Literary Publicist Stephanie Barko discusses the importance of book reviews in this short clip.
Tip #3: Book Reviews
Why are book reviews so important?
They are important because a review is someone else saying your writing is as good as you say it is.
It is a long-form endorsement of your content, writing style, book design and editing.
Without reviews,an author is hoping that readers will take a chance on his or her work.
With reviews, readers can be confident that someone else took the work seriously and gave it their critical attention.
Reviewers will not submit reviews on books that they don’t like.
Because of this industry standard that the public is largely unaware of, reviewed books tend to be better written than those without reviews.
Moral of the story? Send out galleys as far ahead of release date as possible, and get your work reviewed.
I rarely read a book these days without providing a short review. I find, though, that other readers write long, extensive reviews that give away the plot of the book. I would love to see a how-to on writing a brief book review that would be posted on, say, Amazon.