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Book marketing guru's all speak highly of getting book reviews, even to the tune of sending out 500 or so books to get the word out.
I've found the top 500 blogs in my subject area (I write nonfiction) and am spending a couple of months going to each one and asking if they'd like to do a review and a giveaway. Some don't reply. Some say they've got too many books beside their bed, or they don't do reviews. But about 1 in 6 request a copy for review. (I'll tabulate later just how many come through. Some need reminders.)
Nobody acts like I'm bothering them. It's a win/win and they're grateful for getting a free book on a subject area they're passionate about. And some of these blogs get major traffic. One that reviewed my book yesterday gets 80,000 visitors per month, has 250 incoming links, an Alexa rank of 94,000 and 900+ subscribed RSS readers.
Again, I'll tabulate results later (like how many came through with reviews and how many of my books actually sold as a result), but it seems at this point to be a good campaign.
btw, I do take the time to read some posts on each blog, and read the "About" section so that I can see if we're indeed a match and I can personalize my request to each one. I think it's better to take a slow, personal approach than just try to see how many blogs I can hit in a day. A couple of the bloggers mentioned how much they appreciated that I took the time to check out their blog before suggesting a review.
Has anyone else had success/failures in getting reviews from bloggers?
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I just started my blog-promotion campaign for my book that is going to get out on the market in the second part of May.
ReplyDeleteFirst I compiled a list of bloggers; it was hard work. After that I thought about getting some "fast results" and asked some bloggers that are known in their local community to help me. Also I sent some emails to blog directories.
For now, after some 20 and so emails sent, only 3 of emails came with a first response, but after following with a second email, no response.
Only close friends and business partners that have personal blogs gave a positive response.
Kind of disappointing...
Important information: this campaign is to my non-fiction book dealing with personal finance, written in Romanian, and the campaign is focused on Romanian bloggers.
Luca,
ReplyDeleteThanks for telling us your experience. That's valuable information.
I'm still in the middle of this campaign, so I can't say at this point what the final result will be, e.g., how many reviews will actually be written and how many books will sell as a result. But I think at this point it is starting to get the word out and building some buzz in the personal finance blogging community.
It's important to note that this campaign comes a year after I first published the book. During that time, I've done a lot of things to gather blurbs, reviews, awards, etc., which I've put in my press page:
http://wisdomcreekpress.com/press_kits.html
So when I e-mail a blogger, I give them a url to both that page and my Amazon page (which has 20 reviews). A couple of them mention going to these pages to check the book out before asking for a copy.
But getting to this point has taken a lot of time and effort. It's been a long, arduous task to get reviews, etc.
Then again, even if you do all these things, the blog culture and book culture may be different in Romania. I've only been there once (Transylvania area for a conference).
How long has your book been out?
I can share more specifics if you like. Thanks again for commenting!