How to Get Reviewers to Come to YOU

As an author, you have a product to sell. Not published yet? That's no excuse - you always have something to sell, even if it's just yourself! Before I published Pyxis last November, I had a product I had to sell to a very specific market. I needed to "sell" the ARC of Pyxis to reviewers.

The more reviews written up right when the book released, the better. Reviews are extremely important for buyer confidence, and book bloggers can give a book great exposure when they blog their reviews.

But as a nobody, unpublished, first-time author, how could I get reviewers interested in reading in reviewing my book? Well, I thought about it a lot, and I had a couple of revelations.  

And those revelations led to over 130 reviewer requests 

for an ARC of Pyxis - a debut, unknown book - over 3 weeks. 

Those were REQUESTS - reviewers coming to me. I didn't have to solicit, email, beg, or plead. I actually ended up closing to requests earlier than I'd planned because I didn't want to hand out a bazillion ARCs.

I applied the same principles when I started recruiting bloggers for my blog tour. And I ended up with three or four times as many book bloggers volunteering to host tour stops than I'd planned for. What a nice problem to have! :)

Guess what? Next Wednesday I'm giving away alllll my secrets about how to get reviewers interested in your book and get more blog tour hosts than you know what to do with. And how to do it with minimal effort on your part - by getting THEM to come to YOU.

StoneHouse University is hosting this webinar, and here are the things I'll be talking about:

• How to get bloggers to come to YOU for an ARC of your book
• Where to find blogs for your tour
• How to make your blog tour stand out from all the others
• More book blogger survey results - what book bloggers really want from authors
• What makes bloggers bump a book to the top of their TBR piles
• How to build great relationships with bloggers
• Helpful tools and widgets for promoting your tour and doing giveaways
• Detailed sample timelines for planning through follow-up
• The 1 thing that will make bloggers drop everything to help you (hint: it has nothing to do with your book)
• The 2 philosophies we use that get bloggers excited to work with us (regardless of whether they love the book we’re touring)

Aaaand this webinar will also feature special guest Ashley, aka Bookish Brunette, book blogger extraordinaire!

Here are the details - space is limited, so if you're interested don't wait to sign up!



Book Blog Tours Part 2: Advanced Tips and Tricks

Location: Online - just need an internet connection to attend
Format: Interactive webinar - you can live chat and ask questions during the presentation
Date and Time: Wednesday March 14 10:00 a.m. to noon (Mountain Time, MST)
Cost: US$50 for interactive live class, US$45 for video recording of the class
Topics We Will Cover: See list above
Register Here


If you missed Part 1, 10 Steps to a Successful Book Blog Tour (the webinar above is Part 2), you can purchase a recording of it for $45 - just email Aaron at stonehousepress@hotmail.com. Part 1 is a great foundation for understanding how to plan, structure, and carry out a book blog tour. Here's what one attendee had to say about Part 1:

Feedback from Book Blog Tours Part 1: 10 Steps to a Successful Tour

“Just finished attending the Blog Tour webinar with Aaron Patterson and K.C. Neal presented by StoneHouse University. Sooooo worth the price of the ticket. Check it out at stonehouseink.net and link to their SH University page for future offerings. In this brave new world of digital EVERYthing, authors can’t afford to miss opportunities to learn from those more experienced in cybermarketing. Just plain brilliant.
Thanks, so much.”
—Sally J. Smith, Writer

Learn more about StoneHouse University

The One Thing Book Bloggers Hate Most

As I mentioned in another post, when I decided to coordinate my own blog tours I first spent some time thinking about what book bloggers might value, understanding what they do and the effort involved, and how to create great relationships with them.

I strive to make sure the bloggers I work with feel valued, and that idea is at the root of my blog touring process. At some point I realized, what better way to understand what they value than to ask? So I put out a survey, and 70 bloggers responded.

I asked bloggers to list some things authors or publishers have done that really turned them off and made them NOT want to work with those authors/publishers.

The overwhelming common thread in the answers, repeated over and over in various ways, was this:

Disregarding the blogger's review policy.

Here are some quotes from the survey:

“Authors who don’t read my review policy and send review requests anyway.”
“Spam me with requests to review books that clearly go against my guidelines…."
“My policy says I don’t review ebooks, and yet I get a ton of offers for them.”
"Asking me to review without looking at what type of books I accept.”

You get the idea.

Yes, it takes time to read each review policy and tailor each query. But you know what takes a lot MORE time? Reading your book (10-15 hours), writing up and formatting a review post (30 min? 1 hour? 2 hours?), promoting the post, and cross-posting the review on AmazonB&NGoodreads. Respect the review policy, and you help ALL authors stay in good standing with the bloggers who do so much for us.

Want To Put Together a Kick-A$& Blog Tour, But Not Sure How?
You're in luck - I'm co-teaching a webinar, 10 Steps to a Successful Blog Tour, on Feb 1. I'll be sharing more of what I've learned from the survey, plus my process for planning and conducting blog tours. A blog tour company may charge $100-$1000 to do your tour. This webinar is 50 bucks, and you'll learn all the essentials for creating your own successful blog tour, plus tips for building relationships with book bloggers and making your tour stand out from all the rest.

Space is limited - register for the StoneHouse University webinar 10 Steps to a Successful Blog Tour.

More On Blog Tours
This is the third post in my series about blog tours and working with book bloggers. Read the other posts:
Why Do a Book Blog Tour?
How I Went from DREADING Marketing to Loving It

Author K.C. Neal :: Pyxis Series :: YA Paranormal

Why Do a Book Blog Tour?

I've gained a bit of a reputation about book blog tours - I've coordinated five of them (the fifth starts in a week) and well over 200 blog appearances, just in the past 4 months - and I hear this a lot: "You're always touring!"

I get a ton of questions from author friends about all aspects of book blog tours - what they are, how to find bloggers, how to approach bloggers, how to get bloggers to review a book, how to structure giveaways, how to manage all of the details of a book blog tour. Book blog tours are kind of my thing. :) And for reals, I LOVE talking about this stuff!

So... Why Do a Book Blog Tour?

Targeting: Reach your target reader audience by getting featured on genre-specific blogs

Exposure: Many blogs have hundreds or thousands of followers

Reviews: Book bloggers review books; reviews are important for buyer confidence

Efficiency: You’ll reach many more people than you could with a bookstore signing tour… without even leaving your home.

Who Should Do a Book Blog Tour?

Anyone who's trying to sell a book. It doesn't matter whether your book will be released soon or has been out for years, whether it's fiction or non-fiction. There are blogs out there for all topics and genres.

Learn How To Do Your Own Blog Tour

 I'm co-teaching a webinar on February 1st, 10 Steps to a Successful Blog Tour. If you want to do a blog tour and you're not sure about where to start or how to do it, this is the course for you. You'll learn the essential steps to planning and executing your own successful blog tour, plus tips for building relationships with book bloggers and creating a tour that stands out from the rest. The webinar is $50, 2 hours long. I have a system that's worked extremely well for me, and I will teach you everything I know in this course, and in Part 2: Advanced Tips and Techniques for Blog Tours (in March).

StoneHouse University Webinar: 10 Steps to a Successful Blog Tour

Author K.C. Neal :: Pyxis Series :: YA Paranormal