How to Find Book Reviewers

One of the most important things you can do to promote your book is to get reviews. If you are lucky and have a publishing house behind you, they will more than likely send out ARC's (Advance Reader Copy) months in advance of the release date. Most of these ARC's have not been through a final edit. They do this so that when the book comes out there will already be reviews (hopefully good ones) out there to recommend the book. It is also an opportunity to take one-liners from a review and include it in the book. Another reason for an ARC is to request an endorsement for a book. These endorsements would come from people whose name has clout behind it and would be included either on the cover or inside the book. We will talk about how to get an endorsement at a later date. But today, I want to talk to those self-publishers out there who need reviews and aren't sure how to go about getting them.

Fortunately, there are many options out there for you, but take a page from the publishing houses and do what they do - get your reviews in place before your book comes out. I have made the mistake of not doing that and I really think it harms the sale of your book. If I had done my homework I would have had over 20 reviews in place before my book came out. As it stands now, reviews are trickling in but they are coming in. So, the months leading up to your release date should be all about your marketing campaign and getting reviews and endorsements. But where do you go to get them?

• Publisher's Review Accelerator - this program is a time saver like no other! It is software that allows you to quickly find potential reviewers on Amazon and contact them. This is how it works - let's say your book is in the genre of Biblical Fiction. You would then type in Biblical Fiction in the search bar. You can see in the example below that this is directly related to books in Amazon's huge database of reviewers. Once you input your information, books in that genre will appear. Choose books that have five and four star reviews. As you can see in the screenshot below, the program then shows the various ratings for a book.
  

After you select the reviewers that interest you, the program will begin to generate a list of reviews for the books selected (which you can export to excel). Some of the reviews will include emails and a website where you can contact the reviewer and get a better idea of their interest in your genre. This is an incredible time-saver! You don't have to go out and search for your potential audience - they come to you! This list kept generating names and stopped at 19 reviewers. As you can see from the example below, each reviewer's name comes up with a website or email or both. Now all you have to do is  contact the reviewer and ask for a review in exchange for a free copy of your book. How easy is that?

• Goodreads - this should be every author's "go to" place to find readers and potential reviewers for your books. Goodreads offers many opportunities for authors to not only get reviews but stay connected to their readers. There are literally hundreds of groups you can join, some specifically to advertise your book and to ask for reviews. You can set up your own author page and have posts from your blog appear here as well.

• The Book Club Network - The Book Club Network has over 500 readers available just to review your book. While there is a substantial cost involved for the author, the opportunity to participate in an online chat with potential readers is very exciting. You can find out about all their promotional options at www.bookfun.org/page/advertising-on-tbcn.
  

• Social Media - Do you already have a large following on Facebook or Twitter? Some of them may be willing to review your latest book. All you have to do is ask.
  

• Blog tours - you can either set these up yourself or hire someone to help you. Basically, a blog tour is during a one week (sometimes longer) period where your book is highlighted with a review over a series of blogs. There are various ways to do this. You can have a chapter excerpt at each blog which then becomes a "blog hop" with readers getting involved in your book so much (that's the goal) that they want to buy it. Links are provided for that. Some of these tours include giveaways with prizes ranging from books to Kindles or Amazon gift cards. To get you started I recommend First Wildcard Tours, but there are many others. Just Google "Blog Tour Services" or "Christian Blog Tour Services" and you will find quite a few available.

• John 3:16 Marketing Network - this network is a group of writers, published and self-published, who are willing to review your book. The value in a group like this is that authors are helping one another with marketing (at least that is the goal). The marketing ideas that come forth in this group are worth the price of membership and to have a published author's name added to your list of reviewers will not hurt when it comes time to market your book!

• Interviews & Reviews - this is my book review site for Christian authors. If you would like me to review your book please note that I prefer historical romances or biblical fiction, but I will also review the following: Children's books, Bible Studies, books dealing with prophecy or end-time events or anything to do with Eschatology. Currently, my pile is quite high, however, I do offer alternatives like interviews on my site that will promote your while you are waiting for a review. Just fill out the form at Interviews & Reviews and I will get back to you.
  

Finally, you have probably noticed that I didn't tell you to go to your family and close friends for reviews. There are two reasons for this:

• They tend to go over the top with compliments making it obvious that the only people you could get to review your books were people who loved you, and savvy readers can spot "fake" reviews a mile away.

• They can't be biased and give you an honest review. Oh sure they might say they can, but deep down inside, they don't want to hurt your feelings if they don't like your book. So don't put them on the spot like that. Give them a copy of your book to enjoy and leave it at that.