| When Keith Donohue’s novel "The Stolen Child" came out, the critics weren’t impressed, even though his publisher was Nan Talese at Doubleday. In fact, not a single major newspaper reviewed the book. Ask any big publisher, and they’ll tell you: A novel stiffed by the critics has no chance of becoming a bestseller. But the story wasn’t over. A review copy ended up in the hands of Linda Porco, Amazon.com’s merchandising director. She passed it around in the office and everyone loved it. So Porco tried something new. She got more copies of the book and mailed them to Amazon’s most active customer reviewers, the ones who review books on the site as a hobby, assigning five stars to books they love and one star to books they hate, and providing essays explaining why. Within weeks, all but one of those Amazon Top Reviewers posted a rave review. Promptly, Stolen Child became Amazon’s bestselling fiction book, and it reached No. 26 on the New York Times extended bestseller list, an unbelievable climb for a novel with no big newspaper or trade reviews. Now the book is in its eighth printing and the story is being shopped to Hollywood. And -— oh yeah —- now Stolen Child has plenty of professional reviews. All this caused quite a stir in publishing circles, but it didn’t surprise the folks who actually buy books. Increasingly, readers turn to online reviews written by peers to find out if a book is worth buying. Critics argue that amateurs’ reviews are meaningless, that they don’t apply the professional critics’ intellectual rigor. But whatever the amateur reviewers do or don’t lack in highbrow sensibilities, they make up for in credibility and relevancy. Good reviews on Amazon are particularly crucial for books by new authors and for niche books, and it stands to reason that they boost sales not only at that site but everywhere people are buying books, although we don’t yet know what percentage of buyers at brick-and-mortar bookstores made their choice by reading Amazon customer reviews. HOW TO REACH AMAZON REVIEWERS Traditional book marketing strategies call for mailing hundreds of copies to reviewers at magazines and newspapers. But for a new author and/or a niche book, chasing print reviews can be little more than a distraction. A better way to launch your campaign is by identifying and contacting 100 to 300 potential online reviewers and sending a copy of your book to each respondent who expresses willingness to look at it and perhaps post an honest critique. If you spend two or three days contacting about 300 potential Amazon reviewers, you can expect to receive about 40 to 50 responses, and wind up with perhaps 35 reviews, a quite satisfactory result. (Author's note: Recently Amazon seems to be restricting communications between authors and readers, and not all Amazon Friends invitations have been going through. Whether this is a policy change by Amazon or simply a glitch isn't known.) 4/13/2009 How to get your book reviewed - Amazon.com |
