A Fresh New Approach to Getting Reviews for Your Book
Hi, I'm Lois W. Stern here, your Associate at Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s THE NEW BOOK REVIEW BLOG. I have a fresh new idea for those of you who originally submitted data about your books, hoping to attract a reviewer or two for your book(s) As you know, that project laid a goose egg, so we have moved on
I just initiated a mini review writing contest for Tales2Inspire, which I want to share with you, so that you can adapt it to initiate your own mini review contest.
Here is my opening pitch
Write a meaningful mini review for any of the Tales2Inspire books (even a review of 25 words works). Add a catchy title and submit your mini review to this contest, along with the following.
- A brief bio
- Your headshot photo
- URLs to any of your relevant links, (i.e.social media, website, etc.)
- Your book cover(s) or other object unique to you, to add to your personal banner (as pictured below).
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Here are the payoffs I offer my Tales2Inspire reviewers, but you will need to adapt the words in green font below for your book review campaign:
👉 Carolyn Howard-Johnson will select the winning reviews, posting them on The NewBookReview blog, and highlighting the reviewer for their achievement.
👉 Each winner will receive a personal banner to use as they wish for all their promotional needs.
👉 Each contest winner's review will end with an About the Reviewer section with the reviewer's bio, headshot and reviewer's preferred links included.
👉 I will feature each contest winning reviewer in my Tales2Inspire newsletter.
* NOTE: I am fortunate to be working with Carolyn Howard-Johnson, so she will be selecting my Tales2Inspire mini review contest winners and highlighting them on her TheNewBookReview blog. If you are replicating this project, try to connect with someone to work with you that might lend authenticity to your project. And if you have a newsletter, that's another good place to thank the reviewer.)
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Tips for structuring your contest
👉 Think of a way that you can honor your winners. Do you have a blog, website, newsletter, Twitter or Facebook page? Promise them some payoff and follow through.
👉 If you can get a respected author or other person of note to select your contest winners, it will add authenticity to your contest.
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Tell your readers how to submit their mini reviews
👉 Provide the name and email address of the person to whom the reviewer should submit their review.
(Reviews for any of the Tales2Inspire books should be sent to Carolyn at: hojonews@gmail.com with a CC to me at tales2inspire2@gmail.com.)
👉 Tell them to put the words Mini Review Contest in the subject line.
👉 Remind them to include the following items with their mini review:
- A brief bio
- Their headshot photo
- The URL to any of their relevant links, (i.e.social media, website, etc.)
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Tips for writing a winning mini-review
👉 Write a catchy heading for your review in 10 words or less. (HINT: Use strong words for your title as that is what other readers will see first, and sometimes the only part they read. So make it pop!)
👉 Sincerity counts. Give the book the number of stars you think it deserves.
(1 is the lowest score, 5 is the highest. A 5-star rating means that you really liked the book, 4 stars means it was very good, 3 stars, just okay, etc. ).
👉 Answer a few of questions about the book you are reviewing. (I make this easy for reviewers by including Book Discussion Questions at the end of each of my Tales2Inspire books, but you can always ask the author to send you some questions as suggestions of topics they would like you to address.)
👉 End your review with your actual name, not a pseudonym. Readers will take more notice of your words if written by a person with an authentic name.
👉 Finally, read over your review to correct any errors before pressing that submit button.
👉 If possible, post your mini review on Amazon, 'cause short reviews count just as much as detailed long ones when Amazon displays the total number of reviews a book has received.
👉 But even if for some reason Amazon rejects your review, we can still post it 0n Amazon's Editorial Reviews section, (according to their guidelines), and that's a big deal. Here's why:
Your Editorial Review
Although Amazon no longer counts Editorial Reviews toward the total number of reviews a book receives, those Editorial Reviews do something super good for the reviewer! Along with your review, we will include your relevant credentials (i.e. author of, or other pertinent info). And as you already know, Amazon is a great place for wide exposure without costing you a dime!
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About the Author:
Lois W. Stern is a multi award winning author whose work has been featured in the New York Times, Newsday, Long Island Press, Barnard Magazine, on Local Access TV and in live presentations in many varied venues. She has now published twelve Tales2Inspire® treasured anthologies of her contest winners' stories. As TheNewBookReview review coordinator, Lois serves as an outreach to help authors on their paths to discovery.
Lois created her Tales2Inspire® ‘Authors Helping Authors’ project in 2012, helping hundreds of talented newbies and seasoned authors alike enhance their visibility. Click here to learn more about entering her annual no fee Tales2Inspire contest. That’s right, it’s free! What emerges from these annual contests are highly professional anthologies of inspirational memoirs. Fans of Chicken Soup for the Soul are particularly enamored of Tales2Inspire® books, because aside from being expertly crafted, inspirational memoirs, they are filled with original photos to further enhance the power of each story. Lois invites interested readers to get a FREE Tales2Inspire® sampler book at: www.tales2inspire.com/gifts and visit Lois at these Media Marketing sites:
Website: https://www.tales2Inspirel.com
Spend some media marketing time with Lois at:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/tales2inspire
Twitter: www.twitter.com/tales2inspire2
MORE ABOUT #THENEWBOOKREVIEW BLOG
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Authors, readers, publishers, and reviewers may republish their favorite reviews of books they want to share with others. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read and love. Please see submission guidelines in Lois W. Stern’s silver circle icon in the right column of this blog, in a tab at the top of this blog's home page or go directly to the submission guidelines at https://bit.ly/ThePlacetoRecycleBookReviews
Authors and publishers will want to access use Lois W. Stern's #AuthorsHelpingAuthors services. All are free and listed in her silver-circle icons in the right column. WARNING some cell phones cut off the right column of the blog, so try it using your desktop!)
Carolyn Wilhelm is our IT expert, an award-winning author and veteran educator, she also contributes reviews and posts on other topics related to books.
Reviews, interviews, and articles on this blog are indexed by genre, reviewers' names, and review sites so #TheNewBookReview may be used as a resource for most anyone in the publishing industry. As an example, writers will find this blog's search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. #TheFrugalbookPromoter, #CarolynHowardJohnson, #TheNewBookReview, #TheFrugalEditor, #SharingwithWriters, #reading #BookReviews #GreatBkReviews #BookMarketing
