Thursday, January 5, 2017

Tell Me What You Think

I have four published books. Two are part of my charity series Rescue Me - Animal Anthology, and the other two are novels I have created. I also have four books waiting to be edited and either published or submitted. I am not lacking for work as I am also working to finish drafting the rest of my thriller series which when completed will contain four books just in that series. The question for most people would be though, are my books any good?

Reviews are what answer that question. They are the testimonials that authors live by and while of course we all want thousands of five star reviews, I would be happy to just hit fifty honest ones. Right now I would be ecstatic to get to twenty-five. Yes, it is fair to say I am not great at getting reviews. I am planning to improve that in the coming year however. I have watched a few authors as they have used different strategies to get reviews and I am planning to work on using some of them myself to see if it can grow my own number.

I am hoping to have all four books go up so that maybe they will be more visible though my focus will be on Survivor as well as the Rescue Me books. Anything that helps either let people know they are not alone dealing with anxiety or brings attention to the animals that need to be rescued from the shelters of the world will always be my priority. I am hoping to use promotions on both Goodreads and Amazon in order to get my work in front of a larger audience.

One of the most common practices, and the one I will be employing first, is to give a free ebook copy to someone in exchange for an honest review. This allows the person to take the time to sit down with your story and help you with their review without having to buy something that may not be their personal cup of tea. There are actually entire groups on Facebook that are dedicated to reviewing books for authors. I will be exploring them as well.

Promotions go hand in hand with growing through reviews. It isn't enough to upload a book or perhaps have a publisher release the story, you have to know how to find your audience and let them know it is there. Then periodically remind them so that new members of the group can have the chance to enjoy your book as well. Hopefully people will find out by word of mouth (reviews) but in order to keep getting new ones it never hurts to tell people you are still out there. This will be a focus for me beginning in March though I will be studying up between now and then.

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