Dear Authors… Here’s Why Bloggers Aren’t Reviewing Your Book

Dear Authors,

I’ve been blogging for a while now, and at the beginning I was extremely excited to hear about these things called ARCs because I love reading, and being able to read for ‘free’ is amazing. (I use ‘free’ because my time spent reading, analysing and reviewing the book is a form of payment, although a payment I do for the most part enjoy!). As my small space on the internet expanded and I started getting more involved in the communities of readers, bloggers and also authors, I’ve also started to get many email requests through from mainly indie/self-published authors who need reviews for their books.

Through this process I have happily responded to some, and found authors I’ve loved such as L. L. McNeil and her Linaria series! I’ve also responded and found books I haven’t really liked either, which I always try to be constructive about and review honestly. The more book requests I started to get, the more I started to make snap decisions about whether or not I would accept. This is down to there being quite a few signals which can point to an objectively bad book. If you cannot form a sentence in English in the email… I don’t trust that your writing in the book will be any better, sorry. However, a lot of the mistakes that do put me off for more subjective reasons, are pitfalls that many an author can avoid. Even if you’re a beginner at marketing!

This is where you come in. I want to take some time to really discuss all of the reasons why reviewers like myself are saying no, or just ignoring your outreach emails. As someone who works in marketing, I know the frustration of reaching out to have little or no response. I empathise with you, and I truly want to help you in the lonely barren wasteland that is marketing your own book when you have no idea how to.

Professional Email

First things first, ensure your email instantly looks professional because of the address and the name attached to it. See the image below, the name is just ‘The Author’ where it should be your full name, as shown on the cover of your book and Goodreads. If I cannot instantly find you and your book by the name I can see there in my inbox, please fix it. The same goes for your email address. Please do not do any of the following

• YourBookName@gmail.com
• InsideJoke@yahoo.co.uk
• ChildhoodNickname@live.com
• RandomNumbers&LettersGenerator@PleaseStopThis.com

I think you get the idea. Keep it simple as your name @ an email provider. I don’t particularly care which email provider, but if you have a website that is ‘YourName.Com’ you should be able to get an email with that domain ending. Similar to mine which is Becky@UptownOracle.com. This not only points out that you have the basic professionalism down, but you’ve got a website and you’re putting effort into building your platform behind this book. Basically, just a nice added extra added into the ‘I might accept your review request’ reasoning.

Attaching the Book

Please please PleaSE pleeease please do not send me your book straight away. I am literally begging authors to stop sending me a too-large sized PDF to my inbox without me asking for it. Firstly, many reviewers who have self-hosted websites also have size limits to their inboxes, and you are clogging it up. If I know my inbox is getting a bit full, but I don’t have time to have a proper tidy up and I see a review request that has attached a large attachment, I instantly delete it. When I was on my hiatus, I had to go through my emails periodically just to delete review requests that were filling my inbox up. In short: it’s annoying, and annoying your reviewer isn’t going to make them want to read.

Secondly, when you send out emails with your books for free as a PDF you are instantly de-valuing your own book. Reviewers and bloggers aren’t dumb, we know we aren’t the only ones you’re reaching out to. All that hard work you’ve put into writing your book, is immediately seen as lesser value because of your decision to send it out to any reviewer you can. Also PDFs are notoriously hard to read for most people, if once your request has been accepted, ensure you have multiple formats for the reviewer to pick from. MOBIs are the love of my life, and I will be able to read your book much quicker because my Kindle is always with me. If I have 5 requests in my inbox, but only time to read 1, I’m not picking the one that won’t offer me an easy format for me.

Learn my Name

When I open an email and realise that this person hasn’t bothered to learn my name, I ask myself why should I bother to read, review and promote their book? (For free I may add…) Please use your greeting with the reviewers name. For me, my name is in the email, I’m open about my name on my blog and my social media. Just use it when you address me. When you call me Uptown Oracle, I see this as lazy. It instantly flags you’ve used mailed merge to reach out to as many blogs and email addresses as possible. However, you do need to play this by ear, some reviewers don’t use their real name, and as such their blog name is appropriate to use. What to use is common sense, and if you’re truly looking for reviewers who fit the type of reader who would enjoy your book, you should have been on their site long enough to know who they are.

Fonts

One of my personal pet peeves, is when emails are sent with stupidly large writing, weird fonts or… coloured writing. Please ensure your emails are professional, and most of all readable. If you make it harder for me to read, I won’t be making the effort to contact you for another email like it and I won’t want to read your book. For example, the below image has a font that is too big and that it the entirety of what I saw when I first opened the email. The greeting and a lot of cold facts that aren’t really selling me on the book (leave this kind of information for the bottom of the email!).

Professional Start and End

I’ve seen an increase in emails that don’t even include a greeting, let alone my name. I’ve even seen some emails that don’t have a sign off or signature at all. These kinds of emails work between friends or colleagues who work with one another a lot, but not for review requests. Review requests are a professional exchange, and so your emails do need to be fairly formal. Not to the point of ‘yours sincerely’ but a simple ‘Hi Becky’ and a ‘Thanks’ at the end does suffice. Plus, with the image above as a what not to do, ensure the greeting is at the top. I shouldn’t be reading a bunch of text before you even try to talk to me specifically.

Wrong Genre

Now we’re getting into the actual body of the text. Please, for the love of God, check what genre’s the reviewer likes to read. Sending a sci-fi novel, to a reader who explicitly states they don’t like sci-fi won’t get you anywhere. They’ll either straight up ignore you/say no because you’ve clearly ignored what they have in their about page, or they’ll read it. And hate it. Because they don’t like sci-fi. You literally can’t win in these situations. And no, not all news is good news… especially when it’s about books and the reviews are uploaded to Goodreads and Amazon.

I myself have a select group of genres I do accept review requests for on my about page. It’s fairly straight forward if I do say so myself. Yet I get so many authors of romance books emailing me. I dislike romance books, they’re not stated in my accepted genres, and most of my reviews complain about romance sub-plots in books. This boils down to, please do simple research on who you’re reaching out to.

The Right Amount of Information

Some of the emails I get have too much information. All I need to know is who you are (author/publisher/PR agent etc) and why you’re writing. Then let me know the synopsis and link to Goodreads and any social media. Note, I said Goodreads for a reason. If you’re offering me a book to review, I will not under any circumstances buy your books from Amazon, so don’t send me the Amazon link. Also, I will refuse to review books when the authors state you can download the book using Kindle Unlimited – please do not try to include reviewers to increase your own numbers on Amazon.

Another thing is, don’t send me other people’s reviews of your book. I quite frankly don’t care what they have to say. You’re asking for my opinion, and adding 10 reviews saying they’re great is seen as a psychological tactic to force conformity. I’m not okay with this, and it adds unnecessary bulk to the email.

You want us to read your 400 page book? Then don’t waste my time with your 20 page email. Nor do they need the sob story you have to try and guilt them into reading. Please keep emails professional – this is a working relationship. Emphasis on working, would you act this way in an office job?

On the other hand, some author’s don’t tell me anything. Their synopsis is 2 lines, I have no idea where to find more info and I’m still confused about what genre it is. Please just give me the basic facts that I need, so I know whether or not your book is of interest to me. If you do not have the skills to pull together a basic pitch of your book, then you need to hire a publicist or someone who works in PR to help you.

No Consent

I find myself on a lot of newsletter like emails from authors even though I have never signed up to any author emails. Luckily due to GDPR this is now not allowed! But creating an email to send out requests and reminders using mail merges or BCC on a regular basis does actually count… just because you’re not using a newsletter service, doesn’t mean you don’t need to comply to GDPR. Send one email request, if you do not hear back, leave it.

I’m hoping that this information can help authors with their marketing efforts. I do work in marketing and PR, and I have a lot of experience reaching out to people, and there’s often specific ways to do this. If you’re really not seeing any success with your efforts, then look at what you’re doing and how you’re doing it is important.

For any indie/self-published authors who are still struggling, I am offering freelance services to create a marketing plan for you to follow, which includes reaching out to reviewers and social media. Please note, this is planning only, I will not take action for you. Feel free to email me at Becky@UptownOracle.com to discuss this.