Surprise, surprise, just as I was thinking of writing about some of my favorite review blogs and extended sources of book reviews, I was emailed a request by Jordan to consider being added to the Kindlepreneur Ultimate List of the Best Book Review Blogs.
Well, timing is everything!
I occasionally get a request to suggest a good book review blog by persons searching Quora for ideas and I’m listed in several directories as well. Of course, I confronted that same question after I published my grandfather’s manuscripts, and certainly for an Indie author publishing a debut novel, it’s a major concern. The first three rules of marketing any book are reviews, reviews, reviews. (Okay, maybe the first rule must be a well-edited novel, but you know what I mean.)
This appears to be the one definitive article that may answer all your burning questions. I particularly love Dave’s video—be patient—there is a lot of good information contained in that video where he goes into detail regarding the Amazon Book Review Rules (explained)!
Seriously, Amazon book reviews still hold a lot of weight whether or not you are in the school of thought that reviews are given less weight these days than they use to be or not. Amazon tends to change its rules, the algorithm by which they allow, or disallow, a book review. If it’s a good review, you don’t want to risk losing it owing to the failure of one of their rules. (I urge you to watch that video.)
According to Mr. Cheechaw of Amazon, “…we will continue to allow the age old practice of providing advance review copies of books.” Really? Maybe, maybe not, watch out for the caveats, and Dave covers many of them. (Don’t be a “gotcha!”)
While authors usually have an ideal word length for their novel review, there is a wide disparity of what just how many words that might be. For instance, one of my authors always reminds me to keep his reviews to a short paragraph—three or four sentences—so he can show more reviews on his first page. I’ve seen an average of between 500 to 1000 words and my reviews generally run between 400 to 800 depending on the novel.
I’m thrilled to be invited to this exclusive list of book review bloggers and would urge you to take advantage of the expertise that Dave Chesson’s website Kindlepreneur will provide you well above and beyond this list.
©2022 V Williams