Where to Find Book Reviews to Aid Book Marketing

Another important aspect of marketing books is getting reviews. Many of the primary online book sellers (like bookbub) do not allow you to put your book on their site until you have a certain number of reviews and have an overall 4.0 review rating. Getting reviews therefore is imperative if you want to have access to such sites.

Get Reviews Locally

One obvious way that I get reviews is from family and friends and other people who organically buy my books. In addition, I have a newsletter where others read my work on a regular basis. When I have a new book that comes out, after they have read the book, I ask them to write a review. This has been my main strategy. So far, I have few reviews on each of my books. I need many more, many more. Therefore, I am making special effort to go beyond this organically produced group. I am actively seeking reviewers.

I am searching for others who regularly read books and review them. Some of these people include other authors within the same genre (building relationships with others in your same genre is beneficial in other ways as well).

Another group of people are people who regularly do reviews for local magazines or newspapers. know the magazine or newspaper’s policies concerning reviewing your work before submitting.

How to Find Reviewers of Your Book’s Genre

Still another group is someone you contact through a social media source. Amazon is a good source for that because Amazon not only tells who wrote the books, but often provides connections to reviewers who regularly review your book genre.

To find a reviewer of your book’s genre, google “book reviewer” and “your specific genre” for instance, I googled “book reviewer” “Early American historical fiction”  In addition to reviewers in Amazon I found a Booklist Online a reviewing service connected with the library service which offers reviews for libraries, book groups and book lovers. Give them the information pre-publication and they review it for you.

There are a number of other reviewer sites online that charge money to share your book with reviewers. I believe that you should never pay for reviews. It is unethical to pay a reviewer for his or her “opinion”.

There are also genre specific reviewing sites like Historical Novel Society. Historical Novel Society has an online magazine and a print magazine and posts their reviews online too. I know that other genres have their review sites too. The easiest way to find them is to google them.

Getting Reviews from Other Authors

Another way to get Reviews is to exchange reviews with other authors within your genre. My plans for next quarter (October-December) I intend to start writing reviews for other authors in exchange for that author reviewing my work. I am going to include a review on my blog as well as putting reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. I will also do interviews of these same authors on my blog in exchange for my interview on their blogs.

As Author Cygnet Brown, Donna Brown  has  published  several nonfiction books including Simply Vegetable Gardening: Simple Organic Gardening Tips for the Beginning Gardener, Using Diatomaceous Earth around the House and Yard, and Help from Kelp.

She is also the author of historical fiction series The Locket Saga. which includes When God Turned His Head and Soldiers Don’t Cry, the Locket Saga Continues, and, A Coward’s Solace, Book III of the Locket Saga,  Book IV of the Locket Saga: Sailing Under the Black Flag is also on sale now!

.For more information about Cygnet Brown and buy her books, check out her website at http://www.cygnetbrow.com .