#13
Reviews – have been discussed so much it makes my head spin
until I contemplate banging it against the nearest wall (except I’d be afraid
of the repair costs :-))

  

As to whether they’re important – what do you think?
Of-freaking-course they’re important.

But you already knew that! I don’t allow dummies on
my blog and that’s what any person is if they don’t see how a bunch of good
reviews can help to sell a book.

So knowing this, the 20 authors for Summer Fire
decided that we needed at least 5 reviews from each of us to be placed as soon
as the book was released.

Now I’ll admit to knowing I could get that many in
an ordinary situation where my book had already been released and readers had
left reviews. But remember, these were all new novellas. Deciding I would gift
certain friends with the set and ask them to read and review my novella as soon
as it came out, I felt calm until I saw just how many reviews most of the other
authors managed to produce – the very first day!! Many had 20 or more and I
swear they were all from people who had actually read their particular books.

Now I knew many of the girls had street teams and
how important that can be for the social media aspect but I never realized just
how freakin’ handy it was to have beta readers on that team who would be
willing to read an unpublished version and then add their reviews on day one.

Huge lesson learned and one that I soon took care
of. I now have a list of beta readers also and will be very careful to appreciate
each and every one of them. Make sure that the work I send them is well edited
and even ask them to make a note of any problems they might still find.

(Aside)
I sent Special Agent Maximilian to almost 20 beta readers, and without asking, one
angel actually made a list of corrections that had gone past three editors and
two read-throughs by me. Now that is golden… and it deserves appreciation.

Back to Summer Fire’s reviews – day one after the
book was released it had over 70 reviews and the rating was high – something
like 4.8stars. Everyone loved the books from their favorite authors and were
very complimentary. Anyone looking to buy the collection – keeping in mind that
it was 99cents – must have decided that it would be a bargain they couldn’t
resist. Sales took off and the more people we brought to the page, thanks to
social media and promotions, were lured to push the buy button no doubt by the glowing comments.

For the Brides collections, we went another way. We
hired Book
Partners in Crime to do the release day blitz and that
came with a number of reviews. Then, as the promoter for the sets, I signed us
up for the Read
& Review program $99 on Choosy Bookworm.

This is an easy and sure-fire way to get a number of
reviews to appear on a certain day. It takes some effort and costs a fair
amount of money but I’ve found in the past that it was worth the expense.

Of course, there are free ways to get reviews also.
On Facebook, there are groups who advertise this and same on Goodreads.
Truthfully, I just don’t have the time to find them all, jump through the
loopholes and set the book up. I’ve also been involved with book swaps. You
buy, read and review mine and I’ll do the same for you. I used to like doing
this a lot with authors I knew produced stellar work. Then time became too precious and I had to stop.

So… through this whole post I hope I’ve made one
thing abundantly clear. Yes – you need as many reviews as possible and the
quicker the better!!

**Just try and get on some of the promo sites
without them….

~ I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these 13 posts about
how to get your box collection on a list.  Because of the sheer amount of effort needed,
they were never meant to turn you off of your goal. Just a comprehensive
overview of what might be necessary to have success. Might I reiterate here –
my friends – it’s all about the numbers – the sales!!!

Good luck!!