acim are one of the most potent of all marketing activities. There is no such thing as having too many reviews. What’s great about a good review is that it tells potential buyers that someone else read and liked the book. A good book review is a powerful marketing tool. You can use it by positioning it on your blog. You can also share it by using the social media links. Another tactic is to add it to your book page on Amazon Central.
There are several strategies you can use to acquire more reviews.
Goodreads groups are a fertile area to request reviews. Use these groups as your first recourse. A few such groups are listed later in this chapter.
Another approach is to contact a review site. These come in two flavors. One will review your book, usually for a fee. Self-publishing Reviews is such a site. So is Booklife. Some sites will review your book for free. Reader’s Favorite is one such free site although it will prompt you to upgrade to a paid review.
The second type of review site won’t actually review your book, but will make it available to a number of potential reviewers. I list a few of these later in the chapter. There are many more besides the ones I mention, but I only included ones I’m familiar with. A simple search will give you a list of more sites offering to get book reviews in return for a price.
Let me be clear: if you use one of these services, you are not buying a review. You’re paying for a review service that will put your book in front of many potential reviewers who may or may not elect to review your book. Reviewers who chose to read your book are not paid by the review service. What you are paying for when you sign up for a review service is access to all the potential reviewers on its list.
Some of the review services will not deliver the goods. They talk a good story about the many reviewers they have on their email list, but you won’t get the number of reviews you signed up for. These sites simply don’t have enough readers on their list to deliver the reviews. Others, a small number, are just scammers looking to rip off authors.
Another strategy is to give away copies of your book, hopefully in exchange for a promise to review it. You can use your social media contacts here. Ask if anyone wants a free eBook review copy. I’ve found this tactic to be marginally effective. The main reason is that some people ask for a review copy only because it’s free and they have no intention of ever writing a review. Also some readers won’t like the book and won’t write a negative review. My experience is that around 25% of these readers will write a review. However, eBooks don’t cost you anything to send to potential reviewers so you aren’t incurring any costs.