Writing to reviewers

Reviewers are really our life blood. We need those all-important 50 reviews on Amazon before they’ll actually start promoting us. It really doesn’t matter if some of them are only 1*, 2* or 3*. Yes, those can hurt but I know many a book I’ve enjoyed I’ve only read some books myself because of my curiosity about why they got such a poor review.

You have to grow a thick skin.

It’s good to send a nice letter, and further tailor it to the particular reviewer.

Here’s my example:

Dear ( put reviewer’s name here),

I wonder whether you would care to review my book. I can send it to you as a PDF, an –e-mobi file or in hard copy.

(Put your blurb here and be sure to include the title of the book. In fact, what you have  here should be part way between a blurb and a synopsis. It shouldn’t give the game away and it should have all the melodrama of a normal blurb, but it may need a few more acts as well, like target audience, a sense of genre and maybe what the reader might be like. What else might your reader read.)

Your review will mean a lot to me.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Your name. 

And don;t forget to thank them after they've written your review.  

Next up we’ll look at where you might get some reviewers.

Building a good author web site

You may not have a web site yet if you’re not published. There are, however, several arguments that you could and even that you should.

You can include:

·          Extracts from your work in progress

·          Articles related to any research you’ve done for your book

·          Details about your writing process    

·          Detail of any prizes or awards you’ve won

 

How to build your web

You can either build it yourself or get someone to build it for you. You can find some very helpful tips here: http://www.wordpooldesign.co.uk/ . Diana and Steve Kimpton also have a design service. Here is a good example of a site they’ve designed. http://www.beverleynaidoo.com/

You can as mentioned in the article on blogs use www.wordpress.com or parent organisation www.wordpress.org. Blogger works well, too, also as described in the post on blogging. Find it at https://www.blogger.com  

Whichever route you go, you will need two very important featrues:

·         You own domain name. Your own name plus .co.uk or .com are the best though you may also choose.eu or .net and you may have to compromise on your name if you share it with a well-known person. You can always add in an middle initial or the word “writer”.

·         You must be able to update it regularly. This may be awkward if you have the web site designed by a third party. However, web designers will often allow you a few pages you can edit yourself. Wordpool, mentioned above, most certainly do. If you have learnt coding or can already code yourself you are in a winning position.         

 

Your web site as a marketing tool

Make sure there is a call to action on the home page. This will be an invite to buy your book once you’re published but it can also be an offer of some free material – perhaps a report on your research, a book you’ve enjoyed, or the offer of a service you provide for free or very cheap. Make this a way of capturing an email address. Mail Chimp is very good for this. Then, once you have a book to advertise you can tell all of these people about it and ask them for reviews.

As well as this though, make your web site:

·         Informative

·         Friendly

·         Entertaining

That will all help you to get a following.

Tips on making your site look good

• Don’t be afraid of white space.
• Choose a nice, large, readable font.
• Be careful when wrapping copy around images.
• Never stretch a font.
• Only justify your text to the left.
• Don’t use too many different colours.

Not, though, not all of the examples below do all of this. Look ay how they’ve bent the “rules” and consider why.  

Some nice examples

Cathie Dunn

This has that all important call to action on the first page and in fact takes up most of the screen. But she also tells you why you should buy her book – the images that float across the screen are tantalising. She has information about herself, her work in progress and offers a newsletter. There are some very nice pictures.

Candy Gourlay

Candy has used Blogger here and very effectively too. The landing page is the blog itself but it the side bars we have some very useful information – more in this case about her school visits than about her books. There is a really big call to action at the top of the page. You are invited to subscribe to her newsletter. She has a separate page for her books, in fact.               

Sara Grant

Sara writes for younger readers and for teens so cleverly has links on the left for the former and on the right for the latter. Headers across the top of the home page make the site easy to navigate. It is packed with information for her readers and also for teachers and librarians.

You can find more helpful tips here.

Now then, go build that web site!      

The Good Blog

Clearly it should entertain and inform – preferably at the same time. Some writers who are not yet published hesitate about creating a blog or a web site as they do not yet have a book out there. But maybe the blog doesn’t need to be just about books. It can be about the subject of your book, your writing process, you, something else, or a mixture of all of these things. As you can set them up for free, you can get started straight away. More about that later.

All in one place or separate?

I personally like to keep separate blogs for separate purposes. The one you’re reading right now is about what I see as a publisher. I’ve recently posted here about marketing  routines and now I’m looking in closer detail at some items.

I have other blogs:

Gills Recommended Reads  is my reviewing site where I share books that are so good they have taken me out of my editor’s head.

Gill’s Sample Fiction is exactly what it says it is. Here I publish extracts from my fiction.

The Creative Café Project   is all about my project identifying cafés that facilitate creative practitioners meeting each other and their audiences.  

The House on Schellberg Street  is all about my Schellberg Cycle of books and also contains a lot of background material to the books. It is designed to be a useful tool for anyone studying the Holocaust. Unusually it gives quite a lot of the German perspective.

Writing Teacher is all about my life as a teacher of creative writing and I’m currently adding in some craft workshops.

Gill James Writer is where I blog about writing and occasionally about my books.  This and the Creative Café Project are the two most popular.

Other people blog about a variety of topics in one place. See:

Carol Hedges

Debz Hobbs-Wyatt

Allison Symes Allison often takes you to a landing page where you can pick which of her blogs you want to read. In effect, she uses a hybrid method.    

So, all in one place or divided by topic?

Here’s a snapshot of the advantages and disadvantages of each.

All in one place

You can probably blog every day. However, you might lose your friends who are not writers or lose writing friends who are less interested in you personally.

Diverse titles

You’re blogging less often but your blogs are more focussed.

I actually think both methods are valid and in the end it is up to you to decide which one is better for you.  

What can / should a writer blog about?

Well here are a couple of lists I’ve found useful:

DIY Author                    

         

40 types of content

Look at other blogs for even more ideas.   

Where to host your blog

There are two providers that will host your blog for free. I favour Blogger as this is what I’m used to. However, Word Press is just as good.

Look at what you can achieve with Blogger: Words and Pictures This is an ezine that is published almost daily.  

You do have the option of attaching a custom domain name. I have done this with Gill James Writer, The House on Schellberg Street and for The Creative Café Project.  

What we find in reviews

When we review our author’s blogs with our marketing hats on we often notice a lack of a call to action. You need to make it irresistible for your reader. Whoever comes to your post shouldn’t fail to follow you or eventually buy your book.         

Do have fun with this. Planning your blog can be almost as creative as writing the book itself.           

How we work with authors on marketing their books

We very much see this as a joint effort. We work with our authors in the following areas:

Reviewing blogs  

Reviewing web sites  

Creating letters to reviewers

Sending letters to reviewers

Finding reviewers    

Creating press releases 

Contacting local press

Contacting local radio

Contacting local television

Creating advance information sheets 

Contacting local bookshops about possible signings

Inviting people privately to a launch

Creating a public Facebook event

Advertising the event publicly on our web site

Creating a Facebook page, making the author an administrator, as she will probably use it more than we do. Some authors prefer to create their own page.    

Designing and publishing a book trailer 

Getting postcards made

Holding a cyber-launch 

Promoting the book via our social media 

Contacting schools re school visits

Contacting festivals.

Contacting writers’ groups.   

Contacting local libraries

Organising signing tour.

We find many of the people we contact thought the author herself and in any case these are often the most effective contacts.  

Obviously there are only so many hours in a day and only so much time we can devote to each author. It’s great if the author does some of these actions themselves. We probably have a few more contacts than individual authors and have a few effective routines.

It as true for the Big Five as it us for us smaller presses that authors need to be proactive. An indie author I know works seven days a week, about ten hours a day and spends 50% of his time on marketing. I read in an article recently that indie authors need to spend 90% of their time on marketing.  

One of the most effective marketing tools is a good email list of fans and followers. The new author should start building that up right away.

Over the next few posts I’ll be looking at each of these in more detail.          

The extra bits

We’re quite fond of our writers and we like to treat them. For instance, we hold an annual get-together in London. Last year it was “sold out” (the event is free to our writers but we do have to issue tickets as there is limit on spaces) and although we’ve booked the same venue for next year, I suspect that for the year after we might have to find somewhere bigger.

We’re also looking at doing a similar event in Manchester in the summer.

To me, organising events like this is actually quite creative. I enjoy doing them.

However, these are definitely extra services we offer. They do take time and effort and can be quite tiring on the actual day, though naturally also very rewarding.   

We announced our next call for submissions at the event on 3 December 2016. However, we’ve only just put it out to the public for two reasons:

·         We’ve had problems with our web site provider and couldn’t actually edit our pages for a while.

·         We’ve actually been rather busy on core activities.

Normally we make the announcement on 1 January.   

Sometimes we make a rod for our own backs by offering extra services: people begin to expect the extras and expect them of others.

I’ve seen this happen in various teaching situations as well. As I’ve taught for over forty years, most of it comes to me quite easily, so adding some extras isn’t a problem – except that then students expect everyone to do that and they also expect me to do it every time. It’s not always possible.    

We must manage expectation here.

We do do our best. I find it reasonable to assume that so does everyone else.