There’s a not-very-well-kept secret in the online book world: reviews are extremely valuable. The good news is that it’s easy to get started reviewing books, especially if you’re willing to do so for the new crop of independently-published authors. The bad news is that you’ll be doing it for free…or more precisely, that you’ll be paid in books.
Which isn’t all that bad if you love reading.You see, retailer sites like Amazon weigh their searches and recommendations by a number of variables, with one of the largest being user reviews. So, the more reviews a book gets—especially if those reviews are positive—the more often the book shows up in search results and on the pages of related books, and the more it can be expected to sell. An author or promoter is usually willing to give away free copies to get those reviews. If you want to be the one getting those copies, there are a few easy ways to get started.
Step One: Review Everything
A lot of voracious readers already do this, but it’s worth pointing out: you’re more likely to get noticed as a frequent and reliable reviewer if you…well, review a bunch of stuff. Leave reviews for the books you’re read in both physical and ebook form on Amazon, GoodReads, BookFinder, Barnes & Noble, wherever you like. (Amazon has a virtual monopoly, unfortunately, so that’s generally the place you want to focus on.)
You can even review books on your own website. This is less likely to attract more general reviewers, but authors and especially agents and publicists will keep a weather eye out for mentions of their work more or less anywhere.
The more detailed and specific a review, the better, within reason—try to keep it under 600 words or so just for the sake of convenience.For both retailer reviews and reviews on your own site, use your own name or a consistent online handle, and give people a means to contact you. A secondary freebie Gmail account is a good option if you’d rather not connect your online identity with your real one.
Step Two: Specialize in Your Interests
When authors and publishers go looking for potential reviewers for a new title, they’ll look for people who have enjoyed similar things before. So it follows that simply aligning the books you review with your personal interests will attract other authors (or sometimes the same ones, see below) who write similar books. So if you’re into historical nonfiction focusing on middle eastern history, review a bunch of middle eastern history books. If you like your operas heavy despite zero gravity, review a bunch of space operas. If you enjoy erotic fiction focusing exclusively on werewolves…well, you get the picture.
If you can, read and leave reviews on books that have been recently released and are from smaller, lesser-known authors. Clive Cussler has sold millions of…
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