I Hate Marketing - Getting Reviews

I hate marketing; I really do. But I know that "publish it and they will come" is not an effective strategy. I've tried it; many many indie authors have tried it.

So we try to get some reviews. Maybe we ask a friend or they just do it without asking because they realize how difficult it is to get reviews. But that quickly dries up, so we move on.

We submit our ebooks and physical copies—only if necessary—to those few review sites willing to actually read and review indie published books. There aren't many, and so for every book they review they have to say no to a hundred more. I know this firsthand as that's what we had to do here when we were open to submissions—something I hope to do again someday. And after a couple of years, well, you get burned out, or there just isn't time as real life gets in the way. Something has to give, and writing free book reviews is an easy choice to get the ax.

Now some entrepreneurial types figured out how to keep writing book reviews for indie authors. You could pay someone to give you a five-star review on Amazon. Maybe they had a few sock puppets to give you several five-star reviews. Some people did it themselves. Once it got out of control and reviews on Amazon didn't mean shit, Amazon cracked down and only allowed verified purchasers to write reviews. Does it still go on? Maybe. I don't know. But it gave paid reviews a stigma. How would you know if the review was honest?

Well, some people figured out how to do it the right way. I think it might be the norm now. I recently went through the list of reviewers at the Indie View, and there were a lot of paid review sites. But I wasn't ready for that yet.

But the free indie reviews list for sci-fi was short. There were plenty that were MIA or closed to submissions. I did manage to come up with a list of several sites and submitted my requests. That was July. Only one person has replied to say that they're interested. One site auto-replied to tell me to watch their site. Maybe they'd review it; maybe they wouldn't. The rest of them didn't respond at all. I'm not surprised by it really, nor can I blame them. They're probably inundated with requests and don't have the time to reply to them all. I get that. Sometimes people can be rude when you reject their book review request.

I realize that I'm going to have to open my wallet. I've got a debit card for switching my ISP and commiting to an extended period of time. It's found money. But I have to be smart with how I'm going to spend it on marketing. A few indie authors have shared how fast that ad dollar disappears. So I'm going with the biggest bang for the buck. Goodreads (owned by Amazon) is having a giveaway sale. I can give away 100 ebook (Kindle) copies to GR readers (that know to look for giveaways) for $99. The impression I get is that if I get five reviews out of that, it's a success. It runs for the month of September, so I'll report back to let you know how I did.

Want to read Armistice Day? Visit this page during the month of September to enter for a chance to win.

\_/
DED

A Review of Pubby

Pubby is a paid book review service that offers indie authors a chance to get book reviews on Amazon. No sock puppets or fill-in-the-blank five-star reviews. Authors pay a monthly fee for access to their network where authors review the books of their fellow authors. Books can be purchased to satisfy Amazon's verified purchase rules (Kindle Unlimited counts) or given away for free.

No one here has used Pubby's service, so we can't offer a proper review, but prolific indie author, Scott Rhine, has. He offers a balanced review of their service, listing pros and cons, and breaks down the financials. If you're interested in trying Pubby, read Scott's review first.

\_/
DED

Should Book Reviewers be Paid for Promoting Your Book?

Over on the Tenka International blog, Michael Norton wrote a post entitled "Book Reviewers Don’t Charge Enough, And Why You Under-Appreciate Them". In it, he explains the importance of book reviews in promoting one's work. While on the surface that seems like a no-brainer, he emphasizes the importance of book review blogs and how they help to spread the message about your book.

Book reviewers are the people who take the time to set up a website and cultivate a dedicated audience. They are under-appreciated by most independent authors, because most writers have no idea how to effectively market their work, and thus fail to see book reviewers as what they are: hubs, trusted by pre-established audiences, that directly influence awareness and conventional opinion of a writer’s work.

Norton then attacks the idea that book reviewers should be giving it away for free.

Many reviewers read and write for free, under the insecure belief that admitting that they’re professional critics detracts from their credibility—but I think this is the wrong mentality. As written: time and energy are resources that reviewers deserve to be paid for, especially if that reviewer is going to be a critical factor in determining whether or not a writer’s work sinks or swims in the market.

He acknowledges that there will be charlatans, but we all know that they already exist. But he emphasizes that if a reviewer is completely honest and transparent, then there's no reason why one shouldn't proceed in this direction.

Paid reviews are still controversial. The members of the Podler Staff debated it via email a few years ago, ultimately deciding not to do it. And a few years before that, Podler wrestled with the idea of doing it. He later rescinded that decision, but the dissenters on his staff had already quit.

Besides the complications brought up by money versus integrity, there's the problem with indie author budgets. Indie authors typically don't have a lot of money to spend on their book—although some don't spend anything. The smart author will hire an editor to proofread her work and a designer to handle her cover. Even if she finds affordable options, she's likely to spend a few hundred dollars (typically more) on those two. Coming up with money for marketing, whether it be for banner ads or book reviews, may be asking too much. As most indie authors sell less than a hundred copies of their book, getting that return on their investment may be a tall order.

From a reviewer's perspective, I appreciate Norton's acknowledgement for what we do. In just a few years, I've seen many a "labor of love" run its course. The blogosphere is littered with dead book review blogs. People burn out. The demands of family and work and other real world matters take priority. Free books are wonderful, but you can't redeem them for diapers or use them to pay the electric bill. Of course, only a select few might be able to review enough books to make any sort of living from it. I'm not one of those people. Still, I wonder if some kind of hybrid system could be achieved.

I think that the Self-Publishing Review has a good system in place. They offer a variety of packages based on one's budget. From my perspective it looks like a lot of work, but it seems to be working for them.

What if this blog offered "fast track" book reviews? I admit that we're slow; we're down to one book per month. It might go a little faster if I didn't take on 500+ page behemoths. But if I were to be paid to review books, then I'd have justification to spend my whole day reading. I do that now with proofreading and editing. The turnaround time would be vastly improved: 4-8 hours/day reading instead of 1. We'd churn out a lot more book reviews. For those not willing to pay, I'd leave the free option open, but they'd have to wait the usual month or so for their review.

But what about integrity? No one complains about The New York Times reviewers. Is it because they're paid by the newspaper and not by the publisher? Probably. In general, we don't like to give out bad reviews. We pre-screen books, hence the first three chapters request. Books that have major grammatical and structural issues automatically get rejected. That wouldn't change. We only read books in genres we like; I wouldn't start reading paranormal romance novels even if you paid me. We point out the flaws, and we'd have to still do that. Ultimately, you would have to decide if we retained our integrity.

We have no immediate plans to adopt a paid reviews program. This is just me thinking out loud. After 5+ years, I'm burning out on reviewing indie books (my traditionally published TBR pile is now too big and I've missed out on a lot of good books), and I know others here have as well (Note the shrinking "current contributor" list). We can't seem to attract new reviewers despite our flexible rules. Why join someone else's blog when you can start your own? We've had people do both, which I see as a value add. Maybe a cash incentive is in order. Or is it a slippery slope? I don't know. I do know that there's a good chance that we're going to go on long term hiatus, and based on other blogs that have done that...well, they tend to make that hiatus permanent.

\_/
DED

Image Credit: boydlogan.wordpress.com

Buying book reviews: Valid marketing tool or false advertising?

First, let me emphasize that New Podler Review of Books does not and never has charged money for book reviews. The only payment we get is a copy of the books we review. So the following article and questions are simply posted for conversational purposes.

The New York Times has a story on the rise and fall of GettingBookReviews.com, a service owned by Todd Rutherford where, for a fee, authors could commission several dozen 5-star reviews and get them posted on Amazon and other online markets.

“I was creating reviews that pointed out the positive things, not the negative things,” Mr. Rutherford said. “These were marketing reviews, not editorial reviews.”

In essence, they were blurbs, the little puffs on the backs of books in the old days, when all books were physical objects and sold in stores. No one took blurbs very seriously, but books looked naked without them.

One of Mr. Rutherford’s clients, who confidently commissioned hundreds of reviews and didn’t even require them to be favorable, subsequently became a best seller. This is proof, Mr. Rutherford said, that his notion was correct. Attention, despite being contrived, draws more attention.

The system is enough to make you a little skeptical, which is where Mr. Rutherford finds himself. He is now suspicious of all online reviews — of books or anything else. “When there are 20 positive and one negative, I’m going to go with the negative,” he said. “I’m jaded.”

GettingBookReviews.com went out of business in 2011 due largely to Google suspending its advertising account, and Amazon removing most of its reviews from their site.

Authors, would you pay for book reviews? If so, would you pay extra for 5-star raves knowing their honesty was dubious at best?

Originally posted at Quarkfolio.