{"id":3711,"date":"2011-02-04T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T06:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/?p=3711"},"modified":"2014-12-23T16:29:16","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T10:59:16","slug":"reviews-from-the-twitterverse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/reviews-from-the-twitterverse\/","title":{"rendered":"Reviews from the Twitterverse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Expert: Claudia Jackson<\/a><\/p>\n

You\u2019re probably following tweeple that interest you. They might be fellow authors. The topics can be about anything and everything concerning books and book publishing. But have you thought about following your readers? Are you truly \u201changing out\u201d with your genre? If you are writing vampire books, are you surfing the night with the \u201cright crowd?\u201d<\/p>\n

One tried and true method that has been used by new authors for decades has been to give away their books in exchange for book reviews. A lot of give away books can generate a lot of reviews! In the past, a new author who really wanted to succeed would give away a thousand or more books that he or she paid to have produced in a short run. Most probably this would be from the first run (a galley copy, usually hardback) and be very expensive.<\/p>\n

Last year, I had a new author come to me for advice on how to get reviews for a new book. This author had never been on twitter and had no social networking avenues started. So I thought . . . \u201cWhat is one of the best things about the Internet?\u201d The answer \u2014 free information! We devour free information and content like a \u201cHot-Fudge Sunday\u201d (with the sprinkles).<\/p>\n

Instead of printing a short run at a very high dollar cost per book and then having to take the time to ship precious copies one at a time, hoping for a review, try something different and even more effective.<\/p>\n

Research has shown that readers of eBooks are voracious readers! They buy and read a lot of books and then, most importantly, they talk about the books that they read. The population of eBook readers is huge and there will be an ample number of reviewers who are worth far more to you than casual acquaintances that you meet, your friends, your family or even those anonymous people who work as book reviewers for major newspapers and magazines. In today\u2019s world, a reviewer (or tweeter) with a well-followed blog (or tweet) will do more for your book than a printed review in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. And, there are many more Internet reviewers than there are aging, failing newspapers with diminishing circulations.<\/p>\n

One specific strategy that has worked well for example is to tweet: \u201cLike Vampires? Will exchange free eBook for review!\u201d (Also tweet a short-link to a page where a person can find out more about the book). Then you can tweet a bit, follow, etc. and send them a free copy of your book. But wait! There\u2019s more!<\/p>\n

Now you ask, what about my sales numbers? Or, I don\u2019t want to send out PDFs of my book!<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t heard about Smashwords.com you need to visit their site. They provide a capability to make coupons for your book. And more importantly, coupons count as sales.<\/p>\n

For example, you make a coupon for 100% off and then give your tweeter via a DM, your coupon number. Stay in touch with them, tweet, etc. And guess what?! I have found the Twitterverse to be not only kind, but tweeter readers love to give reviews!<\/p>\n

Another very powerful strategy that has worked well for us that not only makes your book available to the most prolific Internet reviewers everywhere while also opening up an amazing side-effect promotional channel is to initially price your book on the Kindle at 99\u00a2. This accomplishes two things: Your book is now available for review, and at 99\u00a2, it\u2019s basically free. As of this writing, Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) will not let you price a book for less than 99\u00a2 so you can\u2019t go any lower on the Kindle. You can tweet a link to those that you consider giving a book and ask them to download it. It\u2019s 99\u00a2. It\u2019s the cost of an iTunes song downloaded to an iPod. If a prospective reader of your book won\u2019t drop a buck on it, they won\u2019t read it if you were to give it to them gift wrapped in gold. This is a great qualifying test that doesn\u2019t cost you an arm and a leg. Instead of thousands of dollars in printing and distribution costs with very dubious results \u2013 you\u2019d be amazed at how many people will tell you that they will read your book and then never do so (or give you a review) \u2013 you can make your book instantly available to people around the world. Get out copies, build a buzz and get reviewed!!!<\/p>\n

So my tweets, my advice for getting reviews? Tweet, chirp and peep about the book. Then, give it away, but qualify the person first. If you are giving away a vampire book to someone who has a vampire blog, you are probably on the \u201cwrite\u201d path.<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t forget after you get those reviews tweet about them and include them using the Author\u2019s \u201cBest Friend\u201d \u2014 BookBuzzr.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"With over 20 years of experience as a corporate computer trainer and consultant, Claudia now works with a Digital Private Press \u2013 Telemachus Press<\/a> who have launched NovelHelp Universit<\/a>y this year as an inexpensive solution. This site offers all of what the do-it-yourselfer needs to know, including hands-on training and step-by-step guides. Follow Claudia \u2013 Twitter<\/a> | Blog<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Expert: Claudia Jackson You\u2019re probably following tweeple that interest you. They might be fellow authors. The topics can be about anything and everything concerning books and book publishing. But have you thought about following your readers? Are you truly \u201changing out\u201d with your genre? If you are writing vampire books, are you surfing the night […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":3712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[353,3],"tags":[9,3,387,386,58],"class_list":["post-3711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bbmtc","category-book-marketing","tag-authors","tag-book-marketing","tag-book-reviews","tag-book-reviews-on-twitter","tag-twitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}