We all know that book reviews, whether by traditional media, review sites or book bloggers, are key to reaching more readers. But did you know it’s also true that having more individual reader book reviews on Amazon and Goodreads can make your book stand out and be taken more seriously, too? Just take a look at this infographic we’ve been seeing on Facebook:
Can We Help Each Other?
To this end, we’re conducting an experiment. Any author member of the WWW tribe can request to join our new Facebook Group: WWW Book Review Forum and post their own book title and description there (and how they’d like other authors to communicate with them). Then, you can choose books you’re willing to read and review by other authors on the forum.
By posting a book:
You’re agreeing to let other member authors read and review your work, and to provide a complimentary digital edition of your book to members who request it.
By requesting a book:
You’re agreeing to offer an open and honest review to the author and post to the book’s Amazon and Goodreads pages, as well as other places you may post reviews (such as your own site, Twitter, Google+ groups, Facebook, etc.)
This is not a “reciprocal” arrangement. Meaning, you don’t have to agree to read an author’s book because they’ve agreed to read yours, which can violate review site rules. Rather, this is a place where authors can feel safe sharing a digital edition with another author for an honest review.
The mission (should we choose to accept it!) is to promote books to each other and increase our own reviews, while enjoying a fun read here and there for ourselves and helping those authors increase their reviews.
Make sense?
We’ve kicked it off making members of just a few of our authors, so CLICK HERE if you’d like to join the fun. We’ll only approve fellow author tribe members of WWW. We’re keeping the group “closed” to just you, as we don’t want the number of people requesting your books for free to get out of control, but still want a healthy number of authors there so you can all get to your target number of reviews!
Happily, you belong to a tribe of authors that writes everything from children’s books to literary fiction, non-fiction self-help to genre fiction, and lots in between. The more authors who join in the fun, the more variety you’ll each have to choose from to review.
In the spirit of the holiday season – perhaps the best gift we can give each other is a bit more attention for our hard work…
Good luck, happy reading and happy reviewing! Have questions about the WWW Book Review Forum? Email us at info@writerswin.com or leave your comment below.
This sounds great, BUT Amazon does not allow authors to review each other’ books. If this is no longer true, terrific, this forum will be a vital help to those authors who use it. but I would check this out before committing.
Again, this is not reciprocal – it’s a closed group of readers/authors — authors supply books for reading. Think of it like NetGalley – only putting your book up to a smaller audience – they can choose to read it or not; you can choose to ask for one of the books listed, or not. If an author supplies a book for review for free, as they’d do for any reviewer, they’re not expected to read anyone else’s in return. Hope this helps for those not clear on the concept!
I think this is an idea worth exploring as long as our text is copyrighted and not subject to indiscriminate cut and pasting? Am I old fashioned?
Well, much like uploading your book to a site like NetGalley for reader reviews, only you have the added assurance that this is a smaller group, and all authors, who understand the integrity of our words…
Hi I’m a member and just requested to join under my married name Rachelle Lauro. Thanks and looking forward to reading and reviewing!
Saw, approved, and adore your book cover!
On the one hand authors are to increase our connections to the public in as many ways as possible, on the other amazon may decided that if we are both members of a group, or share email addresses we are, grin, in cahoots.
First. Perhaps this new idea needs to be protected so we aren’t seen as connected. If the sharing goes through a safe channel, then the review is unbiased. I am not sure what needs to be done, but offering the book as a free download does seem to be a way to get books for free.
Second. E-books are comparatively inexpensive, why not a discount instead? Then if I don’t wish to finish the book, I can at least say to myself that I thanked the author by buying it.
Just a thought. For me, authors should receive something.
A good thought, Trudi – feel free to share it with the group. But understand this is no different from NetGalley, where an author is putting up a book for potentially thousands of people to see/read for free – we’re just doing this on a smaller scale for forward-thinking authors.
This sounds like a helpful way of finding people who like the genres and subjects of our books with an eye toward reading and possibly reviewing them. I like the idea of not being obligated to write a reciprocal review because lately reviewers have been complaining that Amazon is rejecting their reviews based on the idea the reviewer and author somehow know each other. Nobody’s sure how Amazon makes this determination, though perhaps they look at friends’ lists on Facebook and GoodReads as “evidence” of an association. Hopefully, this experiment won’t make it look like we all know each other and cause problems with Amazon. It’s worth a try. And even if a few reviews get rejected, we can still tell friends about the books we like.
Agreed, Malcolm — And our goal here is to be like any author booksigning — Folks “pick up” titles and weigh in!