How to stalk bloggers for reviews #bookreview
Gosh, I’m exhausted! Trying to find bloggers, people, anyone to review my upcoming book is tiring, to say the least. I wrote about finding reviewers earlier (see my blog post here). In that post I kept things general – a list of where to look and definitely where not to look for reviews. I advised writers to contact bloggers directly. I still stand by that advice, but there must be a better method than cold emailing hundreds of book bloggers. There is! You can find book bloggers who may already be interested in your book by using my somewhat ‘stalkerish’ methods for finding reviewers.
- Goodreads. I contact bloggers who mark my book ‘to read’ on Goodreads. Often, they’ve only marked the book ‘to read’ as an entry to some giveaway I’m doing. No matter. It’s worth a try. You might also consider contacting ‘normal’ people (readers who don’t have blogs) as well. Although your review won’t be on a blog, it will be on Amazon and Goodreads. Let’s face it. It’s those Amazon reviews we want, isn’t it?
- Comments. When my book is spotlighted on a blog, whether as part of a blog tour or otherwise, I’ll keep track of comments and contact any bloggers who are positive about the book. Total stalker move.
- Likes. In addition to anyone who actually comments on a spotlight post, I’ll also look at the likes and contact any book bloggers who ‘liked’ the post. Another total stalker move.
- Previous reviewers. Here’s where the vast amount of work comes in. I try to contact absolutely everyone who has read and reviewed a previous book of mine. This includes bloggers who read the book as part of a blog tour. There are many bloggers who do not want to review books outside of blog tours, but if they have already reviewed a book of yours, they are often willing to work directly with you.
After you’ve done the above for a book or two, you should have a list of bloggers who’ve read and reviewed more than one of your books and are willing to work directly with you on a regular basis. This should be your core list of reviewers. Covet those reviewers like the gems they are!
No matter how you find the blogger, using one of my methods or one of your own, make sure you research the reviewer before sending the review request. Is she still taking reviews? Does she only read romance, but you’ve just written a mystery? Is she still blogging? The other day, I received a message via Goodreads asking me if I review books. Do I review books? Um, if the writer had spent more than a minute on my website, she would have not only seen my previous reviews but my review policy as well. If she can’t spend a minute on my website researching me and my blog, then why should I spend a few hours reading her book and writing a review?
Feel free to share your methods for finding bloggers in the comments.