How to get your book noticed?

Build (or find) a list of reviewers who accept e-book shorts in your genre. Some accept copies as attachments with the submission, others ask for you to wait to be asked. Blast away.

Also, submit to amazon shorts.

It's got a different name now. Kindle Singles.

http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=2486013011

MysteryRiter said:

Well, I self-published my first book to Amazon - it's a short story - yesterday. My question is: what's the best way to get it noticed? I have a pretty active blog, twitter, etc. so I'm not entirely worried about that but as far as reaching readers, what do you recommend? I know that I just have to be patient to get some sales since I have a bunch of backlinks to my book on my blog and twitter. But I'm not a patient person. What do you recommend as far as getting my book noticed?

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If I clicked the right link (and I think I did), you already have eight reviews dating back to December of last year. Is this for the same book? I'm a bit confused.

I added tags to your title to reflect the reality game show and murder/killing aspects of your book. You can place up to thirteen tags on your book so other people can find it easier. You do this after your book is already live on Amazon.

Your "look inside" feature doesn't actually give anyone the chance to read part of your story. If you moved some of your front matter to the back of your e-book, people would be able to read more of the story.

No, I don't think you need to mention it. I was only confused because I read your post and knew you had just re-published the book. Other people won't know that. And, IIRC, there wasn't a publication date with the ranking and other information, so it really shouldn't pop up on anyone's radar at all. Just so you are aware that it looks as if the book has been out since last December.

The more you add to the back (link to your website, info. about the author, and anything else you can think of), the more the story will be able to be read. I think it's something like ten percent of the book that is viewable.

Al Stevens said:

It's got a different name now. Kindle Singles.

http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=2486013011

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How does one get a short story onto Kindle Singles if the short story has already been uploaded to Amazon? I just checked, and my two stories don't show up in Kindle Singles.

Al Stevens said:

Build (or find) a list of reviewers who accept e-book shorts in your genre. Some accept copies as attachments with the submission, others ask for you to wait to be asked. Blast away.

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OK, since tonight seems to be all about me asking dumb questions: How does one find said reviewers? Google search? I honestly have no clue.

Scribe4264 said:

How does one get a short story onto Kindle Singles if the short story has already been uploaded to Amazon? I just checked, and my two stories don't show up in Kindle Singles.

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You have to send them an e-mail with a link to your book. They will review it and respond within a couple of weeks. Here's a link for more information: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000700491

Scribe4264 said:

OK, since tonight seems to be all about me asking dumb questions: How does one find said reviewers? Google search? I honestly have no clue.

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Use the search function here at AW. I know someone posted a list here in the self-publishing and POD forums not too long ago. If you look around a bit, you'll find it.

Scribe4264 said:

OK, since tonight seems to be all about me asking dumb questions: How does one find said reviewers? Google search? I honestly have no clue.

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I am trying to make such a list for myself. It's a tedious and time-consuming process. There are online lists. Here's what I found so far.

• The lists of reviewers often don't include the genres that the reviewer accepts; you have to check their websites. One at a time.
• Many reviewers don't have submission guidelines, believe it or not, even when when the listing websites say they do and that the guidelines are out in plain view. One must assume that you have to email a request and wait for a reply.
• Many don't accept Ebooks.
• Many don't accept self-published books.
• Some say, send the book as an attachment in epub or mobi format.
• Others say, ask first before you send the book.

It's a jungle out there.

How did I find them? Google. Trying various search arguments. I'm going to go now and look for the list published on the self-pub/pod forum that merrihiatt mentioned.

I spent the past hour browsing the posts in Self Publishing/POD about reviewers. Mostly I found the sites I'd already found with google.

And I found lots of broken links. Those posts go back to 2010 and some of the reviewers and maintainer of reviewer lists have let their websites expire.

So, I'm pretty much where I was. Here's what I have: A self-published mystery in ebook format. So far I have found only four reviewers who might review it and for whom the submission guidelines are posted and clear. That's out of the hundreds that are out there. If you write YA, speculative, romance, or erotica, you'll have a much bigger list. Size matters.

ETA: and, of course, print editions.

Will do. Thanks!!!

if you're book is YA then I found this great resource for reviews...

http://yabookblogdirectory.blogspot.com/p/ya-book-blogger-list.html

Starting out as a book reviewer/blogger myself, I have a faint idea of the jungle out there. There are probably thousands of book review blogs and while most of them are YA-based, a lot of them aren't as well. If you want to make a list yourself, you're going to spend a lot of time and effort browsing websites.

What is probably a good idea - in my opinion - is to check the most popular book blogger memes, such as In My Mailbox, which offer a list of all websites participating. Here's the lastest edition of this meme. It's held every week, so at least you now know that these websites are active. But that doesn't necessarily mean they'll review your genre.

Check their review policy and see what they want to read and whether or not they accept self-published books and/or eBooks. If they fit what you're longer for, shoot them an email. If they don't specifically mention to attach an .epub or .pdf to the mail, then don't do it. I for one, don't mention it in my review policy, and I don't generally open mails with attachments if I haven't spoken to the author before.

Here's my review blog if you're interested. I've been reviewing books for over a year. I mainly review paranormal/speculative fiction (both for YA and adults), fantasy, gothic horror and regular horror, paranormal mysteries, some regular old mysteries and true haunting stories. Some YA contemporary romance as well. I also have a link of book blogger websites in my left sidebar, which you can check out as well if you're looking for more people to review your book.

As a sidenote, book blogger/reviewer basically means the same thing. Next to book reviews, we tend to host other things like book-related memes, cover reveals, author interviews, guest blog posts, etc. If a blogger doesn't want to review your book, it might be a good idea to ask them if they want to interview you or host a guest post. Sometimes they just can't accept the book due to time restraints, but they will be more than happy to host anything else for you.

As most people already mentioned, find a list of people who want to review your blog. Other ways to get noticed include organizing a book tour, setting up a Goodreads contest, blog about your book, etc.

Eternalised, thanks for posting the meme link. It is very helpful.

eternalised said:

Starting out as a book reviewer/blogger myself, I have a faint idea of the jungle out there. There are probably thousands of book review blogs and while most of them are YA-based, a lot of them aren't as well. If you want to make a list yourself, you're going to spend a lot of time and effort browsing websites.

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I have a friend who's an active YA author/blogger (but not reviewer) who submits her self-pub works to blog reviewers. She spends a lot of time building up her network.

And another one who does the same for adult historical fiction.

I just wonder, how many *readers* do these blog reviews attract? Or is it mostly other writers who are reading them to find places to submit their own books to? Or just for networking?

There's probably no way at all to know, but do blog reviews lead to sales? Or just warm-fuzzy feelings that someone is noticing your work?

Great information in this thread. Thanks!

The same list of people (about 200 over the usual daily average) turn up on my viewing stats each time a new review appears on my little review blog. While relatively few of them comment there, a few of them say something to me on Twitter or by email.

What's interesting is that judging from my Amazon Associates thing, the books I am hardest on seem to sell just as well from my reviews as the ones I recommend. But I warn you now: it takes me an age to get round to reviewing the books I'm sent, and I don't review all of them.

I'm not sure if book reviews help sell. I did have some people comment on one of my reviews before and some of them then actually bought the book. The review in question was for a self-pubbed book I enjoyed a lot. Mind you, this doesn't always happen, in fact it's quite rare. But when the reviewer posts reviews on Amazon and Goodreads as well, I think the review could gain a lot of importance, especially if it's a favorable review.

Most authors come to my review blog because they're happy with the length and in-depth analysis of my reviews. I've seen blogs with reviews that are only a couple of lines, mine are generally more than one Word page (I write them in Word first). Maybe it looks good having a long review on the Goodreads or Amazon page of their book?

Then there's the famous Amanda Hocking who sold a million copies of her first book because the YA book blogging community heavily supported her. So maybe book blogs/review blogs are important and can help increase sales. I think it mostly depends on the book in question, the amount of hype the book makes and how active the author is in the community.

I've been sending a TON of books to bloggers and I find that it usually does help generate sales!

This industry is all about word of mouth. If you can get some popular reviewers to get behind your book then you're doing pretty well IMO...

I send my book to smaller reviewers too. They say any PR is good PR!