Unlocking the Power of Editorial Reviews on Amazon: A Guide for Authors | Book Launchers

Hey author. I'm sure you already know that you need reviews for your book, but did you know there's different kinds of reviews that you need? If you don't know about editorial reviews, why you need them, how to get them, and what to do with them, then stick around. This video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the book broad from Book Launchers. We're your professional self publishing team helping you write, publish and promote a nonfiction book that will help you have a huge impact on your readers and and done right will help you grow your brand, build your business and make you money. The best part? You keep all rights and royalties. So reviews are the lifeblood of your marketing as an author, especially on Amazon. But it's not just consumer reviews that are useful. When selling on Amazon, editorial reviews are also very valuable. What are editorial reviews, you ask? I'm so glad you did. Check out these editorial reviews on Dr. Linnae St. John's book page. README. This is actually one of my go to books to give. Friends with young kids. By the way, love this book. Funny and thoughtful to help you handle all those situations and questions around sex. As you can see here, she has a nice assortment of editorial reviews. An editorial book review is different from a consumer reviewer in that it's usually from a recognized review site or a media or a fellow author or an expert in the field. You see this one on her page with credentials beside the reviewer's name. That's really important. The key thing, besides of course being an unbiased reader focused review of your published or soon to be published book is is that these folks have credibility. In the case of editorial reviews, even more so than the review itself is who is writing the review. You would never post a review to your editorial reviews that just says this book is awesome. Mike Herd. Mike Herd is an awesome YouTube bestie at book launchers. Watch. He's going to comment on this video, I promise. But saying Mike Herd wrote the review isn't enough. No matter how awesome he is. You have to add all his illustrious credentials and hopefully they're relevant to the book's sake subject matter. Linnae's page was such a great example because she has editorial reviews from critic review sites like Midwest Reviews or she had other reviews that had clear credentials. Credentials that will matter are relevant to the reader. So author of the book related to the book you've written. If there's actual sales info like number one New York Times Best selling author, absolutely. Add that or some other qualifier like their title and the organization they Worked for Shelley Buck, co author of Leave youe Light on has some phenomenal editorial reviews. Check these out. These aren't critics or authors, but having the CEO of Disney write a review is pretty great. Even Kristen Bell wrote a review for her. But just in case you're wondering if it was that Kristen Bell actress was added to the title. Speaking of her, have you seen the Good Place? If you haven't, that's some good binge watching My friends, CEO, coo, famous names. Those are all great qualifiers. Think about it. Does. Does it even really matter what the review says? When you see the CEO of Disney wrote a review that's interesting and impressive, it makes you curious. Okay, but now I know you're thinking, julie, I'm not connected to anybody famous, so how do I get those kind of reviews? Reach out to some of the authors in your niche that you respect. Hopefully you've already been networking with some of them. If you're looking for cover endorsements, then the ones you don't use for your cover could be used as editorial reviews. But if they're an author in your niche or genre, they would qualify as an editorial reviewer. Watch for media that feature your book. If they say anything cool about your book, then you can include that as an editorial review. Critics or reviews written on blogs can be used. We often land these for clients through services like NetGalley, which I'll link to a video about that at the end because that's a great one to know about. We also submit authors to Reader's Choice, Midwest Reviews, and some other programs. There are paid professional review services as well, some legit, some less so. Definitely a topic I need to cover in a future video. Just right now I'll note, because it will come up. Review sites are created to professionally review books or a blog where an author writes books reviews. They can be for fee, while other times it's for free. Paying is not against Amazon because they're going into the editorial review section, not the customer review section. You can use their words in your editorial review section even if you paid for it. I know you're gonna have more questions about this. So next video shoot I'll do a section on this and maybe I'll get our book marketing manager, Sarah Bean to cover this with me. Once you've got that editorial review, you want to post it on your Amazon book page. When you post it, there's a couple things you should do to make it look right. My recommendation is is to italicize the review portion and then bold the reviewer and qualifier. If that's bolded, it makes the potential buyer stop and read the name of the qualifier. Like CEO of Disney Use HTML. If you use Publisher Rocket, they have a new feature on their desktop site that will let you do that in a really easy way, so check that out. I'll link to Publisher Rocket below if you're not familiar with it, but you can also ask Google how to create italics and bold HTML. It's not that hard, but I do recommend you take the extra step to do that. To set up your Editorial Review section and enter your editorial reviews, you have to use your Amazon Author Central account. And yes, I've got instructions on that in another video which I'll link to at the end and in the description below. Essentially, you're going to log into your account, go to Books, select the book, and then select Editorial Review and click Add. You'll be given a text box to add reviews and general guidelines for adding them according to Amazon specifications. Voila. Okay, save changes first. That's important. Then voila. Editorial Review Posted Editorial Reviews according to Amazon cannot include anything that talks about price, time sensitive issues, promotional materials, contact information like phone numbers or addresses, profanity or distasteful content. You won't just use your editorial reviews on your Amazon page, although it's one of the primary placements. We also update our authors media kits, websites and promotional materials to include those great editorial reviews. Also recommend creating nice social media imagery and using that. We share some of the editorial wins on our social media so you can always connect with us on Instagram. We're book launchers on the IG and see examples of what that looks like. Your number one priority as an author marketing a book should still be to get as many consumer reviews as you can, but editorial reviews are an important piece of that book marketing puzzle and getting 5 to 10 really amazing editorial reviews to add to your Amazon book page and use in your marketing materials can really give your credibility and book sales a boost. What do you think of editorial reviews? Do you work hard to get them? Do you read them? Let's chat about it in the comments below. And when you comment the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win some sweet noboringbookswag like our no boring Books mug or our oh so soft journal. We have new videos every Tuesday and Friday as promised. Here's the video on NetGalley which is part of what we do to get editorial reviews. And this one right here is the updated one on Amazon Author Central, which is where you're going to need to go to add your editorial reviews to your page. If you're a book launcher's client, you may think they magically appear on your Amazon pa, but we've actually put them there for you. Both videos are pretty important, so click on over to the next one you need to see and I'll be waiting for you with tea or coffee. See you there.