How to get reviews using StoryOrigin #WriterWednesday #AuthorToolBoxBlogHop #StoryOrigin

Everyone knows reviews help sell books. But getting reviews is more difficult than walking over hot coals in your bare feet. I’ve heard estimates of one in every thousand readers leaving a review. Whoa. That’s depressing. It can’t possibly be true! Let’s look at an example. I’ve sold 800 copies of About Face this year and received 13 reviews. Maybe not one in a thousand but pretty dismal if you ask me.

I’ve talked about ways to get reviews before (see here for example), but I recently discovered a new method and thought I’d share it with you today. That method is StoryOrigin. I use StoryOrigin for newsletter swaps (which you should totally be doing – see my blog here). But I recently decided to give it a try for reviews.

How does it work?

It’s super easy. You create a review copy page of the book you want reviewed. This took me about thirty minutes as I needed to create sample files of my book for potential readers. (I use calibre to create mobi and epub files). Here’s the page I created:

Now what?

I shared this page with my newsletter and received ten applications almost immediately. That might not sound like a lot, but when I’ve asked subscribers if they want to review one of my books before only two people replied.

There’s also a possibility to join group promos to gain more readers. I joined the read and review romance promo. I’m not sure if it will yield new reviewers, but it’s free. I’ll let you know how it works out.

I’ve also shared with my social media and received a few applications as a result. This compared to getting NO responses when I’ve shared a simple request to contact me if anyone wants to read and review one of my books.

Based on my experience, it appears readers are more willing to respond to a request for a review when the process is handled by a third party.

Vetting Requests

When readers request my book to review, they need to fill out a form.

This gives the author the information she needs to vet the reader. Does the reader review on Amazon? On Goodreads? On Bookbub? Does the reader read books similar to mine? Does the reader download a ton of free books but never review? All of this information is available to help decide whether to allow the reader to receive a copy of my book.

In Conclusion

I have good hopes StoryOrigin will help me get more reviews for my novels. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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This blog post is part of the #AuthorToolboxBlogHop. This is a monthly blog hop hosted by @raimeygallant. Make sure to stop by the other author blog posts in this month’s blog hop to fill up your author toolbox! Just click on the graphic to take you to the list.