How to Make the Most of a Good Review of Your Book

So your book just got an excellent review . . . Congratulations! Good reviews are like gold. If you're fortunate enough to get one, you'll want to make sure you do everything possible to put that endorsement to work for you to help sell more books. So where do you start?  Here are a few tips for ways to help spread the word about recommendations for your book . . .

Press Releases

Submit your book review as a press release to all your local media (newspapers, magazines, radio, television news, etc.)   If your book appeals to a specific niche, make sure you submit your press release to any publications online, or otherwise, which cater to the demographic of your readership.  Don't forget to use online free press release services to help spread the word. 

Back Cover

If you've received a positive review from a reputable review agency, make sure you put it out there where potential buyers can see it. Use a quote, or an excerpt of a quote for any future print runs of your book.  Don't forget to credit the source of the reviewer; if you've received a great review from the New York Times, then you want to make sure everyone knows about it!

Banners & Signage

If you're attending book-signings at festivals or other venues, you'll want to create professional looking signage.  Banners and signs are a great place to promote positive reviews of your book.  Take the time to do this well.  Professional looking banners with sturdy banner-stands are eye-catching and can do wonders to create a professional image for you and your book.  If a banner is impractical, or out of the budget, you can also print professional looking signs to place inside plexiglass frames.  

Social Media

Do you have a blog?  Great!  Post your review there.  Don't forget to share your review on your Facebook, Twitter, Google + and LinkedIn pages. Make sure to use #hashtags to increase your post's visibility.  Go ahead, be shameless, and ask your friends and family to like and share your posts.  

Amazon's Editorial Reviews

The Editorial Review Section on your Amazon Author Central profile was created to help you bring attention to your professional reviews and literary achievements. This is a great place for sharing your success as an author!

GoodReads Profile

Post your reviews in your GoodReads profile (go to your dashboard to do this).  Also, don't forget to blog the review in GoodRead's blog section.

Your Barnes and Noble Profile

Post your review in the section entitled: More About This Book.  Take the time to get this right the first time though, because Barnes and Noble does not make it easy to edit your posts here.  

Your Website

Post all, or a portion of your all your positive reviews on your website.  Don't forget to include images and logos (with permission) to help bring attention to those reviews which have been provided from reputable and well-recognized agencies. If you have a media page include a PDF of your review which can be downloaded directly from your site.  

Your Sell-Sheet

Your sell-sheet is the perfect place to include reviews of your book. A sell-sheet should include pertinent information for bookstores, libraries, and buyers to tell them why and how to purchase your book.

Thoughts on Bublish

by Patricia Reding

An author’s being active on social media is necessary these days. It is a way to get one’s name out and to help to build a following. But it takes precious time from the writer’s craft and we writers are often left wondering if it’s all worth it. Then, along came Bublish (at www.Bublish.com).  Without a doubt, I’ve come to love this tool.

These days, it is fairly easy to discover what readers think of works. They tell us, most notably, through their posted reviews. There are also outlets like Wattpad that give them the opportunity to comment on bits and pieces of an overall work and even to engage in discussions with the author. But Bublish is different because its focus is for an author to share with readers the back story behind her creations.

The concept of Bublish is that the author takes portions of her work and then shares them with readers, adding comments about those excerpts. The author might explain how those portions of the story came to be, or how real-life events brought the portions about or influenced them in some manner. For example, I’ve written “Book Bubbles” about such things as:

How I struggled with the idea of whether or not to include an introduction/preface to my tale: http://bit.ly/1YyN6Xb;

What words and concepts I used in the opening scene to create suspense: http://bit.ly/1HtGNzS

The significance of smell/scent (an oft-forgotten sense) in my stories: http://bit.ly/1HtJOAb;

How I research for information while writing: http://bit.ly/1HtX5sD; and

How I use “doorways” and similar devices to urge readers to continue reading: http://bit.ly/1Q5Pinn.

And take a look at the “look” of Bublish. It is quite handsome, don’t you agree?

Once a BookBubble is created and posted, the author may share it on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere. Then the magic of Bublish really begins, as the author can follow her metrics to discover how many views there have been of the Bubble and on what outlets, the number of times it was shared by email or re-posted on Twitter or Facebook, the number of viewers who checked out the author’s profile on Bublish or elsewhere, and so on. What’s more, the author can see what retailers those who saw a BookBubble went to so as to check out the work. But Bublish does not stop there. It also allows readers to “follow” the author so as to receive notice every time the author posts a new BookBubble, keeping the author’s name and works in the reader’s sights.

I would love for you to follow me on Bublish. Just click the “Follow on Bublish” button at https://www.bublish.com/author/view/6479 and join me for the background to my creating the Oathtaker journey!

Multi-award-winning author Patricia Reding leads a double life. By day, she practices law. By night, she reads, reviews a wide variety of works, and writes fantasy. She lives on an island on the Mississippi with her husband and youngest daughter (her son and oldest daughter having already flown the nest), and Flynn Rider (an English Cream Golden Retriever). From there she seeks to create a world in which she can be in two places at once. She started writing The Oathtaker Series as a challenge, and re-discovered along the way, the joy of storytelling.

The Power of Visualizing the Story

by K.B. Hoyle

I love to draw. I'm not terrible at drawing, but I'm also not very good. Like most of the creative arts, I have a natural knack for it, and if I had ever received good instruction, I probably could have become quite proficient, but alas and alack for time and energy and life. When I was a child and had more of all three, I used to keep sketchbooks for all my stories, and those sketchbooks were like gold to me. You see, I'm an incredibly visual person, and as such, my stories live first in my head--in full, vivid, sharp detail--and it's always been the case for me that the itch to get the images down on paper has overwhelmed, at times, my better sense that tells me I'm not a good enough artist to do the images justice. (Someday I'm convinced I WILL make movies, but there's so much that has to happen first.)

When you're writing a story, however, getting the images just right IS important, and that's one reason why my bumbling attempts to draw what is inside my head has always frustrated me. Yes, I realize it's my job to paint pictures with my words, but when creating worlds that don't exist, the longing to see those worlds is sometimes overwhelmingly powerful. And I'm not one to believe we ever create ex nihilo, so sometimes having the images to view as we create is also, in and of itself, a form of inspiration.

So allow me to let you all in on a little secret of mine... Now, instead of sketching out my characters or settings, I collect images on Pinterest. I've had an author account on Pinterest for years, but I kind of just picked at it, never really realizing its full potential until recently when I downloaded the app. And Pinterest is so vast, I can usually find just what I have in my mind, or close enough, or sometimes (even better) what I never knew I wanted but come to realize is related to my idea through the Pinterest search engines. Eureka! Now I scroll through it while cooking dinner and doing other menial tasks, and I collect images to people and inspire my worlds. Some of my boards (like my Girl in the Sea board) are public, but I keep several private boards full of images for future projects I'll someday release to be viewed by all--once the books are written. I can't tell you how helpful Pinterest has been for me as a working mother who also--oh yeah--writes books, public speaks, and manages all my own marketing and social media on the side! I no longer have time to sketch, but I do have time to Pinterest, and that means I can still visualize my stories. And if I can visualize my stories, I can better bring them to life through words, and that benefits my readers.

Check out my Pinterest boards HERE! I hope you will be encouraged to start your own writing inspiration boards, too.





K. B. Hoyle is a multiple award-winning author, a public speaker, and a creative writing instructor. She and her husband have four sons who test their sanity on a daily basis. Learn more about her and her books at kbhoyle.com.

PUBLISHERS DON’T WANT GOOD BOOKS

This conversation has happened at every agency in the world (particularly in the kids and teen department).

Agent 1: I’ve got a new project.

Agent 2: Yeah? How good is it?

Agent 1: It’s good.

Agent 2: Good?

Agent 1: Yeah, good.

Agent 2: Oh…Damn.

Agent 1: Yeah.

Agent 2: *Sips martini* That’s too bad.

Agents, editors, and maybe you, the author, know the curse of the “good” book. The book that’s perfectly fine, that works, that tells an interesting story, and that is, sad to say, darn near unsellable. The rejections often contain phrases like “didn’t fall in love,” or “just didn’t feel strongly enough,” leavened with genuine compliments about the writing or characterization. After years of learning the craft of story and voice, you’ve finally created a nearly flawless novel, one you know is as good (heck, better!) than a lot of stuff on the shelf. And it just…doesn’t…sell.

What’s going on here? Are publishers just crass, cowardly, visionless hacks who take pleasure in crushing the dreams of talented writers, refusing to give even promising careers a chance to get started?

The answer, of course, is no. Nobody is more motivated (apart from the author) to see a book succeed with flying colors than publishers. Believe me when I say us soulless agents and our human counterparts- editors- are wishing and dreaming as hard as you for that Newbery Medal, the debut on the New York Times Best Sellers list, the book signing line that wraps around the block.

It pains me to say it- and it pains all of us in publishing, I promise you- but there typically just isn’t room for “good” books. Publishing is an increasingly competitive space. More and more people want to be published, and the standard for what constitutes a “success” gets higher every day. Publishers have limited space on their lists, and so each novel has to be more than good. It has to be something special.

Of course there are many kinds of special. Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting, Nicola Yoon’s The Sun is Also a Star, Chris Grabenstein’s Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library, Victoria Aveyard’s Red Queen– four completely different novels, with pretty different audiences, and they all have something in common. These are novels that demand you sit up and take notice. They are more than just functioning stories. They refuse to be ignored.

When I say publishers don’t want good books, I don’t mean they’re after bad ones either. Nobody is more passionate about compelling fiction than your friendly neighborhood editor, whether the novel in question is a beautiful, heart-breaking, cry-on-the-subway coming of age, or a heart-pounding, unforgettable, so-damn-sexy-you-need-a-time-out fantasy, romance, or action/adventure. Though you may have found writing on the shelf at Barnes & Noble that makes your skin crawl (in the bad way), fiction is a subjective business, and I guarantee that even if it isn’t your brand of beer, every novel published made someone, somewhere, feel something profound- whether it was excitement, intrigue, or love.

Awesome, thanks for that John. Of course I want to be better than good. I want to be special, too. So what do I do?

My advice to my clients, to all novelists (and to myself), is always the same: push yourself. Don’t settle for your first idea, or even your second. Don’t stick with a project simply because it’s written, when you know rewriting or moving on to the next thing will be even better. Can you tell a story? Great. Now ask yourself, why does my story need to be told? What about it is new, what about it pushes boundaries? What about it has, at least, the potential to change a person’s life?

Teens need you. Teens need writers. I know I did. Novels saved my life, and I am one of thousands in that club. So be fearless. When you tell someone what your story is about, what’s their reaction? You want “Wow,” you want, “Oh my goodness, really?” You even want, “You can’t write a book about that!”

We’re all striving to do something great, and most of us ultimately land somewhere between where we started and the stars. If you want to be a novelist, you have to want to be the best novelist, or you’ll never get off the ground. As maddening as it can be, I’m glad the publishing biz is so competitive. It pushes us to be more.

So get good, write a good novel, hone your craft until you are a master of structure.

Then start again.

John M. Cusick is an agent with Folio Jr. / Folio Literary Management, representing picture books, middle-grade, and young adult novels.