This month I’m going to talk about reviews. And yes, this is a completely unsubtle plea for you to leave (honest!) reviews of the books you’ve read.
Books are… weird. An author pours months of work into one, inevitably injecting some of her heart and soul into the work. Although none of my books are autobiographical, every one of them is personal, and the characters and settings feel entirely real to me.
Yet in the end, books are publicly shared, and they’re also commodities that need to be marketed and sold.
Compared to most other things we buy, books spark more emotional reactions. They twist our guts. They make us laugh and cry. When I’ve been engrossed in a particularly engaging book, I have personally threatened members of my household if they don’t leave me alone in my imaginary world and let me finish my story.
I think it’s that strong emotional connection that explains why word of mouth is so important to selling books. How many times have you told a friend, “This book is so amazing! You need to read it!”? Maybe you’ve even loved a book so much that you loaned or gifted it to someone you thought would also appreciate it. And if you’re lucky, your friends have done the same for you.
Of course, if you take word of mouth just one step to the side, you end up with book reviews. I’m not talking about the ones published in magazines and review blogs, but rather the ones written by readers and left on Goodreads or bookseller websites. Those reviews help guide me when I’m considering buying a book, and I certainly appreciate it when people leave reviews for my books.
And they don’t have to be 5-star reviews either. Everyone has different tastes, and a thoughtful 3-star review can be way more helpful than a simple 5-star “Loved it!” (not that I don’t appreciate those as well!). And yes, at sites like Amazon, more reviews means the algorithm loves the book more and it gets more preferential treatment in search results and suggestions.
Aside from the sales issues, reviews are also personally rewarding to authors. When I release a book, it’s a little like sending a favorite child out into the world. Just as I text my human kids daily to see how their life is going (one’s away at college and the other is away at grad school), I like to know how my stories are doing out in the big bad world. Do readers love my characters as I do? Did I successfully convey the thoughts and feelings I’d hoped to? How do readers’ individual mindsets and experiences affect how they viewed my story? The only way to know this is from reviews.
So here we are again with the blatant plea: please take a little time to leave reviews of the books you read. It’s a powerful thing for you to do, and hugely valued by authors!
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Kim Fielding is the bestselling author of numerous m/m romance novels, novellas, and short stories. Like Kim herself, her work is eclectic, spanning genres such as contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and historical. Her stories are set in alternate worlds, in 15th century Bosnia, in modern-day Oregon. Her heroes are hipster architect werewolves, housekeepers, maimed giants, and conflicted graduate students. They’re usually flawed, they often encounter terrible obstacles, but they always find love.
After having migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States, Kim calls the boring part of California home. She lives there with her family and her day job as a university professor, but escapes as often as possible via car, train, plane, or boat. This may explain why her characters often seem to be in transit as well. She dreams of traveling and writing full-time.
Follow Kim:
Website: http://www.kfieldingwrites.com/
Facebook: http://facebook.com/KFieldingWrites
Twitter: @KFieldingWrites
Email: Kim@KFieldingWrites.com
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/bau3S9
A complete list of Kim’s books: http://www.kfieldingwrites.com/books/