How To Get More Book Reviews: The Fastest Way To Get Started

1. How To Get Book Reviews: The Series: Hi, This is Melanie Rocket. Welcome to how to get book reviews. This is a four part series that looks at one of the most important components of your book . Marketing and sales strategy. Getting reviews. Book reviews are the social proof that most readers rely on to tell them more about the book. Reviewers often give a few details about a book and their opinion about the book. It is thes comments that help potential buyers decide whether or not to hit the buy button . As crazy as it may seem, readers are reluctant to download books even if they are free without a few reviews, letting them know that free is worth it. Before you publish and when you publish your book, you should be looking for reviewers and asking for reviews. The number of reviews you can get in your first few weeks will make a difference in your initial sales and sales ranking. The lower the ranking number, the better the better your sales ranking, the more effort Amazon will put into helping promote your new book. This series is about getting those all important reviews, both at the beginning of your publishing cycle and throughout the life of your book. There are four parts to the Siri's. The fastest way to get started talks about why you have to put your marketing hard hat on and start asking. It covers how to get reviews from inside your book and gives you ideas for using your website and your email marketing list. Toe. Ask for both sales and reviews. Using marketing groups to get sales and reviews is all about tapping into affinity groups, whether they are in person or online. I'll go through the various types of affinity groups and will discuss setting up a book promo team and getting them to help with your first few reviews. Find an approach book Reviewers The Right Way focuses on finding reviewers in your books category. Ornish There are literally thousands of people who love reviewing books. The challenge is in finding them and asking for a review the right way. How to purchase reviews while sticking to Amazon guidelines is a great way to go. If you are crunched for time, not only can you get editorial reviews, you can put in your Amazon author page, but if you have a marketing budget, this congee the fastest way to get a steady stream of reviews. You will be surprised at some of the lower cost ways to buy reviews. Once you know all the different ways you can get reviews, you will be able to experiment with them and find out the techniques that suit you the best . You will no longer find yourself staring at a page with no reviews. You will be looking at this instead. I know it should go without saying, but I find myself compelled to say it anyway. Your reviews will depend on having a great cover that attracts readers a great description that tells readers what your book is about. And, first and foremost, a fabulous book ready to get some reviews, Let's get started. 2. The Fastest Way To Get Started: Introduction: Hello and welcome to the first class in my how to get book reviews. Siri's in this class. We're going to look at the fastest way to get started. We're going to learn why asking for reviews is a critical component of your book marketing mindset. How to include requests for reviews inside your book will look at why this is the most important thing you can do to get reviews and will learn to different ways of installing your requests inside your book. Then we'll look at your website and what you need to post on your site in order to get reviews as soon as your book is published and finally will look at your email list and why it's an important tool in your book. Marketing strategy will also look at a dozen ideas on what messages to send and when to send them. So if you're ready, I'm ready. Let's go to the first lesson and get started 3. How To Ask For Reviews: When it comes to getting reviews, you simply have to ask, ask and then ask again. I know that some of you are very shy about self promotion and hesitate to market yourself and your books because you think you sound too needy or that you're being way too aggressive. The fact is that if you don't promote your books, if you don't ask for reviews, your book simply is not going to sell. You may feel that you are going overboard on your promotions, but let's put it in perspective. Your potential buyers, your buyers and you're raving fans are not going to see all your messages. They might see one or two tweets, or they may pop onto your blawg and read a poster to. But the people who see your tweets may not see your linked in posts. Or maybe they will. So what? The fact is on Lee, you will see all your marketing messages if you get tired of seeing the same ones all the time, create some new ones, but don't stop simply because you get bored. Unless, of course, you don't want more sales. Think coke. It's Coke shy about asking you to buy their products. No, they aren't. Yes, you may get tired of their constant ads, but guess what? They work. And guess what else? You might even watch the next commercial because you haven't seen it before. Coke has adds an exposure. Everywhere you look print ads, including magazines and newspapers, Internet ads on prominent heavy traffic sites, TV ads, movie ads, movie and TV placement deals. America's got talent gets paid so that Simon Cowell's picks up a Coke to drink billboards, including on the sides of buses and even inside the bus ads on the sides of vending machines, even though the machines also sell Pepsi, you two Pro Mose and contests Did I miss anything? Coke didn't accidentally happen to be one of the biggest soft drink companies in the world . They ask you to buy constantly. You should be asking, too. Think Energizer Bunny. He just keeps on going and going and going. He's been going for over 25 years. Do you think he's about to stop? Neither should you. The bottom line is that in order to get a constant stream of reviews, you have to ask for them. You have to be bold about asking and you need to have your asking. Messages show up everywhere. Whenever you get discouraged and want to stop, I think coke think pink and just keep on asking. 4. Ask For Reviews INSIDE Your Book: The first thing you should do on your quest for reviews is include, please review links Inside your book Once you have added the links, they will work for you for the entire life of your book. Here's why. Let's say someone has just downloaded or purchased your eBook, and now they are reading it. The perfect time to ask for a review is when they have just finished reading a link. Going straight to your review page makes it easy to catch them before they go off to do something else. The please review request is always there. It will keep on asking every single time a reader gets to the end of your book, it will keep on asking as long as your book continues to sell. Requests for reviews in your blogger newsletter can be for gotten even by those with the best intent. The request for a review at the end of your book will remind them of their intent and encourage them to give you a review. I consider the please review requests at the end of your book to be mandatory. If you do nothing else to get reviews, make sure you include it the end of the book ask is a no brainer for savvy marketers, but I'm going to suggest adding a second please review request near the beginning of your book, right before or after the table of contents. The purpose of asking before someone reads is to plant the idea of a review in their head when they come to the please review request at the end of your book, they will be much more likely to comply simply because the idea was there. From the very beginning, Though this works for most books, there are books in which this can be awkward. For example, Children's picture books. You be the judge. If it makes sense, request to review both at the beginning and end. It works. You can use any one of three different kinds of links. The last one is so superior to the other two. I cry when an author doesn't use it. The three kinds of links are a link to your author page. Once you published your first book, you can set up on Amazon Author Page. Your author page can include links to all of your books. Using this link can save you time on every book. After your 1st 1 you simply send your reader to your author page where hopefully they will buy more eBooks, and hopefully they will remember to give you a review. The problem with this link is they might get distracted and never follow through with the review. The second link you can use is the link that goes directly to your sales page. If you install this link inside your book, it will take your reader back to the original sales page. You're on the right track, but people are lazy, and some people are so lazy that scrolling down to the review section and finding where to click may just be too much like work. The third type of link takes your reader directly to the review page. All they have to do is start typing. There is no work involved in finding a what buttons to push. There are no distractions. All they have to do is type the review. This is the review link you want to use in your books. In the next two videos, I will show you how to install the links inside your book 5. Inside Your Book: Adding Links: in this video, we'll find out how toe add review links inside your book Before I get started. Be sure to download the PdF Resource guide that comes with this course. It includes examples of review links with the proper link structure. Just copy the links and substitute your own book number. There are two ways of creating review links. The first method is the one most authors use, and I'll cover it in this video. In the next video, I will give you detailed steps for installing and using redirect links from your website. This method can save you over an hour of work, so be sure to watch and consider using it. Let's get going. Adding links inside your book involves five steps. Publish your e book or set up your pre order. Find your ace in or book number. Create your review link. Add the review link to your book draft Re upload your e book. Let's go through these one at a time from your Kindle Direct publishing dashboard. Set your book up and hit, Publish or choose a pre publication date. If you are pre publishing, you should give yourself a minimum of three days for the set up, you will be uploading an E book file without your review links. Wait a few hours, go back into your Kindle dashboard and grab the ace in that Amazon has assigned to your book. Create a link using one of the three link choices. These are in your resource. Pdf file. Go back to your final draft, an insert, your review request and the link to your review page. Save your final draft. Generate a new Kindle e book file and uploaded again. That's it. Now that your review requests and links are in your book, they will automatically work for you for the life of your book. In the next video, we'll take a look at a different method for inserting review links inside your books. 6. Inside Your Book: Using A Plugin: in this video, I'm going to show you how to create redirect links using an easy to install and use redirect Plug in on your WordPress author site. If you don't have a WordPress site, this won't work for you. Just click on to the next video. The whole idea of using the thirsty affiliates redirect plug in is to create a link inside your book that goes directly to your books review page. Using the plug in method means you won't have to go through the five step process of upload in your book, getting the ace in book number, installing the link in your book draft, re rendering your book and uploading a second time. This plug in will take you one minute toe upload another minute to create a temporary link . And when your book is published one more minute to edit the link so that clicking on it takes readers directly to the review page. First I'm going to show you the elements involved in the redirect process, then all demo. How to install in use. The plug in the purpose of the redirect method is to include this link inside your book. Here's how when you were working on your book, Whether it's the first draft or the final draft, write a blurb, including an image. If you want asking for a review. Gautier Thirsty affiliate Plug in and create a redirect link. There are two parts to the link. A shortened version of your book title, for example. Using the words Pickles Review will create a link that looks like this. You also add a temporary landing page link, for example, your author page, or you could use a link to your website. When your book is ready to go, you will hit the publish button on your book, wait a few hours and grab the ace in book number. Go back to the redirect plug in and edit the temporary link, and that's it. It has taken me longer to tell you what to do. Then it will take you to actually do it. Let's take a look at the whole process in action in the dashboard of your blawg, find plug ins on the menu. Click on add new near the top type in thirsty affiliates, and you will almost immediately see several selections. Choose this one thirsty affiliates, affiliate link manager click on install and then click again Toe. Activate in the menu. Look for thirsty affiliates and click on new affiliate Link. Choose the one or two most relevant words from your book title and add them here. Choose a temporary link you're author page or a website page and added Here, click on Save Link. Now install this link into your book draft. That's all you have to do until you publish your book. Once you hit the publish button, wait a few hours or a day and grab the ace in book number. Amazon has assigned to your new book. Go back to the thirsty affiliates. Plug in and edit the destination link by adding the link that goes directly to your review page. Click on Save Link. That's it. You're done. Whenever readers click on this link in your book, they will go directly to your review page. 7. Get Reviews From Your Website: your website or author. Blawg is one of your most important marketing resources. You may have various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, but the fact is you don't own any of them. They can change the rules at any time, and they do. The only properties you own and control are your website and your email list. You should be building your website or author blawg with two things in mind. The first is to help build your email list. The second is to engage your followers. Whether you are starting with just one book or have many, each book should have a separate sales page. There is one purpose for your sales page, and that is to get readers over to Amazon ready to hit the buy button. Your sales page must sell your book. If you have more than one book, add links to your other books at the bottom of your blog's page or create some nails linking to each of your other books, like Mark Dawson does on his website. Mark J. Dawson dot com. Don't assume readers will access your other books through your menu. Make it easy and put your book links right in front of them. And don't forget you need to include a link to your Amazon sales page. I know this seems like a no brainer, but I've seen numerous sites where the author forgot to include a link to Amazon. When you enter the realm of book, marketing and selling, you need to constantly tell people about your books, and you need to be bold and ask for reviews. No one else is going to do it for you on your sales page. You can use the same description as you have on Amazon, but I'm going to encourage you to make some changes and additions. The first edition will be toe ask for reviews. It could be a simple as the success of my book depends on book reviews. Can you help get creative? Several years ago, I saw Blawg Post, in which the author took a photo of himself Don on his knees, begging. He did it in such a funny way I left my head off. Once you start getting reviews from bloggers and editorial review sites, be sure to revise your sales page by adding excerpts or the entire review. Be sure to link back to the original site. Reviews from bloggers and other sites add credibility to your book. Another thing you can add to your book sales page is a look inside widget. The widget includes by share and preview buttons. The widget allows your visitors to take a peek inside your book and then go directly to Amazon to make their purchase. My suggestion is to include the witch it at the very top of your page instead of a book image. Here's how. Go to your sales page on Amazon and scroll down until you see the embed symbol. Click on the link and in the new panel that pops up, grab the code and add it to your website. Many bloggers air challenged when it comes to figuring out what to post about, here are a few ways to keep on promoting and blogging about both your new books and your older books. Blawg. About your upcoming new book, Let your audience know a bit about the book or about your book writing journey. Let everyone know your projected publication date. When you have a final draft ready, ask readers if they are interested in receiving an a. R, C or advanced review copy of your book in exchange for a review, have them post the review on their website or send it to you in an email with permission to post on your website poster. A RC reviews on your website and be sure to link back to your readers website. Give them full credit for the review. Once your book has been published, be sure to add any advanced reviews to your author page. When you officially hit the publish button, create one or more hot off the press announcements. Let readers know when your book is free or available at a special price. Include excerpts from your book. Your website is a center point, the hub of your book promotion activity. Ideally, you should add new content, your blog's or website once a week link from your website to your social media accounts link from your social media accounts to your website. Keep it going and keep it active. 8. Get Reviews From Your Email List: in the last. Listen, I talked about your website and how it is the central hub of your marketing activities. In this lesson, I'm going to focus on your list. Your email list is the most important tool in your book. Marketing arsenal. Why? Because you own your list. Readers voluntarily sign up for your list. They open and read emails. Some of them were. Click back to your website, and some will click on by links. There are several ways to use your list to get reviews for your book. How you do this depends on where you are in your book publishing cycle. You could be months away from publishing. You could be about to hit the publish button or your book could have been published months ago. Each outgoing email message should have one main focus. Ask your readers to do one thing. Download a book or review the book or join your promo team. Let's start with prepublication messages. These can start up to 45 days before you plan on publishing. Send your list and email announcing your upcoming book and invite subscribers to join your promotions team. Be sure to give them a way to contact you. Tell your subscribers the benefits of joining your team, helping an author getting an A R C or advanced Review Copy. Getting some bonus perks, such as a free copy of a previously published book. Be sure to send an email when you're advanced. Review. Copy is available. Let your readers know you're sending them a free copy. In exchange for a review, Send another email just to let readers know your new book is almost ready for publication. If you are doing prepublication sales on Amazon, be sure to let everyone know as soon as your book link is live that your readers know. Write a short description of your book and be sure to include your link directly to Amazon . Make thes hot off the press announcements. Fun and engaging. If you are promoting your book for free or at a discount, be sure to let everyone know. Send a first day message on the last day message. Your purpose is to get downloads. The links inside your book will be doing their job by prompting readers to give you a review. A week later, send a separate message telling your readers how important reviews are for the success of a new book, Ask or big for reviews. Make sure you include your Amazon link. Here are a few more promotion ideas. Try running a contest. For example, any reader who buys your downloads. The book will be added to a draw for a 25 or $50 Amazon gift card. Their name will be added to the draw list and extra 10 times if they review the book. Brag if there is something to brag about. For example, a review in a prestigious publication or mentioned by a prominent blogger. If a top 500 Amazon reviewers says something nice, send an email with the entire review. In it. Getting noticed by a top Amazon reviewer is a big deal. Make the most of it. Whether you think making 100 seals or 1000 sales is brag worthy. Brag about it, Greg. When you get your 1st 10 reviews, your 1st 25 or your 1st 100 reviews, send a message. If you hit any of the following milestones, your book gets into any of the top 100 lists or your book gets a best seller flag. Take a screenshot of your ranking or your bestseller status because these could be short lived. Make sure you have the proof at the bottom of every email included. Link list of all your books and include your Amazon author Page link at a short paragraph, letting your readers know that reviews are always welcome. So what's too much and what's not enough? Sending one email a week is not too much. Many list owners find this to be the perfect timing. Sending one email a month is way too little, especially during your pre launch and the first month of your book sales. Are you excited? It's okay to act like you are excited. Let it show in your emails and your blawg posts in the first month of publishing, you should push it a bit. Send 6 to 10 e mails. Each email needs to focus on something slightly different. If you have a few people un subscribing, that's OK. They weren't your fans anyway. Just do it. It's up to you to promote your books, and your email list can be one of the best promo tools you have. Keep your list growing and keep your list active. 9. What's Next on Skillshare: in this course we looked at why you have to become comfortable asking for reviews. We learned how important it is to include requests were reviews inside your book, and we looked at two different ways of doing that. We then looked at both your website and your email list and at different ways of engaging your audience. This is part one of a series on how to get reviews. There is a lot more to come, so I hope I am going to see you In part two. Part two covers how to use different kinds of marketing groups to get sales and reviews. But before I go, I'd really appreciate two things. First, your project. Be sure to post the name of your book and your Amazon you are. L tell us a bit about your book. Who knows? You might get a few extra reviews as the result. And speaking of reviews, I'd love to hear from you a few kind words would simply make my day. I'll see you in the next class