Guest Post - How to Get More Reviews for Your Book by Kay Winders

How to Get More Reviews for Your Book

Reviews are the lifeblood of book sales. They can help spread buzz about your book and send it to the top of the bestsellers' chart, or they can send your book to its literary grave by making sure that no one ever buys it.

Finding ways to increase the number of reviews you get is a good way to encourage the success of your book. (Assuming that they are good reviews...) Here are just a few ways that you can get more review for your book to try to drive sales:

Send Out Free Copies

The easiest and most efficient way to get reviews is to send out a lot of free copies to bloggers and journalists. Most bloggers and journalists are looking for good content to share with their readers. You make their job easier by providing it.

Create a master list of bloggers and journalists to contact when you have a book ready to launch, and send out an e-mail blast with a free copy of the e-book version. The more people you contact, the more reviews you are likely to get.

Build Relationships

Networking is a great way to spread the word about your book and encourage reviews. Offering incentives is a great way to grease the wheels for networking. When you contact other bloggers for reviews, don't just offer them a free copy for themselves. Offer a few extra free copies to give away to readers. It will help the blogger build buzz through a contest, and you'll get a few extra readers who may be likely to tell others about your book if they like it.

Encourage other authors to review your book by writing reviews of their books. Many will appreciate the gesture and offer to return the favor.

Write a Press Release

Press releases have fallen a bit out of favor now that more books and newspapers are published online and more correspondence is electronic. However, they are still effective marketing tools.

Write a good press release announcing the launch of your book and send it out to newspapers and appropriate websites. Even if you don't get a review out of it, you may get a story or a link, which could get more people to buy your book, who may then be compelled to write a review.

Use Social Media

Social networks like Facebook and Twitter are powerful tools for getting the word out about your book. Share details of your book's launch and build buzz among your users. Ask them to share the news with their own networks, and put out a call for reviews. You may even consider offering free copies to your fans or followers to encourage them to read and create buzz through word-of-mouth and reviews.

Market to Your E-mail List

An e-mail list is the most powerful tool in your marketing toolbox. If you have been building an e-mail list through your website -- as you should have been doing -- you can send out a message announcing the launch of your book through the list. Ask your users to write a review, and offer a free copy to anyone who's interested in writing one.

Getting a lot of (good) reviews is essential to the success of any book. You can use any of these methods to encourage more reviews and to build buzz around your book. Be careful that if you are offering any incentives -- such as free copies of your book or writing a review of another author's book -- that you aren't influencing the content of your review. You don't want readers to think that you bribed your reviewers into saying nice things about your book!

What other ways have you found to get more reviews of your book? Share your ideas in the comments!

Kay Winders is presently the resident writer for badcreditloans.org, where she researches the best way for people to pay off their debts without damaging their credit. In her spare time, she enjoys freelance writing, the beach and gardening.