Reviewing 101: How-Author Edition

Yesterday I talked about how to become a reviewer, today I’m giving a crash course on how to get reviews as an author.

It helps a lot if way before you need a reviewer you become aware of the sort of places that do reviews. Of course you have your biggies, newspapers, major magazines, Publishers Weekly. There’s no harm at all of being aware of these places but a lot of us don’t rate that sort of attention. And that’s fine because there’s plenty of options out there these days.

Think about reviews should start as soon as you make a big sale (the rules are different for sales of short stories to magazines and anthologies. The sad fact is it’s just harder to get attention for those sorts of things and the people who can get the attention are the publishers. One author trying to get reviews and do all the promo is not fun, or rewarding.) So let’s define a big sale as one that’s all yours. You are the only author, or one of two authors. These are the projects where you can make a difference by taking initiative and working your own promo angle.

It also helps if you know what the point of a review is, from a marketing point of view. A review is word of mouth advertising. It falls into the first and second tiers of marketing; 1) making the consumer aware that your book exists and 2) potentially letting them know it’s good too. Even bad reviews accomplish the first point, so don’t be afraid to get your book out there.

Now that you have a book coming out you need to start looking around and find potential review sites. These can include; newspapers (from the New York Times Book Review to your local paper), magazines (Most genres have magazines. Cemetery Dance does reviews, so does Romantic Times and Locus. If you don’t know which magazines are big in your field, spend some time in a book store looking around.), book blogs (there are tons of these, like my own blog, or Dark Scribe Magazine and The Fix), bookseller sites (LibraryThing, GoodReads, Shelfari, Amazon.com, etc) and even the personal blogs of other authors in your genres.

In fact there’s a whole type of review that comes from your peers. Typically it’s called blurbing, but it works the same way and you approach people the same way.

Make a list of the sites you think would be a good match for your work. This involves being honest about your work (what genre it is, whether it has cross over appeal, etc) and READING THE GUIDELINES of the site. What, you thought submission guidelines would be over when you got that acceptance? Some sites have no guidelines, just an address you send the book to. Most book blog sites now do almost everything online (at least communications wise). Make a note of sites that accept ebooks and those that take only print books.

Keep this list. After all this won’t be your only major publication, right? So might as well save yourself some time next time around.

We know your money and resources are limited, so after you make this wish list evaluate it very carefully. Don’t be afraid to research the review sites like you would a publisher, after all, some have reputations for only publishing positive reviews, for being slow but fair, for ignoring books received and some have been known to charge for reviews (on top of the cost of books) or turn around and sell submitted books without reviewing them at all. (Sad and a little embarrassing.) You have every right to send to the sites that you think will help you the most. You could send out dozens of copies to all the major review sites, and be passed up by every one for some bigger authored book. Another sad, but true fact. Be practical about your genre and your audience. There’s nothing wrong with SF/F/romance or horror, but it is much less likely to be review on certain sites. They’re just like you, focusing on a specific audience, which might not mesh with yours.

Plan to get the most bang for your buck. One of the huge positive points to MonsterLibrarian.com, by the way, is that it’s one of the few library-specific review websites out there. Its goal is to help librarians find good books, with a side of helping other readers too, and it has a reputation for quality among its audience. This is something you as an author can benefit from.

Ask before sending. Most places I know of are okay with an informal “Hey, this is my book, this is what it’s about, can I send you a copy?” They’re also okay with generically titled emails, and mostly flexible with how the book fits into their goals and covered genres.

Which leads me right into my next point, always remember that reviewers are allies of the reader and the author. Now, most are pro reader first, and pro author second, but we aren’t here to trash your book or ruin your career. We love reading, love the industry and almost always work in our spare time with little or no pay (very often only the book is what we’re paid). It’s easy to get anxious and want your book reviewed and reviewed now. Ask, don’t badger. Be polite, not demanding.

When you send your book that’s pretty much it. It’s out of your hands now. The sad thing is that reviewers are almost universally overworked so sadly, your book won’t always get reviewed. In my experience book bloggers tend to have better rates on reviewing what is sent to them (maybe because they have less space constrictions as opposed to those who print reviews.)

Sending repeated emails to the site asking when your book will be reviewed will irritate reviewers. Asking if the book was received is kosher, but “Are you done yet? very week makes us dread picking your book up.

Here’s a few secrets from the reviewing side:

Often if you send us a book for free we feel obligated to review it because you’ve paid out to get it to us. If we have to pay for the books we review we’ll just stick to the stuff we know we like, which doesn’t help.

We don’t usually have firm orders to our reading pile because we want to like the books we pick up, so we don’t want personal stuff like having just read three horror books in a row, or really not feeling like we can handle a true squishy romance because we’re going through a rough time, to stand against you. Yeah, it means it will take us longer to get to your book, but do you really want us to pick it up and think “Do I have to?”

Lots of people think just because we review that means we’re good for advertising to. They add us to spam lists and send us blurbs asking us to review their book–for only $15.95. If you’re polite and read the guidelines you’re already above that pack.

No reviewer I have ever met just reviews the books. We talk about them, recommend them, and often are in a position to make an impact. (Um, for instance, I recently became a bookseller at Borders. You had better believe that the books I’ve reviewed are front and center in my mind when customers are asking for reading suggestions. The people at Monster Librarian, for a second example, are in many cases actual librarian and therefore directly in a position to point people to your books. and everyone had friends, coworkers and family who read. If we read your book we’re in all likelihood telling a lot of people about it.)

If you have any questions, feel free to stick them in the comments. I hope this helped.