60 Weeks of Gratitude - Week 6
As most of you know, I don’t love the marketing side of being a writer. It is hard for me to reach out to people and ask for reviews. It is time-consuming to keep track of the six-thousand pieces of marketing advice that will spread my work to a wider audience. I would love to crack the formula to get into Reese or Oprah’s book club, or even all the local book clubs, the ones that I could go to and sit in for the discussion. I’ve even skyped into book clubs at different times and would love to do more of that. But all of it means stepping outside of my comfort zone and asking others to do something for me.
One of the best marketing tools for authors is word of mouth. That does not mean that you talked about a book with a neighbor, although we want that too, what we need though, are reviews. Specifically, Amazon reviews.
I sat in on a meeting with my publisher a couple of weeks ago and it helped me to understand the value of reviews. Amazon has algorithms that select what items appear when a search is placed. When you search for Suspense/Thriller in books, you are going to see the books that have the most reviews. That means, the average reader, searching through the category is going to have to scroll through all the big publisher books before ever having hope to see mine. The only real way to find me on Amazon is to search by my name. Even typing in my titles brings up unrelated items with more reviews first. If readers don’t see me, they won’t buy my books. If they don’t buy my books, they can’t read my books, and if they can’t read my books, they can’t leave me reviews. If nobody is reading my books, then how can my publisher justify the expense of publishing my books? If nobody is reading my books, how can I justify spending time writing them?
I am guilty, too. I can’t even count the number of books I have read in the last five years that I have not left a review for. I am correcting that. If I read it and liked it, I will review it. It may just be one line, “this book had a good plot” or, “this book kept me engaged” or, “this book had me on the edge of my seat” or, whatever. If I am sending out a call asking my readers to review my books, I am going to review the books I read.
Today I am grateful for every single person who has ever left me a review, even my one-star from Intoxic that said, “You have to read this book and the next to get a whole book. Together they are complete and a good read. Why the author or publisher allowed these to be separate is ridiculous!!!!” To be fair, that’s the point of a series, but I appreciated her passion and thought the fact that she said together they were a good read may have warranted a higher star rating. But she took the energy to go out there and talk about my book in a place where it can make a difference. Write a review. Help me justify the time I spend writing.
All of my books are available in digital, audio, and print. If you have read them, leave a review, please. If you haven't read them, give them a try, then, leave me a review, please. To make it easy, here is my Amazon link so you can bypass the algorithms. https://www.amazon.com/author/angiegallion