The Easiest Way to Get Book Reviews

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

Today I'm going to talk to you about the easiest way to get book reviews and one overlooked tip that can get you even more results. Hi, my name is Shelly Hitz. I'm the author of over 40 books. I'm the owner of Author Audience Academy, and I'm on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. It's time to let your light shine. If you followed me for any amount of time, you know, I have been kind of quiet lately on the author training front and that's because I have been deep, deep, deep into my book project. Broken crayons still color. But I decided to come on today and share with you the easiest way to get book reviews. I know this is a pain point. This is a problem that so many of you are facing and I wanted to share with you some of my tips. What is the easiest way to get book reviews for your book on Amazon? Social proof is so important. And you know, I share all about this in my book, how to get Honest Reviews. But one of the easiest ways, and I have over 50 books, I've launched dozens and dozens and dozens of books and, and it's a pain point every time trying to get reviews. But the easiest way is to have your own book reviewer team. Most authors will not do this even after I teach them this, even after I tell them this, even after I share with them how powerful this is. Most of you will never do this. But for those of you that actually take the step and set this up, this can be something that can help you for a long time. Now you may say, Shelly, what if I'm only writing one book? Or what if I'm not planning on writing more books? I wasn't planning on writing more books either. And here I am, over 40 books I need to recount because I've just published a couple new ones. But oh my goodness, I never thought I was going to do this full time. But when you're in the process, when you're gathering people, when you're asking for reviews, to have them on a specific email subscriber list as a book reviewer team, then you have them to follow up with, to talk with, to let them know about future opportunities. I currently have hundreds of people on my book reviewer team. Those of you who are current active members in Author Audience Academy in November of 2016, I'm going to be actually featuring you and one of your books to my book reviewer team. I have built these teams over the last few years. I think it was 2012 I started this. So I so I've been building these teams for four years. These reviewers are very active. I always get responses and reviews posted when I ask them to review books. And I'm going to give you the opportunity to feature one of your books to my book reviewer team. And so if you're not an active member of Author Audience Academy yet, I encourage you to sign up@authoraudienceacademy.com because you'll need to be an active member before the end of November in order to take advantage of this special offer. Now so many authors get unrealistic expectations and they think every single person that ever offers to review their book will post review. And that's not true. So you first of all clear off your unrealistic expectations. Second of all, realize it does take work. Just like writing a book, getting reviews and getting honest reviews. You can't pay for them, you can't offer any incentives for them except a copy of the book. It does take some effort. You, it does take a little bit of time, but it's worth it because that social proof and there's something in the algorithms on Amazon, once you get so many reviews, it kicks in, it is worth it. So on my Christian reader list, this is for books that are Christian, either nonfiction or fiction. I have 818 people on my book reviewer team list. How powerful would it be for you to be able to have your book featured to those 818 people? I'm not promising that you'll get a certain result because I'm going to be featuring everyone in the same email, but I really believe you will get new reviews. Now I also have an author list that are just for books for authors or it could be business books. So if you have a business book, that would be another thing. And I have about 80 reviewers on that list. So that list is obviously a lot smaller, but it's also very specialized. So if you have a book in either of those genres and you are an active author audience Academy member before the end of November, you will get the opportunity to be featured to my book reviewer teams. But listen, I want you to be setting up your own book reviewer team. Even if you are a member and you're getting featured to my book reviewer team, have them sign up to your book review list so you can follow up with them later so you can let them know when your next book is out so you are starting to build your list. You know what? I started that list of 818 reviewers with one reviewer. You have to start somewhere. Start with one person. Start with that one person who said they were willing to read and review your book. Ask them to sign up to your book reviewer team and have it be a little more official by having a specific email subscriber list. And I give all the steps and I share everything inside my book. How to get honest reviews. You can find it there. It's also a bonus Inside Author Audience Academy. You also get the entire toolkit, all my templates for getting reviews. So all of that's there for you as well, inside Author Audience Academy. But I wanted to share with you also an overlooked tip that can give you more results. So when you're asking for reviews, it's hard. I get it. It's hard to put yourself out there. It's hard to ask. And you know, sometimes it's just hard to ask for help because most of the people that follow me, if you're following me, you're a giver, you're a helper, you're an encourager. You like to give to other people. But to ask people to give to you, it feels uncomfortable. I know that it's that way for me. Sometimes it's hard for me to ask people for help. For my book Broken Crayons Still Color. I have a beta group and then I also have my book review team. And I've had a lot of people sign up for that. I have about 150 people on my beta team list. And I've had another maybe like 18 people say that they would review my book from my reviewer list. So I. So I have a lot of people. And right Now I have 38 reviews posted. So you might say Shelley. That doesn't seem like a lot of response. 38 out of maybe 170 or something like that. But you know what? 38 is more than zero. And I am thankful. I want to live a life of gratitude. If you have one review, just thank God for that reviewer. Thank God for that review. Thank him for those reviews and just ask him for his blessing for more. And so I'm just asking God for his blessing for him to remind the reviewers. But the tip is to follow up personally. So what I do is usually I'll follow up personally with a deadline. So if you're having a launch, if you have a special promotion coming up, I usually try to Give my reviewers 2 to 4 weeks to post the review. And then I'll follow up and say, hey, I just wanted to see if you were able to post your review. I have this special promotion or I have this launch coming up. If you could post your review by this date, it would mean the world to me now if they post the review later, it means the world to me too. But when you follow up personally with a deadline, you can get a lot more response. Just about a week ago or less than a week ago, I had maybe eight reviews. I followed up personally and I have now 38 posted. And I know more are going to keep coming in over the next few days, next few weeks, and I'm excited to see what happens. But don't give up. Keep working at it. Finding those reviewers, getting those honest reviews, it's so important. So I want to encourage you to do that and I would love to feature you to my book review teams. And so if you're not yet a member of Author Audience Academy, join us. Join us@authoraudienceacademy.com if you have any questions. Let me know and I will see you next time. Bye Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her Six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.