I would like to start by saying, how grateful I am to the new bloggers and reviewers we have working with Black Velvet Seductions. If you would like to join bloggers and reviewers please click here. We supply the promotional material for our books and e-books for the reviewers. Quite a few both blog and review, please e-mail me at Ric@blackvelvetseductions.com for any additional information.
I enjoy writing the blog; the feedback is great and the stories I am told by readers and writers often inspire future blogs. I would write reviews for all our books, but I am rather attached to our stories. I read the scripts as they come in. I am part of the proses up to, and beyond publication. So any view I have is rather biased.
A book review is good, but the right book review so much more important. When we release a book, we try to get our author’s books in front of the right reviewers. It is not always easy to get that all-important review on Amazon or Goodreads that will really boost sales. I read a great article the other day, which sums it up nicely. Paul Youlten’s marketing expert and author, “Bad reviews can simply mean the wrong person is reading your book.”
It is so important to get the right person reading and reviewing your story. For example, if you write historical novels and the reviewer leans towards science fiction, your review might not be what you hoped for. The same goes for writers of soft tender romance if they are being reviewed by a reviewer that enjoys a stronger content. They may find the review considers the story a bit wishy-washy, and the reverse is true.
So, where to find people to review your books? There are no quick or easy solutions. But that is true for all publishing. It is the thing that has taken me years to come to terms with, publishing moves at a glacial pace. We have found that it is a slow build of relationships, with authors, friends, supporters helping, friends reviewing and blogging, which is the way to develop a network. We have a growing network of bloggers and reviewers, click here to join.
There are online groups that can help; there are groups set up on Twitter and Facebook. I would advise making friends like the styles of books that you are writing. There are other social media such as FetLife for the more kinky books. A word of warning, if you bowl in and just ask out of the blue, it might not work as well as making friends with the group first. What is key, is to get people to review, who are sympathetic to your genre.
There are other ways of getting book reviews. Friends and family, assuming you are comfortable with them reading your stories. Another avenue is to ask fellow writers in critique groups, or maybe your beta readers. All of these people might be happy to write a review for your book. Though do bear in mind they might want one in return when their book comes out.
Do try to get full reviews, a line of “This is a great book” as a review is not going to work. Amazon is pretty cute these days at spotting this kind of review and discount them. The magic number I was told was twenty-five good reviews, though this too may have changed.
The bottom line is reviews are great, genuine positive reviews are pure gold.
If you have any thoughts, views, and stories you might like to share, on the blog, Facebook, or twitter, I would love to hear them.
Our latest and soon to be released books. Black Velvet Seductions
Out of the Shadows by Gabriella Hewitt is out now!
A Woman’s Secret by C.L. Koch is out now!
Her Lover’s Face by Patricia Elliott is now available at a pre-order sale price of $2.99 until the release date 23rd February.
Naval Maneuvers by Dee S. Knight is now available at a pre-order sale price of $2.99 until the release date 9th March.