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From the author of “The Author’s Quick Guides…” comes an interesting article about critical book reviews.  Every author has received a critical book review at one time or another.  Our first inclination is to feel upset and think “How dare they…” but truly what an author should feel is gratitude.  No book is perfect and a critical review can help an author pinpoint his or her imperfections and weak spots so that they can either revise the book or do a better job with the next book.

The moral of the story is to be grateful for a critical book review and ecstatic about a positive book review.  Both have a place in the life of an author.  To read the entire article click “Why Critical Reviews are Good for Your Book“.

(PRWEB) August 14, 2013

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READ THIS! The Book Review Show is Author Marketing Ideas’ (AMI) new web-based show featuring on-air host Patrick Morgan reviewing books, interviewing authors and presenting remote spots from book expos around the world. The current episode features books by R.D. Craze and T.M. Nagarajan and clips from Book Expo of America where RT filmed authors talking about their work. READ THIS! airs on its YouTube Channel, the AMI website as well as other social media venues. With millions watching online videos, READ THIS! is an innovative approach to target marketing. Using the morning talk show model, RT is a way for book buyers to learn of new releases and a way for authors and publishers to create awareness of new product. Each review is a comprehensive look at the book, emphasizing genre and market appeal.

AMI Vice-President Ellen Green says, “Author Marketing Ideas was created to find new ways to help authors market their work. There is no show like READ THIS! and AMI is proud to lead the way.”

The new episode of READ THIS! can be viewed at AMI’s YouTube channel.

About Author Marketing Ideas (AMI):
Thousands of publishers and authors from around the world work with AMI to maximize online marketing for their books and their brands. Many start with the basics of Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Linked In and Amazon Quite a few clients work with complete PR packages on a country or global basis. AMI also has special marketing and distribution packages for ebooks.

AMI has consultants and partners in the US, UK, India, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, and Buenos Aires. AMI attends over twenty of the top book fairs around the world. AMI specializes in helping international authors enter the lucrative US markets and assisting US/UK/Aus authors in reaching Asia and Latin America.

As part of their commitment to becoming a major hub for publishers and authors in book marketing, AMI offers a no obligation and free review service called the “Digital Footprint Evaluation” to provide a focused strategy to anyone wanting to improve their online marketing efforts.

For more information please visit the site and write us a note, or contact:
Jessica Smith – support(at)AuthorMarketingIdeas(dot)com
USA: +1 703-899-8128 (Eastern Time Zone)

Online Book Club for Readers is a site about books by book lovers.  Included in the site are a discussion forum, polls, reviews and recommendations.  This site offers another chance for authors to get their e-book(s) reviewed for free.

To get your e-book reviewed you’ll need to fill out a rather lengthy form but this should not bother you.  Getting a fair review is the trade off.  The review will be posted on the book club site but it is at the discretion of the reviewer to post it elsewhere.  You should be able to use the review to add to your editorial information on your Author Central account on Amazon.com!

Need reviews?  Here is a list of book bloggers you can approach to have your book reviewed.  Remember to ask nicely, act graciously if they refuse and thank them appropriately if they accept.  Always offer to promote the review on your own social media sites with a link back to the review.

Books Like Breathing – Reading Preferences:Romance (all kinds), YA (esp the paranormal romance kind), Fiction, Chick Lit, some Non-Fiction.

Dear Author – Looks like they review romances and chick lit mostly!

Everything To Do With Books – Reviews all genres.  Use the contact page to ask for a review.

Got Fiction – Reviews Contemporary Romance, Historical Romance, Paranormal Romance, Erotic Romance, Historical PNR, &; Urban Fantasy.

I Heart Reading – Reviews just about any genre.

Indie Book Blogger – Reviews self published books in any genre.

Kindle Obsessed – Reviews Kindle books exclusively.

Reviews are critical to book sales and it doesn’t matter if you get 5 stars or lower.  In fact, some publishing experts say reviews look more real if they are a mix of ratings.  If you have reviews on Amazon and GoodReads comment on them.  Make your comments positive even if the review is not and you will go a long way to building reader loyalty.  You even have the opportunity of learning how to improve your next book from the readers themselves.  Always take the opportunity to interact with readers and they will remember you the next time they visit the bookstore.

You already know how important reviews are for Amazon and Goodreads but have you thought about reviews for your Facebook Fan Page?  If you have an active and well developed Fan Page ask your readers to post their reviews on it.  You can add a link to your book on that post and pay a small fee to sponsor it so everyone that “Liked” your page will see the review!  This is a great idea to help you sell more books without selling.  If you decide to try this out come back here and leave us a comment on how it went!

If you are looking for reviews and promotion of your book consider submitting to BookBrowse.  They have a fairly short list of topics they review and rigorous requirements.  You can learn what they are looking for at BookBrowse.

We’ve blogged about the issue of fake reviews on Amazon.com and other sites.  Amazon.com has decided to take action and we applaud them for trying to fix the problem but they might have gone too far.  According to the blog post “Amazon Tackles Review Problem, Deletes Wrong Reviews” Amazon is deleting reviews left by authors for other authors.

This makes no sense to us.  We are authors and we are avid book readers.  All authors are readers.  Naturally, if an author leaves a positive review for a book by a friend without reading the book then that is wrong.  Leaving a positive review for a stinker of a book is wrong too but deleting every author’s review is going to far in our opinion.  What do you think?

We discovered Critique Circle today and wanted to share it with you.  If you want to critique and be critiqued you’ll want to check out Critique Circle.  Anyone can join so long as they are willing to participate in giving and receiving.  To learn how the system works visit Critique Circle.

Are you looking for another book review opportunity?  Check out Facebook.  You’ll find that many book reviewers have Fan Pages that are quite popular.  Many of them have over a 1,000 fans and your book review will appear on many of their timelines.

Look at the Fan Page of each reviewer and contact the reviewer to ask for a review.  Be patient, it takes time for reviewers to work their way through a stack of books to review.  Some of the book reviewers we follow are:

Beth’s Book Reviews
Book Monster Reviews
MS Nonfiction Book Reviews