How Do You Get Book Reviews? (and related questions)

It’s no secret that reviews play a big role in helping people decide whether or not they should buy a book. It’s a form of social proof–in the absence of other information, we’ll rely on the opinions and actions of others to help us figure things out.

Whether it’s true or not, a book with no reviews implies nobody is buying it. Even a luke-warm review may be better than no reviews, since it suggests people are at least buying the book! Good reviews, are, of course preferable.

A couple questions that come up frequently are “Should you pay for book reviews?” and “How do I get people to review my book?” I’ll chime in with my opinion on these questions, which you’re welcome to take with a grain of salt, since I’ve been e-publishing all of four months.

Should You Pay for Book Reviews?

Known book reviewers tend to be seen as authorities, and reviews from them can have more sway than reviews from one’s peers. They can also perform double duty, helping to get the word out about your book. I was tickled when Liviu Suciu over at the Fantasy Book Critic reviewed Encrypted on his popular blog.

That said, I’d be leery of paying for reviews. I’m not sure what reviewers offer paid services, but I’ve heard some of the big internet-based ones are starting to go this way.

While I can see where busy book reviewers with well-established reputations would feel justified charging for their time, there is a stigma associated with paid reviews. Potential buyers might think the reviewers only gave the book a thumb’s up because they were paid to do so, and my guess is it’s tough, as a reviewer, to be totally impartial when someone has given you payment.

That said, it’s your call. Most readers probably aren’t going to be up on which outfits are charging for reviews.

I don’t, however, think this is necessary. If you’re an indie author, you’re already spending money on cover art, editing, and the like. I don’t think this is a good investment. Besides, there are other ways to get reviews.

How Do You Get People to Review Your Book?

Okay, so you’re over the paid-review idea. But what are your other options when you’re a brand new author and nobody knows your books exist yet? Glad you asked. Here are a few:

Give away review copies

This is how I got my early reviews for Encrypted. You can go onto Facebook (there’s a Kindle and a Nook page) or to the Kindleboards or Nookboards and say you want to give away copies to anyone who’d be willing to review the ebook. For best results, do a nice writeup in the post, giving the blurb and showing the cover art.

Be prepared to give away at least 10 copies to get 1 review (it’s just the nature of things–people are busy and won’t necessarily get around to reading and reviewing your book).

For us ebook authors, the cheapest way to give away review copies is to send the epub or mobi files to people or to provide them with Smashwords coupon codes for 100% off.

Submit to review sites

It can be tough to find book review sites that are interested in ebooks and indie authors, but there are some. There are indie-specific review sites as well, though, unless your work has broad appeal, I suggest focusing on bloggers who review in your genre rather than bloggers who solely review indies.

First off, it’s more of an accolade to be talked about alongside established authors in your genre. Second, your target audience isn’t necessarily someone who prefers indie authors but someone who prefers the genre you’re writing in, regardless of the publication method.

For me, an example was the fantasy site I mentioned. Since they review a lot of traditionally published fantasy and have been “in the biz” for a while, it was great to be reviewed there. I sold quite a few extra copies of Encrypted that week, and I snagged a nice sentence I could stick into the ebook’s product description. (Thanks, Liviu!)

Ask your readers to leave reviews

This is the best way to get reviews on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc., and these are the perfect people to review your book. Unlike book review sites, or even folks on message boards, they’ve self-selected themselves as your target audience by buying your book. I’d argue that you might not even want reviews from people who aren’t in this demographic.

Of course, you may need to try the other tactics (i.e. giving away review copies) so you can get those first couple reviews to help convince these folks they want to grab your book!

As for getting your readers to review, you can put a note in the afterword, asking them to chime in if they enjoyed the book. Not everybody’s going to do it (heck, I don’t even do reviews any more–too busy!), but you’ll undoubtedly get more people if you ask than if you don’t.

Update: I blogged about this again on my self-publishing site at How to Get Book Reviews. My methods, of course, remain the same, but I mentioned BookRooster too, an outfit some folks have used as a shortcut.