILove is a way to for readers to use easy icons and single words to generate a book recommendation for their friends. While this isn’t exactly the same as a review, it serves the same function: to tell the world what you loved about the book you just read. I highly recommend checking out their app and playing with it (feel free to use Dream of a Vast Blue Cavern to test it out!) One of the things I loved about it was that the hardest part about writing a review, which is figuring out what words to use to describe the book, is done for you. Words like authentic, page-turning, suspenseful, and many, many more are at your fingertips. This, I believe, is the future of book recommendation.
Are you an author looking to exchange reviews? Let me know! If you’re a reader, how do reviews influence your choice of a book?
More to come about CAC 2014 soon . . . Don’t worry, we’ll get back to 101 TIWIK eventually!
