Blog Tours From A-Z - Reviews

When my first book was published, I had no idea what was expected of me other than the usual, which was to start a blog. As I grew to understand what needed to be done, I began to panic. Where would I get reviews? Especially since eBooks weren’t as popular as they are today. How would I find readers, other than the people on my writing network who’d already read the book?

End result was that I wasn’t able to generate a lot of reviews before Contraband came out, now was I able to do the same for Dissolution. However, I did make contact with a couple of influential book clubs who posted positive reviews for Contraband.

Writers with a strong presence and a large network are able to garner reviews that coincide with their book release date or just after. I can’t stress enough the value of having this sort of support. Of course, there is the risk of having Amazon remove reviews they view as suspect, but this shouldn’t deter you from asking people to read your book and provide reviews.

Admittedly, this is not one of my strengths. I’ll provide a copy of whichever book I’m promoting to the people who help me get the word out, but this is more to do with reassuring the persons of the quality of the story.

An aside here—I’m extremely grateful for reviews that I do receive, but in my experience, way more people move on to look for my next book rather than expressing their thoughts on the last one.

The more reviews you can gather for your book close to the date of its release, the better your ranking will be (ergo your books visibility). With that added buzz, people who come across the book while it’s on tour will be more inclined to take a chance on purchasing it.

Think about the popularity of the Fifty Shades of Grey novels. People loved to hate the books and were vocal about their feelings. Even more people took the time to say how much they enjoyed the novels. To date, the first in the series has over 19,000 reviews. 

Reviews (both good and bad) have the power to make the reading public sit up and pay attention—particularly if you write around a controversial subject matter—so don’t discount the impact they can have on your book.