Having a page for review links

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Judg

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I am thinking of putting up a page on my website linking to reviews of my novel. My debut novel is just about to be released, so my reputation is still waiting to be built. About all a potential reader will have to go on is those first reviews. My question is: do you think this is a good idea? Have you done it? Seen it done? Does it seem tacky or entirely normal? Am I overthinking this? Yes, probably, but that's what we writers do, isn't it?
 

Filigree

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It's all in your delivery. I've seen horribly tacky examples of review links from vanity-published and self-published authors. Some self-published and commercial authors have great links, effective without being spammy.

It's a good idea. Go beyond that and keep a text file of your stronger reviews plus their links and date. You never know when a site might go down, or Amazon loses your reviews. It's happened to me twice. An offline text file allows you to cull review quotes, too.

In fact, you've reminded me I need to update my own review links.
 

Judg

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Thanks. I was thinking of being very minimalist. Just a page titled "Reviews" with the links, probably naming the reviewer. I'm considering citing a brief phrase from each review too. I do intend to include less-enthusiastic ones too, to keep credibility higher.

And I do like the idea of having an off-line list.

Does anybody have examples of authors who do this well?
 

Becky Black

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Thanks. I was thinking of being very minimalist. Just a page titled "Reviews" with the links, probably naming the reviewer. I'm considering citing a brief phrase from each review too. I do intend to include less-enthusiastic ones too, to keep credibility higher.

That sounds like the ideal way to do it. And I've seen other authors with similar pages.

Word of warning - I've also seen people include the whole text of the review on their page. DON'T! It's their content and you can't repost it without their permission. It also means people don't have to go to their page, which means depriving them of site traffic and possibly ad revenue that allows them to run their site. If they find that out they'll most likely never review you again. A short quote as a teaser is fine, but never the whole thing.
 

Sunnyside

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I think you can do this, so long as you're careful about it. As Becky pointed out, don't quote lengthy reviews, just "bullet points" -- the kind of stuff you might use as a blurb (you can link to the longer piece, if you like). I do it on my website (you can see it here) and I'm hoping that it's helpful and not tasteless.

And, as filigree noted, I've also got everything as printable hard copy, which can be useful as websites start to go down or links expire.
 

Fallen

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As Desiree suggets, I create a page for each novel, where I put the blurb, cover art, etc then quote a single line from reviews underneath that (with links), plus I also list any awards for that novel etc.

Filigree, thank you for mentioning about backing reviews up... It never even crossed my mind!!!
 
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