Reviews: Do They Matter?

Happy Labor Day weekend! I hope you've had a wonderful summer and are looking forward to the changes fall might bring into your life; whether it's back to school for you or your kids, or a welcome change in the weather. Enjoy your day.




      

 

Good intentions. We all have them. Many times we act on them, but sometimes we fall short. I often find myself on the short side of good intentions when it comes to promoting books I really like. I tell myself as I'm reading, "I'm going to be sure to write a review for this one!" But when I close the cover on the last page, it somehow slips my mind.

As an author, I should know better. I know how important reviews can be, as well as the value of word-of-mouth promotion --- especially word-of-mouth promotion. When looking for a book to purchase, I often check the posted reviews on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I realize that many of the 5-star reviews come from family and friends of the author, but you can still glean a lot from what people say about a book.

The competition for an author these days is fierce. Even with social media as a means of getting the word out, one voice can get lost among the oh-so-many. But we still have a sphere of influence, and we ought to use it when we can. The books we read that are really good, that move us in some way, need to be shared with other readers. And posting reviews, or promoting a good book on FaceBook, Twitter, or other outlets, is a good way to do that.

I appreciate any review my books get, but I love it when someone I don't know says something good about one of my novels in a review or in a post somewhere. And I especially love it when that reader takes time to contact me personally. It's made me so much more aware as a reader that I should do that as well. And I have, many times.

Readers and writers, we're in this together. Writers are looking for readers, and readers are looking for writers. Proverbs 15:23 says, "A word in due season, how good it is!" A review or other means of promotion for an author or book we like can be that good word. It can benefit other readers who are looking for something worthwhile in which to invest their time and money, and it certainly benefits the author, who works so hard to build their audience.

Do you rely on reviews when selecting a book to read? If you hear a good review about a book, does it entice you to check it out?

Marketing Your Self-Published Books

In 2012, I self-published my latest novel, Unraveled, through Amazon Create Space. It was a relatively easy process, once I learned the intricacies of preparing the manuscript to upload in Microsoft Word.

As an aside, let me just say how much I hate Word. My family and friends know it's my favorite soapbox subject--how much I hate Word. I've used Word Perfect since the dawn of computer time and there is no comparison between the two. Word Perfect is so easy to use and so user friendly. For example, if I want a header on one page and not on another, it's two easy steps to make the change. If I don't want page numbers on some pages and I do on others; or if I want one style of page numbers on some pages, and a different style on others, simple, Simple, SIMPLE. Not so in Word. It's a complicated process that brings me to the edge every single time. I. Hate. Word.

But once I passed the manuscript-preparation hurdle (and I have to pass it with every manuscript I prepare), I was good to go. Katy Popa designed my cover (as well as the covers on my re-released novels) and did a beautiful job, and voila, my book was ready for print. Even with four proofreaders, one of whom was a teacher for 30 years, it took about four read-throughs to find all the typos. I think I corrected them all, but if you find one, please let me know!

So, what then? Marketing. Talk about throwing a damper on the party. Marketing is the hard taskmaster you'd like to murder in the night. But alas, he's indestructible and all you can do is bow to his authority.

I've helped several authors put their books on Create Space, and they always ask, "How do I market my book?" I want to say, "How the heck should I know?" But that would be so unprofessional. So I act like I know what I'm talking about when I advise them, and I'm going to try to do the same thing here.

Social media is a friend of any author, whether traditionally published or self published. And I advise my author friends to take advantage of it. Facebook especially. Plan a Big Launch for the release of your book and get all your FB friends in on it. Prepare a beautiful graphic for your release for your own use, and for the use of those you've been able to enlist to help you. On the release date, have everyone publish the post you've prepared and ask everyone who receives it to Share it. It's like a pebble making a splash, then creating a ripple effect. The idea is to get the ripple to grow into a tsunami. No, it's not easy, and mostly it won't happen, but the bigger you can make that ripple effect, the better for you.

Another thing I do is appeal to book clubs. I'm still working on the details as to how to make that work for me. But of all the publicity-type marketing things I do, participating in book clubs that have read one of my books is my all-time favorite. I love hearing complete strangers talk about what they did and didn't like about my book, and interacting with them. It's tremendous fun. The challenge is finding the clubs, but again, social media is a good place to begin.

When I have a new release, I have postcards printed that I send to everyone on my mailing list which I continue to grow every change I get. For example, when I speak, I have my audience fill out a slip of paper with their name and address that goes into a drawing for a free book. I make it clear that the ONLY thing I use their information for is to mail a postcard to them when I have a new release. One the front of the postcard is my book cover. On the back is a blurb about the book, where it's available, and a place to address the postcard. You can get postcards, bookmarks, etc. at a good price from Vista Print.



















I also do extensive marketing to libraries. I've done that with all my books, not just my self-published titles. I have a large file of libraries that I market to with close to 2,500 libraries on my list. I found them at Library Technology Guides, which list all the libraries by state, city and county. In preparing my list I first added library systems, state by state, which have more than one library in their group. For example, Los Angeles Public Library System has more than 70 libraries, and may purchase multiple copies of your book to put in their libraries. Next, I added to my list libraries in cities with a population of at least 40,000. And I barely scratched the surface with my 2,500 library list.

I prepared a nice one-sheet with my book covers, blurbs about them, where they're available, and added a link to my Amazon author page. At the top of the one sheet, I invited the Library Director to consider purchasing my books for their library patrons. In the early days, I mailed my one-sheet to the libraries on my list. Now, thank God, they can be sent electronically. I sell a lot of books to libraries, and though I don't make much money per book, I am finding new readers, and that's the whole point. I often hear from them, and that's a nice bonus. After I've marketed to the libraries on my list, I go back through the list a couple of months later to see who's purchased my books, and often find that my books are "Checked Out." I love it.

In balancing writing versus marketing, I usually set aside about 4 hours on Saturday afternoons to market to libraries. I start my playlist on Spotify and get to work. I don't do it every Saturday, but I work hard to get through my list, state by state, with every new release. It takes several months but to me it's worth it.

Finally, at least for purposes of this post, I try to set up radio interviews to promote my books. You can scan radio programs on blogtalkradio.com to find the programs that will fit with your book. Those are done from home, on the phone, and are fun to do.

So these are ways I work at marketing my books. What suggestions can you add to the list? The more we know, the better it is for all of us working hard to get our books out there.

Why the Novel Matters

Welcome back to Novel Matters! We hope you had a wonderful holiday season and are excited about the possibilities of 2012. We have missed you and the stimulating conversations we have come to enjoy so much. We've been busy bees while you were gone. Here's a taste of what's coming in the new year:

Drumroll please...announcing our theme for this year - why the novel matters. Everything we do in 2012 will circle back to this question, and we'll be looking for your input, so put those thinking caps on.

Soon we'll announce the particulars of a "Why the Novel Matters" essay contest. The essay can address novels in general or one in particular and the grand prize will be a Kindle! Lucky finalists will not go away empty-handed, as we have some delightful parting gifts, so stay tuned.

We've lined up interviews with fabulous authors whose books help us answer our theme question. They'll give us a peek into their methods and madness and maybe even their struggles with publication. Look for these interviews to begin in February and continue on the fourth Monday of each month through November.

We'd love to have a picture of you reading one of our books in an exotic locale (or just around town, but be creative). We'll post your photo on our blog and give you a shout-out on our new Facebook page.

Yes, Novel Matters is now on Facebook, and we'd love for you to 'like' us here. Now it's even easier to stay in touch and keep the conversation going. We'll also post photos of the writer's life and try to make it look more glamorous than it actually is (no pictures in our jammies, we promise).

We've sharpened our Ticonderoga #2 pencils and are tapping into our creative juices to bring some short stories to the blog. Who knows, a story could grow into a living, breathing novel and you will be here at its conception. At the very least, we'll have fun trying.

We'll continue partnering with our sister blog, She Reads, exchanging posts monthly and supporting each others' endeavors to spread the positive message of a loving Creator.

Last, the six of us will post reviews of books we love in the coming months. And of course, we'll explore the question, "Why does this novel matter?" for each one. We'll need your feedback on this, too.

By the end of 2012, we hope to have a pretty good handle on why what we do matters. Is this an important question for you? We'd love to hear.

A Too Social Media

The winner of a copy of Latayne C. Scott's The Mormon Mirage is Edna! Hey Edna, we have your e-mail address and Latayne will be in touch with you to collect your mailing address.

We'll announce the next book give-away Wednesday, September 2.

And yes, we are reading through the entries for the Audience with an Agent contest. We are close to choosing the winning entries, but I'm afraid you'll have to wait a bit longer before we announce them. I know! I know! Ick to waiting!

If I had read Patti's most recent post a few weeks ago, I might have come up with a different response - but I read it this week, and it just so happens that this week is the week several things happened in tandem to reshape my thoughts about the writer and social media.

I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Shoutlife, Virtual Bookshelf, and several other social media sites - truthfully? I've managed to forget about many of these sites. Yesterday, I received a friend request in my e-mail to a group I didn't think I'd ever heard of never mind belonged to. Turns out I do belong to the group.

Later, I was on Twitter reading a few tweets - and I read a jaw dropping tweet from someone I'm following - the person broadcast details of a phone conversation she'd just had with a friend of hers. Personal details. Very, very personal details. I felt betrayed by proxy - my heart broke for the friend who would have never guessed that the details of the conversation she'd just had with her trusted friend would, moments later, be broadcast to the internet. Frankly, it stopped me in my tracks. And it got me thinking more carefully about not just the time I spend online, but the quality of my contribution.

I haven't chosen to fast from being online, but I have recently trimmed down my online activities to the most valuable, interesting, and compelling sites that I will participate in on a regular basis (you can bet this site tops the list!). I also have a short list of questions and criteria I run by everything I post - especially those quick 140 characters, so tantalizingly easy to write. But once they are out there - they are out there. You can't "un-send".

I've found an online rhythm that works for me. And I promise you won't see me my Facebook status reporting a friend's secret, or me tweeting the details of my PMS episode, or how bored I am (all stuff I've seen). Instead, I'm working to succeed at the most important thing about being online; connecting with people in meaningful ways.

How about you? Have you seen things online that made you rethink what you were doing? Have you found your online rhythm? We'd love to hear about what you've learned and accomplished.