I know I touched upon the importance of book reviews for
indie authors in a previous post, but I would like to revisit this topic again
for a special reason.
After reading a very helpful blog post by contemporary fiction
writer Christine Nolfi, author of Tree of Everlasting Knowledge, on how to get your books reviewed, I began my search
for potential book reviewers and book bloggers. I’ve been putting this task off up until now
because Chasing Pavements isn’t
available at Amazon yet, but Christine’s blog alerted me to the fact that this
process isn’t as quick and instant as us authors would prefer. And that I am already behind in this race!
Oops.
It’s a mammoth task, filtering through the different search
results on Google to get to the right websites and directories. And then, once you’ve spent a half a day
compiling a list of suitable reviewers and bloggers whose websites you can scan
to determine whether they will indeed read your book, you find that many do not
accept e-books, or worse, are not accepting any submissions at all. Particularly frustrating when you think
you’ve located reviewers that form your target audience. But keep looking, and you will find a handful
of reviewers that you can send query letters/e-mails to. If a couple of them accept your book, it
definitely makes this a task worth doing.
The other trend that emerged was that very few reviewers are
willing to read works of indie authors, and those that will accept e-books,
still have a preference for the paperback and admit that the electronic books sometimes
get forgotten.
I went to sleep thinking that these book reviewers were
doing a brilliant job though. Juggling
their work-life and reading loads of books and blogging about it. They do it out of love for reading and for no
monetary gain. Still, I thought sleepily, if
only they were all a bit more e-book-friendly, more supportive of independent
authors… Is there anything I can do?
The next morning I woke up thinking there is something I can
do! So I added a new tab to my
blog called ‘About’, where I am inviting authors a chance to promote their book
on my blog by writing guest posts, participating in blog swaps with me, and
offering another avenue where bookworms and reviewers can post their
reviews. It’s not going to change the
world but its one extra webpage where you can promote the book you’ve written
or read. It’s all about increasing your
online presence and posting links to your book page on as many sites as possible.
Visit the ‘About’ tab for more information on how to promote a book you've written or recently reviewed for your blog, and read the post titled 'Book Review - Chasing Pavements' to get an idea of how a one-off book review by a non-blogging bookworm could feature on this blog.
Thank you for reading this post. If you're interested in my debut novel, click the image below to learn more about it:
Like all my other books, it's also available on:
iBooks | B&N Nook | Kobo | Smashwords
And the first two books in my urban fantasy/paranormal romance series, the Poison Blood series, can be downloaded for free via:
Amazon US
| Amazon UK
| iBooks US & UK | B&N Nook Store | Smashwords
Visit the ‘About’ tab for more information on how to promote a book you've written or recently reviewed for your blog, and read the post titled 'Book Review - Chasing Pavements' to get an idea of how a one-off book review by a non-blogging bookworm could feature on this blog.
Thank you for reading this post. If you're interested in my debut novel, click the image below to learn more about it:
Like all my other books, it's also available on:
iBooks | B&N Nook | Kobo | Smashwords
Book Details
Length: 110,000 words
Genre: Contemporary Romance / Clean Romance / Diverse
Romance / Interracial Romance / Romantic Drama / Women’s Fiction
Mood: Inspirational / Feel Good / Coming of Age / Dark
Content: Sexy but No explicit sex scenes / No erotica
Audience: New Adult & College / Adult / Female Readers
Recommended for: Readers that enjoy romance novels with
serious issues and characters with depth. This is a story about life, love,
friendship, family, music, art, destiny and soul mates.
And the first two books in my urban fantasy/paranormal romance series, the Poison Blood series, can be downloaded for free via:
Amazon US
| Amazon UK| iBooks US & UK | B&N Nook Store | Smashwords
PB1 Book Details
Length: 29,000 words
Genre: Paranormal Romance / Vampire Romance / Paranormal
Fantasy / Urban Fantasy / Science Fiction & Fantasy
Mood: Dark / Humorous / Coming
of age
Content: No violence / No explicit sex scenes / No erotica
Audience: Teen / Young Adult /
New Adult / Adult
Recommended for: Readers that love all things vampires,
slayers and witches!
