Your Book In Review

In books as in movies, book reviews are important. As I do my research I am discovering the importance of reviews.

At present, when I publish I’m putting my novel out into the world. I can tweet it. I can put it on my Facebook page, but reviews will give it extra gloss and credibility. Reviewers will tell everyone what they think of your book (good, bad or indifferent). Their network of readers can spread news of your book wider than you can by yourself.

So how do you find someone to review your book? That is easier than you think. Or rather, finding them is easy. Getting them to review your book? That may be a little trickier. But first, how to find them.

My first Google search was for Book Review Sites. That yielded 700 + million links. Had to narrow that down. I needed to find reviewers for my particular book. As Shadow Point falls under Paranormal Romance, I did a second search for Paranormal Romance Book Review Sites . That dropped my search results down to about a million which is reasonable in the world of searches.

Now for the work. You need to go to each of these sites. Find out exactly what type of PR books they review. For example if they only review vampire/shape-shifter types of stories, then my Supernatural Crime story isn't going to interest them too much.

Most of these sites have a ‘Request a Review’ contact page. They tell you exactly what kind of information they need before they consider your book. It may seem strict, but it is necessary for many of them. There are only so many hours in a day. There are thousands of authors looking for reviews and you've just joined the queue.

Patience is going to be a major requirement. It will take time for these reviewers to get around to reading your book even if they've accepted it. You are looking at a wait time of up to 4 months in some cases. If they don’t like it, they may not review it at all and they are under no obligation to tell you that.  

As Authors, the idea of getting your book reviewed by the New York Times is like winning the Pulitzer for journalists. It means you've arrived in the world of books and publishing. It’s a wonderful dream. But may be a bit unrealistic. Do I want to be on the NYT Best Seller list? Of course I do. But it’s not my only dream. To have my book read around the world and moderately successful would make me just as happy.

On a side note, I've run into the question of paying someone to review my book. I considered the option. But my decision is not to go that route. The primary reason behind my decision is that it doesn't seem honest. A good review for a bad book is not the type of reputation I want. That is what I want. An honest review. A honest good review would be great.

So, since Shadow Point is still in the editing phase, I am making a list of the reviewer sites I think would be interested in reading and reviewing my book. As of today, I've bookmarked about 23 sites and plan to continue searching for more Review sites. Does it seem like a lot of sites? Maybe it is, but the more exposure, the better. That along with the hope that the good reviews will outweigh the bad.