As a blogger I have received thousands of requests for book reviews. My inbox is very overwhelming. Sadly there isn’t enough time to help everyone who contacts me and I have to reject most requests, when I even find the time to respond. So how do those lucky few get through? Today I thought I would share some advice based on my observations of what authors do right and wrong in requesting reviews. Hopefully the following post will provide some helpful strategies for increasing the success of review requests.
So, here’s where some have gone Wrong…
No Real Knowledge of Who They Are Contacting
This presents in so many silly ways and is probably the biggest time waster for both the author and reviewer. One way being, getting the blogger’s name wrong. I can’t tell you how many strange things I’ve been called, no idea where they get these names from or if they still just have the last blogger’s name pasted in there. It isn’t an automatic reject (I have accepted a book after being called by some random dude’s name lol), but it doesn’t earn brownie points either. The main issue of that is, it’s clear they didn’t actually visit my site. Which brings me to another common problem. Requesting a review of a genre I’ve clearly stated I won’t read. Visit the blog you are contacting, read their review policy, follow whatever guidelines they may have, see if they like your kind of book, and figure out their name. This will all help to increase your chances of a positive reply!
Too Long or Too Short
Too short is worse than too long, I’ve gotten e-mails as short as “review my book” and honestly, it makes me not even want to respond because now I would have to fish for information, likely for a book I wont even want to read. Too Long just ends up getting skimmed but at least there is obviously plenty of information there. It never hurts to use a few sentences on pleasantries, letting us know how you found out about our blog or why you think we’d like it. That’s all fine. It only becomes too long when it seems like the blurb is an essay and the e-mail goes on for pages and pages.
Here are some of the key things that I usually like to see for my own uses. Other bloggers may have different preferences so always be sure to refer to the review policy.
- Book Title (yes people have forgotten to include that)
- Author Name
- Genre(s)
- Blurb/Description
- Release Date
- Number of Pages
- A link to more info on the book from either goodreads or Amazon is always helpful
Rude Authors!
Believe it or not, this is a thing. I luckily haven’t had too many encounters but I’ve known others who have. Once after agreeing to read an author’s book they preceded to tell me that my name, O, wasn’t a name. Idk, people call me O and I respond, sounds like it’s my name. As you can imagine their book magically disappeared from my TBR never to be read.
You catch more flies with sugar, or however that saying goes… great now I’m a fly. Anywho, it helps to build a relationship with the blogger and just be friendly in general. With so many books to chose from the author being so gosh darn likable helps their book stand out. I love and value all the amazing relationships I have formed with authors over the years, and that has made it so much more rewarding than reading anonymous books.
I absolutely agree with the points you raised. It’s really annoying when review requests arrive and it’s obvious the sender hasn’t even bothered to read my review policy page and has no knowledge of the genres I read. Also the mass emails…grrr. I’m afraid they go straight in the trash bin. Luckily I haven’t had contact with many rude authors either.
Oh yea mass e-mails… speaking of I really hate it when they CC me instead of BCC so now all these other random people have my e-mail address.
That too!
This is excellent. Yes to all of this!
Urg! Oh don’t tell me that fellow authors send book requests out with a cc list plastered across the top of the email! WHY would anyone want to respond to that??
In general, anyone who makes you feel like they think their time is more important than yours is annoying.