Wanna review my book?

That is the question book bloggers get asked time and again by authors. Initially, when I first began my book blog eight years ago, that question got me excited at the prospect of being offered a free book to read and review. Now, not so much.

Some of the books I get offered are not even the genres I like to read. So why am I being asked to review them? Simply because the author or publicist did not do his or her homework. You need to target the right book blogs for your book. I can’t stress how important this is. Finding the right blogs for your book can make the difference between getting your book discovered by your target audience or lost in a sea of other books.

If you want to make good use of your marketing time, then take the extra few hours to do this. But how do you know which blogs to target? Let’s say you wrote a sci-fi novel. The first thing you need to do is look for book bloggers who love to read this genre. A quick search on Google using “sci-fi book bloggers” will get you links to where you can find them. You can also search directories such as The Book Blogger List.

What should you look for in a blog? Here is a quick checklist:

• Look at the date of the most recent post. Is it over two months since they last posted? Move on.
• Review policy. Read it. Period. It will tell you all you need to know about the blog, what genres the blogger(s) read or do not read, how to contact them, what book format they prefer, their lead time for reviews, and anything else they deem is worthy for you to note.
• If there is no review policy page, look for the About Me page. Spend some time getting to know the blogger. If you write Christian fiction, would you offer it to someone who says they are atheist?
• Ease of contact. If you have a hard time finding contact information it’s likely that the blogger does not want to be solicited for reviews and prefers choosing her own books to read and review.
• Blogger name. Look for it and use it when contacting them. After all, you are going to ask this person to review a piece of work you’ve slaved over. Shouldn’t you address them by name?
• Reviews. Read a few of them and note the writing style. Are you okay with it? If you are expecting a 300-word review and only get a paragraph, you would have known this had you taken the time to read the reviews.​

​I can tell you that we book bloggers do have our pet peeves about how we are approached and we openly talk about it on our blogs. How do you avoid getting ignored or having your email request deleted within seconds of being opened? The secret is in the introduction. Do NOT send out mass emails containing the intro “Hi there”, followed by a book description and an ebook attachment. That is spamming and will get an automatic deletion. And it won’t do anything good for your reputation.

Instead, address the blogger by name or the pseudonym found on their blog or social media sites. Your first sentence should indicate that you know something about them, which is why you are contacting them in particular about a possible review of your book. That first sentence should make a book blogger feel like they have been personally selected by you to review your book. Because...that is what you did right?

So how do you write a good pitch? I will address that is my next article. Don't miss out on any of them by signing up through email subscription on my right sidebar. You work so hard to write your book, but it shouldn't end there. Be prepared to get it out and into the hands of your readers. Be prepared to become a successful author.

Article by Laura Fabiani

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