A New Way to Locate Book Reviewers

With thousands of new books launching every day, it is a challenge for any author to get book reviews.If you read my blog, you know that I'm an advocate for writing book reviews--like these recent posts: http://bit.ly/2rIE2of or http://bit.ly/2mXsM86 

Because I've written over 800 customer reviews on Amazon, I've been regularly getting emails from authors saying something like, “You reviewed ___ book and I hope you will be interested in reviewing my book, ____.” 

Until the last few weeks, I had no idea how these emails were being generated--but I do now.  I learned about a company called Book Razor.  As an experiment, I tried their $30 package.  As a part of the process, you give them links to books similar to your book which have lots of reviews (over 4,000 total is their request)--and part of the key process where you control the results picking these similar titles. They have some program that collects email addresses of these reviewers and they send you a spreadsheet of this information (in a day or two after the submission). They give you a little email template then you write each of these people offering them the ebook version of your book and seeing if they are interested in reviewing your book.

Because these people are active reviewers, you will get a response from some of them. Now to be honest, it is a lot of work to enter their emails into your address book and write each of them. I did this experiment with my Billy Graham biography which has been out over two years and has pretty much been stuck at 48 reviews with no new reviews for at least six or eight months.

From my reading, fifty reviews is some sort of benchmark for Amazon--i.e. they do more behind the scenes if you reach this level.  I'm trying Book Razor to push and get beyond 50 reviews. I've had several people ask for the ebook version.  Also in my email, I offered the print version--and several people took me up on this offer so I mailed them a print version of the book. 

So far, I've added eleven so I'm up to 59 Amazon reviews and I expect to see several more added soon. With each review, I tout it on social media and it gives me something else to use and promote my book. I did not get a response from many of the people that I emailed and Book Razor suggests you wait a week or so then write them again. Email is not always reliable and not everyone answers their email. 

Have any of you tried Book Razor? Tell us about your experience in the comments below.  

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Need more book reviews? Here's another resource to use.  (ClickToTweet)
 

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