Top 5 Mistakes Authors Make When Requesting a #bookreview #amwriting #amreading #MondayBlogs
Welcome 2017! Just before the New Year, I wrote about my year in review. You kind of have to, don’t ya? I tried to make that blog as upbeat as possible. Not everything is upbeat, however, because now I’m going to talk about five mistakes authors make when asking for a book review. I’ve written other blogs about this, but I keep seeing the same – dare I say stupid? – mistakes over and over again. These five mistakes drive me bananas! So, without further ado, here we go:
- Using a private e-mail address with a cute name. My personal favorite? You and your partner’s name joined with the word love. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it is. Because it’s not professional. Indie authors get enough flak about our lack of professionalism. There’s no need to make it easy for the haters.
- Using an e-mail address which is directly related to one of your books. This also doesn’t seem like a problem. If you’re only planning on writing one book, it isn’t. But if you are going to write more books? Houston – we have a problem. You’ll have to start over with gathering e-mail addresses. Reviewers and bloggers will be confused about who you are. Your e-mails from your new address may in fact go into their trash boxes because this is not the e-mail address they have on file. You’ll have to rebuild relationships. Marketing a book is hard enough without adding unnecessary work.
- Reacting badly to friendly criticism. When I first started getting review requests, I’d often give the writer a few tips. For example, if there were typos in the e-mail, I’d say something like “I don’t know if you noticed, but…” Sounds friendly enough, right? Um, no. The vast majority of responses I got were nasty. Who do you think you are? They ranted. I can tell you what I’m not – a reviewer of your book! I no longer point these things out to writers. I simply hit delete on any e-mail that contains more than 3 typos.
- Reacting badly to no. This one pisses me off. I’ve actually taken the time to read your e-mail and respond to it. Trust me, that doesn’t always happen. And then the writer has the gall to write to me that I should reconsider or that it’s my loss. Really? You’ve just been put on my never gonna read list.
- And my top pet peeve about review requests – general emails. If you can’t bother to figure out my name (hint: it’s in the e-mail address), I’m not bothering to read your request. Delete. And if the request is super long with no hint that you have no freaking clue what I like to read or who I am, forget about it. Delete.
I could go on and on, but I promised to list only my top five. How about you? What are your top pet peeves with review requests?
I’m not a reviewer, but someone who requests reviews. I wouldn’t do 1, 2 or 5, and 3 and 4 would only be done in private. I might not like criticism (oh, all right, I really don’t like it), but that’s my problem, not the problem of the person doing the criticising. Good manners, as they say, cost nothing.
Great post and I must say, I’ve encountered all of those you mentioned. As a reviewer and an author, I try to write a request how I’d like to receive one: open, friendly and engaging. My biggest pet peeve is when authors request using social media.I have a book review policy right on my website/blog and ask all authors to follow it. Most of the time, when authors request via social media, I don’t read/review their books. Be professional, people!
The social media asks bother me as well. Totally unprofessional.
good point in here, I also usually totally ignore social media or at least Facebook, so any message I receive through there goes unnoticed for ages :P. But emails are important for me, it’s one of those always open tabs in my browser or on the phone.
Reblogged this on Magic of books and commented:
Check out some valid review requesting tips to start of New Year with new knowledge 😉
The cutesy email issue reminds me of the time a friend of mine narrowed a hefty stack of resumes down to a single candidate. She was really agonizing between the two until she noticed the email address of one of them was: morningwood69@whatever.com
Anyway, great list!
~Tui, dropping by via #MondayBlogs
No way! Hilarious.
Yes! Maybe I should make a post on this too. I really hate it when an author can’t politely accept a “no”. I’m sorry, I can’t read every book in the world. And I hate general e-mails too. It’s like they didn’t even try. My next hated aspect is when it’s so obvious they didn’t read my review policy. For example, when they ask me to read a book in a genre I specifically state I don’t read. Makes me so mad!
It’s really inconsiderate. They want you to read a book but can’t take the time to have a look at your website.
This is pretty accurate. I’ve only been taking author requests for about a year, but I’m sure I’ll run into some of these other problems eventually.