The self-published e-book phenomenon has created a huge revolution in the publishing world. It has made the dream of being published possible to many writers who could not, or did not wish to, negotiate the scary world of the traditional big publishing houses. As wonderful as this is for writers yearning to get their e-books out in the world, it has also made it harder to them to get their e-books actually sold and read by people. This is due to the unbelievable amount of e-books being self-published in every genre by millions of writers, and also due to the absence of backing from the publishers.
This means that after all the hard work involved in writing an e-book, authors now also need to work hard to market and publicize their e-books themselves, and get reviews of eBooks.
Reviews are Great Publicity
To get decent sales for your e-book, you need to adopt various methods to get it noticed and read. One great way to get publicity for your e-book is through reviews. Due to the sheer volume of e-books out there, readers have more book choices than they can read in a lifetime, and as a result they are more discerning about the e-books they actually purchase.
Purchasing an e-book with good reviews, and a large number of reviews, makes sense to readers because it indicates that someone else besides your mother bought a copy, that someone liked it enough to leave feedback, and finally, that you write e-books worth reading. This is important and helps build your brand to ensure sales for future e-books.
How to Get Reviews
You realize just how important reviews are, but how do you go about actually getting reviews for your e-book? Here are some ways to get quality reviews for your work:
1. Amazon customer reviewers: This is an important group to target, because this is how you get valuable reviews. The quality of the reviews is as important as the quantity of reviews you accumulate. Amazon is synonymous with e-books. Therefore, reviews from popular Amazon reviewers counts for a lot with readers.
2. Bloggers: Another important group to go after, because bloggers write about what they like, and millions of people read and listen to their suggestions.
3. Websites, magazines and newspapers: These channels are always looking for books to review and are willing to try yours, if you send a good pitch for your new e-book.
4. Promotions: Free promotions for your e-book, such as Amazon’s KDP Select program, allow readers to pick up and try free e-books by new authors, which they would not like to purchase otherwise. If you manage to get your e-books in the hands of many readers, chances are that several of them will like it enough to leave a good review.
Before you approach reviewers for trying out your e-book, please do some research first to increase the chances of getting your e-book selected for reviewing. Send your e-book only to reviewers specializing in that particular field or genre. You can network with writers in your field to get names of reviewers. Also, look up e-books similar to yours to find out which reviewers are interested in that topic, and then you can request them to review your work. One final point to mention, sending a good quality pitch to reviewers requesting them to read your e-book, is more likely to get it reviewed.
Image credit: Klearchos Kapoutsis on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/CS_Rajan.jpg [/author_image] [author_info]CS Rajan is a freelance writer who loves to write on various topics, and is currently working on her first novel. [/author_info] [/author]