Reviews, Reviews, Reviews

How the hell do you get book reviews?  Those slippery, ethereal devils. What mystic arts do you need to use to attract those elusive beasts?

After scanning the interwebs, the twitters and the books of face, I’ve come to one conclusion.  No one really knows how.  Really!  There are articles, web pages, blogs, companies, YouTube clips, books, CD’s and more, all professing to know the secret; nadda, nothing, zip.

It’s one of those chicken or the egg type problems.  To get reviews, first you must sell your book and let people read it.  But to achieve this state of nirvana, first people must trust your novel enough to part with hard earned cash. But here’s the twist, they damn well won’t do any of that unless they can look at a whole bunch of little gold stars.  It’s the writers paradox.  You can’t sell books without reviews, and you can’t get reviews without sales; it’s maddening.

Ah, I hear you say - What about the book bloggers, professional readers and bookish people of all sorts, bless their little cotton socks.  All you have to do is give them a free copy and sit back, watching the good word spread.  Alas, professional readers are a busy lot.  Have you any idea how many books are actively being promoted on the internet at any one time?  I haven’t, but it’s a lot, a lot a lot.  Professional readers have only so much time.  They still have to eat, go for walks, breath air, or whatever it is they do when they’re not buried in a novel.

So, here’s the next twist in the writers review paradox. How do you attract the attention of the blogging community and professional readers?  It’s not easy.  But there’s one sure-fire way.  As the great Robin Williams said, ‘How do you get to the Met? Money, lots and lots of money.’  This is why most of the really successful books are all handled by the big publishing houses.  They can afford to invest in a title, getting it out into the world and in front of enough noses, so that the return on reviews to investment balances out.  Easy, no problem.  Or at least it would be if we had limitless piles of cash tucked under the mattress.

So what does this mean for the self-publisher.  Well, its not great news.  It means a real hard slog, pushing everyday, doing everything you can think of to promote your novel.  It means trying lots and lots of different ways to get your book in front of as many noses as possible, hoping all the while, that a small percentage of them will look favourably on your work and post a review.  Even then nothing is certain. People mean well, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Some people will tell you that sure, if you give them a free book, they’d love to give it a try and that they’ll post a review.  Unfortunately, we live in a busy and chaotic world and people, with all their good intentions,  just never seem to get around to writing that little bit of golden prose that’s so important to you.  It can’t be helped, it’s just one of those things, but you mustn’t let it bring you down.  The hunt for reviews is eternal and never-ending.  You can never have enough reviews; a thousand is too few, a million, not quite enough, a billion... hmm.

What do you make of that?

Go on, tell me, please…please...