Writers' Chat: How to Get Book Reviews

This is episode 36 of Author Audience.

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.

Welcome to Author Audience, where I'm on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. It's time to let your light shine. Today I'm rolling out the red carpet and inviting you to join me as I share an interview that I had on the Writer's Chat. The Writer's Chat is on Blab, and so we recorded it on Blab, and it was held by Johnny Alexander and Gene Wise. So I just wanted to share this piece of the Writer's Chat with you. It's all about how to get book reviews because, Sarah, several people found it helpful and I thought you might enjoy it as well. So enjoy this episode and I'll see you next time.

Welcome to this week's Writer's Chat. My name is Jean Wise. I'm a writer, a nonfiction writer from northwest Ohio. And each week there's about two or three of us gather together and talk about different things, different writing. And today we are honored to have with us Shelley Hits, the creator and owner of Author Audience Academy, which I had said on the. On Facebook this morning. And I said to my husband and I'll say to friends over and over again, that was the best purchase I made, that membership 2015. It was absolutely well worth my money and my time and the resources that she shares and the training and her. Her faith in God. It's just the best.

Yes. Hi. So glad to be here.

My name is Johnny Alexander. I am a fiction writer. I write both historical and contemporary romances. Just had my first contemporary release in January, where she belongs. I Also blog@midwest.com and Bethany is not here today, but she is the owner of Serious Writer Academy, and I help her with some of the fiction coaching and things that go along with that.

Our topic for the Writer Writers Chat today is talking about book launches and some tips on that that we could share with one another and optimizing Amazon, which those two areas have to be a really good area of expertise for Shelley. And is it. Is there something about the number of reviews you have in the very first couple of days that also helps your ranking?

You know, there. Yeah, there seems to be an impact with the number of reviews and then the number of book sales. Again, I can't confirm 100% like that. That is for a fact, like some people will say, once you get over 100 reviews. It seems to trigger something in Amazon system or once you get over a certain number.

I don't think anyone can 100% confirm or deny it. The thing that I do know is the more reviews that you have, the more social proof that you have and the better, better your chance you're going to have with someone that just clicks onto your page. If I click onto a page, it has a really great cover and absolutely no reviews. It just, it kind of is like, what's going on here? Something is wrong. Why is there no reviews? Is this book just released? I tend to not even promote my books until I have reviews because it just gives a bad impression. It's almost like inviting someone over to your house before you put anything, any furniture or anything on the walls. It's like, okay, I don't have anywhere to have you sit down. But you know, I mean, it's just, it just looks like a ghost town.

I read once and I don't remember whether it was a credible source even or not, but something about 25 hits something where then maybe I. But I'm not sure exactly what I know in.

In looking at my books, it's like I love the point where it goes from customers that bought this book also looked at to customers that bought this book also bought and see those numbers or those grow. We had another question about getting people to review your books on Amazon.

Okay, so I can talk about that.

Just a little bit.

How can you help me?

Yeah, one thing to do is to be involved in other. In writing related groups such as American Christian Fiction Writers and lots of times, you know, just being part of those Facebook groups and that kind of thing. You can ask people to review your book and of course you'd want to send them.

Copies. And I was able to. My publisher sends out so many copies for that purpose and so I sent them the list and they sent them and I put those people together as a team, as a Facebook group, so they're my Misty Willow team. And then they each get a book and you know, I can send them bookmarks and other things too and ask them as they read the book to review it or to at least tell other people. Some of these people aren't necessarily. They don't necessarily go on Amazon and write a lot of book reviews, but they'll tell other people. So their, their role is to more just spread the word. But yeah, you've got to be able to send out some copies probably and get people to do that. People who read that kind of story and really what I did was say more influence like instead of review, like you know, if you want, if you like it, you know, please write a review.

I think both of you have you. Why am I thinking? I know Johnny has. Maybe Shelly's got something coming up on Goodreads. Isn't there in a good site?

Yeah, I just, just. It finished last night actually. I gave away a copy of each of my novels and that's a way to get it on people's shelves and then they can, you know, it gets shared around because I had over a thousand people in each giveaway. So that was, that was really, really nice. And I have seen too. I mean still I can, I mean I'm still pretty much a newbie at this. When my book came out in January, it really boosted the book that had come out in August and that was interesting to see too. And this book that came out in January is the first in a series and it's already on, it's listed on Goodreads and there are already like 30 people that have it on their want to read list. So you know, you just sort of see that momentum of how the first book and then the second book helps and then already the third book that doesn't even come out till next September. People are already have it on their radar and on their want to read list. So when it comes out, hopefully they'll grab a copy.

Yeah. And I think you've made a lot of really good points. I think when, when it comes to reviews, it comes to creating and having relationships. So when you have relationships with other readers or other authors and you've also been giving to them, so it's like a two way relationship. If someone is always asking you for something or always asking you for money and always asking you, asking you, asking you and never really giving back, it almost starts feeling like, you know, like, oh, they're asking me for something again. But if they are giving to you and you're getting value from them and you're. It's a two way mutual relationship. It just feels better, you know. And so I think when it comes to reviews, one of the things is forming relationships. One of the things I'm noticing inside Author Audience Academy is my members are supporting each other. So someone will say, I published a book, I'm looking for reviews. Oh, I love that topic. I'd love to do that for you because there's a relationship there, you know. And so having a community. Authors are very supportive of each other, but we're also very busy. So.

Yeah, the number one Way that I personally have gotten book reviews is by forming my own book review team. I saw, like, Tyndale House and some of these major publishers have their own book review teams, and they'll have people, they'll send out copies and they'll blog about it. And I'm like, if, you know, big publishers do this, why can't I as a small publisher, independent publisher, you know? And so several years ago, I started and I was looking for tools and a system and a way to do it. Kind of like they did it. And finally I was just like, you know what? I'm just going to do it with what I have. And I just started a separate email list in my email provider for my book reviewers. And then in those relationships I was forming in the Facebook groups, in the different places that I was active on social media, and different places I would tell people, if you love my book, if you love this kind of book, and you'd be interested in reading my book for free, you can join my book reviewer team. And I did it in a way that wasn't like, spammy or, you know what I mean? Like, there's a way to do it where it's like, you know, read my book, read my book. And then there's a way of, like, you know, I would love to be able to, you know, give you this and you could be part of, like, what you were saying. You could be part of the, you know, my book launch team or my book reviewer team. Anyways, I have hundreds of readers now on these lists, and so I can send out one email when I publish a new book. And I have instantly, you know, dozens of people that will be like, I'm.

Interested because they know me. They like, they like my other books. And so my Christian author one is probably more active than even my regular one for authors. But that has really been helpful for me. I also recently found a website and I'm very, very hesitant on anything where you have to pay for reviews because it's against Amazon's terms of service to pay for reviews. And yet I researched it and it looks. I know the people who own the site. It looks legit. And I'm trying it out right now and I'm actually getting reviews. It's ReadingDeals.com is the site and you pay for access to the reviewers. You're not paying for the reviews. And they will guarantee you a certain amount of reviews. And I don't remember the exact thing. I'm still in the process of analyzing it and testing it out for myself before I fully promote it. But that's a new site out there that you could look into and you could try. But one of the best ways is also to ask people when they email you, when they tweet you, when they comment on your Facebook post, oh, I loved your book. It was so good. Or that just, you know, I couldn't put it down, Johnny, you know, it was just such a great story. You could private message them and say, thank you so much for that feedback. It would mean the world to me if you would just copy and paste that onto Amazon. Here's the link. The easier you make it for your reviewers, the more likely you're gonna get reviews. So you can actually create a link specifically to the review page. And you know, there's a way to do that, but you can even make it as easy as that, where you're actually going, you know, and giving them the link to where they post the review. But even if you just follow up with people who've told you they've read their book, they've read your book and asked them to post a review, many times they'll do it, you know, and so sometimes we just simply have to get out of our comfort zone. Because even for me, like sometimes I'm like, oh, I don't want to ask. I know you know.

That, but I think you make an extremely valid point about asking. And like you say without being obnoxious, sometimes asking a second time. Because people do get busy, the intentions are to write that and sometimes they forget. So just a friendly, gentle reminder to.

Also, that's the key, like with my book reviewer team. So even if you solicit people and you're following up with them, follow up. Because every time I'll send out a follow up email and saying, hey, oh, and then if you have a deadline, so if you follow up with a deadline, so if you have a specific promotion coming up, that's a great time to get more reviews. Or if you have a book launch, it's a great time because you're going to have a deadline. So what I'll do is I'll ask for reviews and then I'll follow up and say, hey, you know, my book launch is going to be such and such date. It would just really mean a lot to me if you could publish your review by such and such. Is there any way that you could do that? If not, I totally understand. I know you're busy, but if you could do it by this date, it's magic. Like you give someone a deadline you know, you give me a deadline. Like, I had someone that I'm willing to promote them as affiliate. I like their product. I, I checked it out. They didn't give me a deadline. I said, what date do you want? Oh, any date works. You know what, I haven't replied to their email yet.

Because they didn't say, you know, I'd like, I'd like to, you know, how about this date? Or let's do this, or da, da, da, da. It was just like, well, any date will work. So if you tell people, oh, whenever you can post a review, I mean, and that's, that's understanding, you want to be respectful of their time. But if you have a specific reason that you can give them to post their review and it works, and then they'll be like, oh, I'm so sorry, I totally forgot. I will get that up there for you.

I will.

You know, and especially if it's people who believe in your message or really like you or really support you, they're going to want to help you. And so I think there are just little tweaks that we can do and we can make to really increase the actual amount of people that post the review that said they would even review it.

That sense of urgency.

Marketing always. Right?

Yeah.

We just really enjoyed and glad everybody's been here. And again, a special thanks for Shelley. Thank you so much, Shelly, for joining us today.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the research 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.