Friday, March 20, 2009

Encourage Amazon Reviews


I know I’ve said it before, but Amazon reviews are really important. Whenever I look up a new book that I am curious about on Amazon, the first thing I check is to see how many reviews it has. The more reviews (and good ones) your book has, the more important it looks.

Here’s something you can easily do to encourage readers to leave a review. Make up a sheet of copies of the same note thanking the reader for their purchase, and asking them to leave a review of the book on Amazon. Print off a bunch, cut them into strips, and tuck them into the front of each book before you do a book signing at a bookstore, museum, or rotary club.

You could also get this information printed on a bookmark or business card inexpensively at Kinkos.

2 comments:

Jim Schmidt said...

Sarah -

As always, you've got terrific ideas that authors can use for marketing. I adapted your bookmark idea and have designed and printed out some 3x5 cards using Avery templates for my book event this weekend.

Also wanted to suggest some other publicity avenues for your readers: employee/company newsletters and homeowner's association newsletters. I've used both.

The firm I work at has 300-400 employees and our Communications department wrote up a nice page long article, with photographs, about my book, Lincoln's Labels.

I adapted that article and sent it to the editor of our subdivision/homeowner's association newsletter (a nice monthly magazine that is profesional produced) and it is being sent to hundreds of homes late next month.

Keep the great stuff coming!

Jim Schmidt
http://civilwarmed.blogspot.com

Sarah Keeney said...

Hi Jim

Index cards, that works well too, and they are nice and sturdy. Those are great ideas, thanks. I'm sure your homeowner's association was pleased to get the ready-to-go content too.

Sarah