Book Reviews

Book promotion used to be all about book tours and book reviews in print media. These days the reviews that count are not all in the print media. They’re mostly on online bookstores, especially the Amazon bookstore community.

Amazon has become so powerful that authors will invest scarce resources to get reviewed there. Many authors have false beliefs about what it takes to get an online book review. It’s actually quite simple and straightforward.

As a prolific reviewer and a published author, I have experienced the process and have some tips to share with authors who want to make online reviews a key part of their book promotion. Read more »

To judge by a flyer from the just-inaugurated New York Center for Independent Publishing, book reviewers are in trouble. “SAVE OUR BOOK REVIEWS!” pleads its headline. “Over the past five years, one by one, newspapers have begun to forsake books and their readers. At dozens of papers, book coverage has been cut back or slashed altogether, puffed up with wire copy, or generally treated as expendable. The Board of the National Book Critics Circle has launched a campaign to try to combat these changes.”

Assuming that the freefall needs to be stopped – what should be done?

When any industry is hit by a malaise, it helps to do three things. First of all, just to stave off precipitous decline, it makes sense to assure investors of the overall viability of the enterprise, and ask them to advance additional funds to help restore its profitability. Book reviews being hardly a strong profit earner, it would be less then realistic to put much hope into this step. Read more »

Ten and twenty years ago, book marketing meant authors participated in live book tours. They gave speeches and signed books in bookstores. They traveled many miles to reach many possible readers. Their books were reviewed in books and magazines. Some authors also were interviewed for radio and television.

Reviewers in those print media would receive complimentary review copies, often in pre-publication form as Advance Reading Copies (ARCs).

Today publishers do not send authors on book tours as readily as before. Travel has become more expensive and publishers are getting squeezed on profit margins. Additionally, many authors have turned to self-publishing, which can be very profitable if they are willing to take on the marketing challenge. Read more »