Finally got some attention from sending out review requests. Granted, it wasn’t the kind I was hoping for but I’ll take it. At this point I’m so starved for attention I would even attend a book-burning of my own book – which would be rather expensive considering it is an ebook. Check out: http://thecanaryreview.
It was brutal, but will ultimately help me revise a better pitch/review request and hopefully generate some traffic, at least on my blog. I might actually have to use their ‘suicide by sexy’ line in a future book.
Thanks to my previous post, Creative Marketing, Indie Snippets Bryan Dennis tweeted it to his 2,000+ followers. Hasn’t resulted in any more blog followers, but maybe at least views? Not sure how I can tell.
So far I have still only sold six copies on Amazon, two on B&N, and five via Smashwords. However, 14 copies were downloaded from Smashwords using the free coupon I generated and sent out to review sites. That means at least 14 out of the 75 sites to which I sent my request were interested enough to download the short story.
My list of review sites can be found under the resources section on the right hand side of my blog, I will be adding to it occasionally. In most cases, I provided a link directly to their review policies and the contact name. I didn’t include the e-mail address as it is VERY IMPORTANT you take a minute to look at their site and see if your book is right for them. Otherwise you are just wasting your time. I have also come to the realization that starting out your e-mail with, “I was just on your blog and *compliment, compliment, compliment* or *relate to the blogger in a personal way*” is twice or possibly thrice as likely to illicit a response from the blogger.
My first review requests were sent out at the beginning of August and most reviewers are taking 2-3 months to post reviews. This means by the end of September my nightmares of a bunch of 1 and 2 star, scathing reviews posted will hopefully cease either because they finally happened and I manage to survive somehow, or I was able to actually gain several respectable reviews.
A note on the review request – I have learned to paste the image I use directly into the review instead of adding it as an attachment (many reviewers don’t like opening attachments) and including direct links to my book. My current review request looks like this (click to enlarge):
If you have lists of review sites you can add, or additional comments/suggestions on review requests and marketing, please don’t be stingy – share! Especially with me.
Thanks for letting us use your pitch!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on getting tweeted! That's always exciting. To track your views, I'd recommend Google Analytics--it comes free with any free gmail account, and all you need to do is post a bit of invisible code into your blogspot header.
I have also come to the realization that starting out your e-mail with, “I was just on your blog and *compliment, compliment, compliment* or *relate to the blogger in a personal way*” is twice or possibly thrice as likely to illicit a response from the blogger.
As an editor for a review site, this is so, so true. We look for anything to set a query email apart, and a lot of the times, a few positive comments about are site will win a query letter 40 more seconds of consideration. Plus, most bloggers appreciate being told that the person asking for their time has put some of his or her own time into the request. :)