Book reviews can be more important than you may think.
A form of literary criticism, book reviews are written opinions about a particular book. They can take many forms. Book reviews can be brief or long. They can critique and/or summarize the book. They can be written by readers or professional book reviewers. Reader reviews tend to be more personal, focusing on the individual reader’s experience while reading the book. But since readers can have such widely differing views of the same book, it is valuable for all involved when a book has a variety of reader reviews available.
If you have written a book, or if you would like to, here are three reasons why book reviews are vital to writers and readers.
Saves Time, Decreases Risk to Readers
Book reviews make books a known quantity. They decrease the risk to readers that a particular book will be not what they had in mind at all. In fact, book reviews help potential readers become familiar with what a book is about, give them an idea of how they themselves might react to it and determine whether this particular book will be the right book for them right now.
Book reviews save readers time, prepare them for what they will find and offer them a greater chance of connecting with a particular book, even before they read the first page!
Greater Visibility, Greater Chance of Getting Found
Book reviews give books greater visibility and a greater chance of getting found by more readers.
On some websites, books that have more book reviews are more likely to be shown to prospective readers and buyers as compared to books with few or no book reviews.
Book reviews also help amplify your book’s reach among book clubs, bookstores, blogging communities and other opportunities to gain attention from new readers.
For an author, book reviews can open doors to new and bigger audiences.
More Sales
Have you ever heard the phrase “Success begets success?” Or the term “social proof?” Books that have a lot of book reviews appear to be popular books. It’s human nature for people to be curious about what looks popular and want to check it out for themselves. As a result, a good number of book reviews can help lead to a snowball effect of book sales.
In other words, the presence of book reviews can help validate the worthiness of a book and establish who the book’s audience is. Then once validated, other similar people are much more likely to want to join their peers and buy that same book.
Knowing this, some authors try to game the system by outright buying or inventing book reviews. But that’s not a good approach at all. Don’t do it. It’s not right and you’re better than that.
Soliciting real reviews from real people can help you as an authors achieve more sales in a completely ethical way.
Dudley Court Press
Dudley Court Press works with writers like you every day. As a full-service, hybrid publishing house, we help thoughtful people write, publish and market their books to become successful published authors.
For more information, including about DCP’s latest programs including Writer’s Sprint, Memoir Writing Made Easy and Aspiring Author to Published Pro, please get in touch at Info@DudleyCourtPress.com.