Hey there! Welcome to this blog about reviews and influencers.
Just like the title says, in this blog, I will be providing an overview of information about reviews and an overview of information about influencers.
Have you ever looked at reviews before purchasing a product to help you decide if it is what you really want? I know I have. I decided to put this blog in the people section since reviewers and influencers are people, and their input affects other people’s buying decisions. Reviews of any product can help buyers choose between two or more similar products and help them make a more informed decision before purchasing the product. Book reviews save readers time, prepare them for what they will find, and offer them a greater chance of connecting with a particular book, even before they read the first page!
Obviously, the more positive reviews a book has, the better. If more people buy a book and like the book, and they tell other people about the book and leave positive reviews, then others may also choose to purchase that particular book over other books. So, multiple positive reviews can potentially influence sales and opportunities. The presence of book reviews can help validate the worthiness of a book and establish who the book’s audience is. Then once validated, other similar people are much more likely to want to join their peers and buy that same book.” In addition to that, having more reviews of a book may help when trying to sell your book to stores, libraries, or other places as well as help you to get speaking opportunities, interview opportunities, and more. So, obviously, book reviews are helpful. Unfortunately, with all of the benefits of reviews, the reality is most readers do not leave reviews.
If you do choose to have reviewers review your book, you will want to research information about them and make sure they are reputable. Some reviewers will list the reviews in exchange for the book. Others may charge money for reviews. So, it is important to do a little research and make sure they are legit.
Also, when you find reviewers, you should read and follow their guidelines and their review policy. If they don’t review books in the same genre as your book, then it doesn’t make sense to send your book to them. If they only accept hardcover versions of the book, then you shouldn’t send them a softcover or a PDF. Otherwise, you may just be wasting your time and potentially your money.
So, where can you find reviewers, you may ask. You can look for reviewers who have blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels, and more.
One way to determine if a reviewer is right for you is by asking some questions.
1. Is there a cost? If so, how much, and is it worth the cost?
2. What must be submitted for the review?
3. What do other reviews they have written look like? Do they look like reviews you
would like someone to leave for your book?
4. Are you allowed to copy and paste their review anywhere you would like for
promotional purposes?
5. What happens if they don’t like the book? Do they leave a negative review or no
review?
6. Do they review your genre/style of book?
7. Do they accept self-published books?
8. Where will the review be published?
9. Will your target audience see the review?
10. How big of an audience do they have?
11. When do they review the book – before or after the book is published?
What do other reviews they have written look like? If their other reviews are a jumbled mess, then it may not be wise to have them review your book, too. If they seem overly negative in the majority of the reviews, that might be a turnoff, too.
What if they only provide one-sentence reviews such as “oh, this was a good book” or “I didn’t care for this book” without any further explanation? Well, that isn’t very detailed and may not be worth your time contacting them to review your book either. If you are going to seek out a reviewer, you’ll probably want one who provides well thought out reviews in the same genre as your book.
Negative Reviews
Here are a few more review tips.
Don’t respond to negative reviews unless you can do so with kindness. Your book is not going to be right for everyone, and that’s okay!
Sometimes replying to negative reviews can cause us to say things we may not mean to say, so if we are going to respond, we should wait until we are calm enough to do so. Also, even though no one loves negative reviews, sometimes those negative reviews may have good points that we use to improve our book or future writings. Some people are just mean and leave negative reviews no matter what. For whatever reason, it is the negative reviews that seem to linger longer than the positive reviews, so it may be beneficial to type up positive reviews and display them for yourself as encouragement. I did a webinar recently, and I had some people respond to me afterward by email to thank me for presenting the webinar and to tell me how much they appreciated that webinar. And that really made me feel really good, so I saved those emails to refer to later when I may be second-guessing what I am doing.
Finally, some authors include advanced reviews within their books so others see those reviews and may encourage them to buy the book. If this is something you choose to do, you may need to make sure the reviews can be included in your book.
However, if you are writing for adults, you may want to include positive reviews you have received of the book ahead of time in the beginning of that book, so that as other people are looking at that book, they can see these reviews and it might encourage them to purchase the book and continue reading. There are many authors who like having the reviews in the front because when you look at the look inside feature on Amazon it shows all of the positive reviews.
Influencers
Besides reviewers, some authors reach out to influencers. These influencers may include people who write in the same genre as you do, bloggers in the same niche of the book’s topic, and experts in the field of your book’s topic. Influencers could possibly provide testimonials to include within your book to share your book information with their audience so not only are you getting the experts comments for your book, but you are also using their audience, which hopefully will be your target audience to get your word out to even more people, which is very beneficial if you can do that.
That’s it for this blog. In the next blog, I will be talking about awards. Until then, may you have a wonderful day! Take care