The Importance of Book Reviews for Authors
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Getting book reviews is vital for recently published authors. There are two main benefits to having your work reviewed: public presence and social credibility.
When your manuscript is complete, you might send it off to an agent or publisher. Alternatively, you may decide to self-publish. Either way, you will need book publicity to gain attention from your target audience, so that people actually buy it and read it.
After publication, the fear sets in. What if nobody reads it? Or even worse, what if people read it and everyone hates it? Realistically, if your book is worth publishing, there’s somebody out there who will think it’s worth reading and even paying money for. You need to make sure they know it exists.
Gaining presence in the world of booklovers comes about by people talking about your book. It’s a promotion for you, even if they aren’t saying nice things, at least they know your name and the title of your book. If you get people talking about your book online, it will generate more interest and a lot of people will read the book just to see what all the hype is about. So, although positive book reviews are better, any type of mention can help you out with sales and presence.
The other reason book reviews are so important for authors is that it gives you social credibility. When other authors support your writing, all of their fans may potentially become yours. Even getting book bloggers or general readers to discuss your work is valuable. It shows people that other people are reading your book, not just your high school English teacher. They have read it and they cared enough about it to tell the world what they thought. The majority of them will be fair, albeit subjective, in their comments, which means you will probably accumulate a decent number of favorable statements to use in your public relations campaign.
Of course, it’s a lot of work to get a bunch of reviewers to write about your work, especially if you’d much rather be writing your next book or taking a well-earned vacation. The submission process is different for each blogger and figuring out how to get a hold of published authors is even more complicated and time-consuming, but it’s worth the effort. Having that credibility and public presence will give you the edge you need to succeed in the publishing world. Once a few people mention your name, the word will get passed around.
The crux of the matter is that when people are talking about you, it means your book publicity is working. Publicity helps increase book sales, and book reviews are one key way to make those sales happen.