Review Me, Please

You wrote a book, that is awesome! You celebrated with champagne and caviar, or if you are like me a chocolate sundae and some kool-aid. You took a well deserved break from the writing cave to soak in the serenity of completion. After your break you took your baby and destroyed it slowly editing it through the tears and red pen marks left from proof reading and beta readers. After the reconstruction of your story you decide to submit query letters.

If your letters went anything like mine then once again you broke out the handkerchief after receiving the collection of rejections. I knew I wasn't ready to keep pushing for traditional publishing and felt that I might value from some lessons learned by going the self publishing route. Lets say for the sake of this post that you made the same determination I did and went with self publishing. Just a few short months after you decide to go for it you finally hit publish on your beautiful book.

You attend any event you can and tell people about your book. You launch on social media and obsessively track your sales. Once you have popped the bubbly on your first few books sold you wonder now what? You can spam social media day in and day out but you realize quickly that you are simply showing the same material to the same people repeatedly. You can keep talking to people at events but those events are few and far between. So what is another way that your book can get out there? Reviews.

Have those that have purchased your story take a few moments and jump online to give you a rating and review. The more reviews you have the better because it raises your profile during searches. Also good reviews can help you stand out against other books with similar titles. It is also helpful for future readers to get a perspective on your work that does not come solely from the author. By making sure your book is listed on Amazon, Goodreads and any other reading and review site you can ensure that your story reaches more people through the amazing network of referrals created by these sites. So just remember anytime someone mentions that have a copy of your book, make sure to ask them to drop by a site and leave a review. You would be amazed at how much a simple rating candy.