Getting book reviews is a difficult task. Even if you have the best book in the world, it’s not easy to get people to say nice things about your book and write an honest review.
However, there are a few things that you can do early on in order to increase your chances of getting some good reviews for your book.
In this blog post, we’ll go over 11 different methods or strategies that will help you get more book reviews!
11 Ways of Getting Book Reviews
1. Start Building Connections With Readers on Social Media
One great way to get book reviews is by connecting with your readers and potential reviewers early on in the process.
This includes following them, interacting with their posts (liking or commenting), sharing content from time to time, or even just asking for a review after they’ve read your book.
It’s important that you make connections so people know who you are and what you’re about before they purchase your book.
They’ll be more likely to go out of their way for an author if they have already spent some time getting acquainted with them beforehand!
2. Join Facebook Groups that review books often
Facebook has a lot of groups for book reviews and book bloggers, and they are easy to find.
Join a few of these active groups that you’re interested in or if there’s one specific book reviewer who is popular for the type of book you’ve written, try reaching out to them!
3. Find Readers Who Share Your Values
Finding readers with similar values can be just as important as promoting your own books. The more you share your values with someone, the more they are likely to recommend and review your book.
4. Ask for book reviews
Yes, directly ask for reviews in the back of your book.
This may seem obvious, but it’s a good place to get reviews while you’re still in contact with readers!
Include an information card for reviewers (if applicable) and ask for direct feedback on any one or two aspects they felt could have been strengthened.
5. Offer a free Audiobook of your book to people who leave an honest book review
Offering a free Audiobook of your book to people who leave an honest review is one way you can try and get reviews from readers.
This could be done through Amazon’s Audible, or with other online retailers like iTunes for example.
It also has the added benefit that it will help boost sales as well! You might offer mp3 version in return for their email. This way you can increase your email list and can offer them a free audio version of your book.
This can be done with email clients like Mailerlite using their autoresponder feature.
6. Create an online campaign that encourages people to post their own reviews
This is one of the most creative ways to get reviews for your book.
In this method, you create an online campaign that encourages people to post their own honest review out there about it on places like Amazon and Goodreads.
You can either do this by providing free prizes or some other type of incentives in return for these reviews.
7. Contact bloggers and reviewers and offer them a free copy of your book
This is also one of the best ways to get your book reviewed . Offer your book for free in exchange for an honest review in their blog.
This is the very popular way of getting reviews and can be done through websites like BookBub and some other sites, where you email them about your book offer.
There are also some other sites which allow authors to create a profile and list their book as being available there with all the books details.
You can also find some connections within in your circle or on social media sites who do book reviews and directly send emails asking for a book review.
Some of them may charge you a little or you can negotiate your way around in return for a free copy.
8. Request reviews from family, friends, and co-workers
This can be a little tricky and you need to make sure that they don’t feel obligated. But this is an excellent way to get a few reviews early on.
As I have mentioned in my book “How to write a book in 60 days“, having an inner circle consisting of friends, family, and co-workers, you can get reviews quickly and fast on your book launch day itself.
This will have a snowball effect and you may end up getting reviews from your other readers as well.
9. Promote the heck out of it on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram)
This will help you get more reviews and followers as well.
If your book is not a Kindle book, then promote it on forums like Booklikes, LibraryThing etc. You can also submit the book to Goodreads which has a large number of users for getting free reviews too!
Posting links about your book in different social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram will get more reviews and number of followers on these sites.
This will also help you find out about the people who visit your book page, which is a good way to know what they liked or not. You can use this information for future books as well!
I have a dedicated post about how you can use social media to promote yourself. You should check that out to know more about this strategy in detail.
10. Use hashtags like #reviewsneeded and #giveaway when posting about your book on social media so more people will see it!
Every social networking site now supports HASHTAGS. So whenever you post anything about your book, make sure to include the related hashtags.
For example, you can use hashtags like #reviewsneeded, #Giveaways, #bookreview, etc and then post a status about your book.
This will help you get more people to see the post and comment on it, which might mean that they would also want to read your book or review it. I am 100% sure some book reviewers will approach you. Make sure to check your comments and DM’s.
11. Keep sending emails asking for feedback – you’ll eventually get some responses!
If you want to get at least one book review from a person, then it’s important that you find the right way of asking them.
The best ways are emailing or contacting him/her on social media and messaging through their blog reviews section (if they have any).
If you have an email list you can use that as well! Ask your email followers if they want to be a part of your Street Team. A Street Team is a group of readers from your email list that agree to write an honest review in return for an early electronic copy of your book.
I guarantee this is one of the best ways to get a book review quickly. I managed to get thirty book reviews in less than a month by doing this.
My Final Take on How to Get Book Reviews for your Book
I hope you found this article helpful and it has given you some new ideas on how to get book reviews. However, if there is anything that is not clear or would like more information then please feel free to ask me .
If you want a guaranteed way of getting your first 50 reviews on your launch day, buy my step-by-step guide book “How To Write a Book in 60-Days” . I have mentioned everything in detail and some really cool ninja techniques.