10 Sites to Get More Book Reviews

You need more book reviews. I need more book reviews. Every author needs more book reviews. Well, maybe James Clear doesn't need more book reviews. I think he was good at 125,000. Too bad he can't spread them around to the rest of us. Hey, but sadly, I'm not James Clear and he's probably not watching my video right now, which means this video on 10 Places to Get more book reviews is quite likely for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the book broad. I am the founder of Book Launchers, which is a full service self publishing company. We're not a hybrid, nor are we a publisher. We help you become your own publisher with a book that is as good or better than a traditionally published book like these. And we surround you with the promotional and marketing support that every author needs to grow their business, brand and book sales. One piece of the puzzle that every author needs, regardless of the bigger picture goal for their book, is reviews. If you want to be a speaker, you need a book. But you also need reviews on that book to provide social proof. If you want to grow your business and your brand, your book having great reviews gives you more credibility. If you want to sell books well, other readers saying your book is the bomb, well, that's going to help your ads and help convert visitors to buyers. So let's get into some options to help you get more reviews. Well, of course you can ask everyone, you know, please, please, please, please, which is kind of what I'm saying to you. Please, please, please post a review. And if you have posted a review for self publish and succeed or self promote and succeed, let us know. Send us an email@teamoklaunchers.com so we can say thank you. But most importantly, please do post a review because it's an amazing gift to give me for all of the content that I'm giving you. Okay, so besides the begging strategy, which you still really should do, at least ask nicely to anybody that you know has read your book. But besides that, there are editorial reviews and customer reviews. And editorial reviews are professional, third party, unbiased critiques of the book. Generally, they're going to comment on the book structure, style, or merit. It educates potential readers on what to expect in the book. Usually, these are going to come from book editors, trade publications, critics, or experts. Now, editorial reviews are used by those publications to educate their audience on new books. And they're also used in your marketing materials and on the editorial reviews section on your Amazon book page. You can see James Clears here, the one that makes me laugh on. I'll smile big on this one Is the one from Wall Street Journal Useful new book. Many words that Wall Street Journal. Anyway, editorial reviews are a good thing to get, especially in pre launch, but you can still submit for some post launch if you don't have any. Here's a list of places to check out for free Editorial Reviews Midwest Book Review Book List by the American Library Association Library Journal City Book Review Washington Independent Review of Books Porchlight Books Reader's Favorite Reader's View Then of course there are plenty of periodicals that you can submit to and see if they will write a piece on you. And when I say periodicals, I'm not going to give you a list because I mean newspapers, journals, magazines. We do this for our clients and I have to tell you, it's a long process submitting for any of these editorial reviews or features. We have editorial reviews come in for clients more than a year after we've submitted them, and then of course many that we never ever hear from. If you want to have the assurance of getting an editorial review, then paying for it is the way to go. Netgalley has a fee to submit, but multiple book reviews may come in. These Reviews are often 4 out of 5 if you have a really good book. They are largely librarians, bookstore owners, professional book reviewers, and they just don't hand out fives easily. So know that. But what you're looking for is a strong quote to pull out of more than worrying about whether you got a five out of five. Reedsy Discovery also has a fee to submit your book, but you'll get a long form review and a feature in their Discovery blog. By the way, you can also submit to a book blog and get some exposure and book reviews for some of our clients with limitations on doing interviews, this can be a great strategy for getting exposure. Readsy has a good list of book blogs that you can explore to see ones that might be a fit for submitting your book too. By the way, if you love this video so far, of course the usual actions of subscribing liking are appreciated, but I wanted to mention that this is some of the exact stuff which we covered in our Book Marketing Magic class. Now for the holy grail of book reviews. Customer reviews. These are reviews left by the general buyers of the book. And yes, someone that gets a copy of your book for free can post a review on Amazon as long as they have made $50 of purchases on Amazon. Now it won't show up as a verified review if you gave it to them and then they post their review. And you don't want all your reviews to be unverified, so but some unverified mixed in with a whole bunch of verified can be okay. Now, whereas editorial reviews are more of a critique of your book, customer reviews are customer opinions. And by the way, this can't be altered or removed from most product pages. These reviews are typically based on feelings and impressions from the book instead of the structure of the style. Of course, if your book lacks structure and style, they're going to let you know that too. But customer reviews help others decide if the book is for them and and they give you social proof of the expertise or story that you're sharing. These are reviews you collect for the rest of your author life after the book has launched. Here are a few paid sites we use and recommend for getting some customer reviews. Booksirens.com is a website aimed at helping you get more customer reviews before and during your launch. Reviewers are encouraged to push their review to Amazon, Goodreads, and bookbub. They're encouraged, but they aren't required or forced to, which keeps it in line with Amazon's terms and conditions. Booksprout co helps authors manage review teams and connects reviewers with their books available in their genre as well. I've done longer form videos on that and I'll cover that in the end. Okay, so go back and count because I'm pretty sure I've overdelivered and given you more than 10. Just like readers of James Clear's books overdelivered and gave them more than 125,000 read reviews. Right here is one that I broke down what worked and didn't work to get reviews on self publish and succeed. That's a great one to watch if you want more reviews. This video you're getting three today. This video over here is the one I mentioned on booksprout and this video clip from a deep dive we did with our author. Nick Hutchinson is an awesome one on reviews too. Within weeks of his launch he had over 100 reviews of his book Rise of the Reader. So it's worth a watch as well. I mean, all three of them are, which is why I couldn't choose. So click on over and say hi when you get there.