Is There an Ultimate List of the Best Book Review Blogs?

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.

#TuesdayBookBlog

No Strangers Here by Carlene O’Connor – #BookReview – #mystery

No Strangers Here (A County Kerry Novel Book 1) by Carlene O’Connor

Rosepoint Publishing: Five Stars

Book Blurb:

In the powerful tradition of Ann Cleeves and Louise Penny, USA Today bestselling author Carlene O’Connor’s new series set in Ireland brings together complex characters and a fascinating setting, focusing on a female vet who returns home to the village where she grew up and must reckon with her past while untangling mysteries in the present.

On a rocky beach in the southwest of Ireland, the body of Jimmy O’Reilly, sixty-nine years old and dressed in a suit and his dancing shoes, is propped on a boulder, staring sightlessly out to sea. A cryptic message is spelled out next to the body with sixty-nine polished black stones and a discarded vial of deadly veterinarian medication lies nearby. Jimmy was a wealthy racehorse owner, known far and wide as The Dancing Man. In a town like Dingle, everyone knows a little something about everyone else. But dig a bit deeper, and there’s always much more to find. And when Detective Inspector Cormac O’Brien is dispatched out of Killarney to lead the murder inquiry, he’s determined to unearth every last buried secret.

Dimpna Wilde hasn’t been home in years. As picturesque as Dingle may be for tourists in search of their roots and the perfect jumper, to her it means family drama and personal complications. In fairness, Dublin hasn’t worked out quite as she hoped either. Faced with a triple bombshell—her mother rumored to be in a relationship with Jimmy, her father’s dementia is escalating, and her brother is avoiding her calls—Dimpna moves back to clear her family of suspicion.

Despite plenty of other suspects, the guards are crawling over the Wildes. But the horse business can be a brutal one, and as Dimpna becomes more involved with her old acquaintances and haunts, the depth of lingering grudges becomes clear. Theft, extortion, jealousy and greed. As Dimpna takes over the family practice, she’s in a race with the detective inspector to uncover the dark, twisting truth, no matter how close to home it strikes . . .

His Review:

Dingle is a peninsula in Ireland where the wealthy, like all cream, rise to the top and the O’Reilly family was the cream. They owned a good part of the peninsula and had many of the residents working for them. The patriarch of the family was Jimmy O’Reilly. Well dressed, he is found wearing a tie, dragged up on a beach from the ocean and very dead!

Cormac O’Brien is assigned to the case. The tie around Jimmy’s neck is tied correctly and looks almost new. He is in a very well-designed suit that does not look like it came out of the sound! The well-connected Mr. O’Reilly’s death must be solved and as quickly as possible.

A tarot card and vial of a strong sedative is found on the body indicating a veterinarian may be involved. Why would one of the wealthiest men in Dingle wind up on the shores of the sound murdered?

The local veterinarian is Dr. Wilde. He is well known throughout the community and everyone is concerned because he exhibits signs of advancing dementia, which has left him befuddled and confused. His practice is suffering and his daughter, Dr. Dimpna Wilde, also a very good veterinarian, decides to return to her hometown to help her father.

It has been 27 years since Dimpna left Dingle for college and founded her own veterinary practice. Since the death of Mr. O’Reilly was presumed to be by someone with access to veterinary medications, the suspicion fell on the Wilde family.

The author weaves a very fascinating tale of duplicity, jealousy, and avarice. I found myself glued to the dialogue which shifted around identifying many suspects. But could the vet have been the perpetrator? 5 stars – CE Williams

[I’ve read many books by this author following the Irish Village Mystery series, including Murder on an Irish Farm, Murder in Connemara, and Murder in an Irish Cottage, all delightful 4.5 star reads. I thought the CE would enjoy starting this one. He did!]

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. Currently on pre-order.

Book Details:

Genre: International Mystery & Crime, Murder
Publisher: Kensington Books
ASIN: B09RGG842R
Print Length: 320 pages
Publication Date: October 25, 2022
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Links: No Strangers Here [Amazon]
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: Carlene O’Connor comes from a long line of Irish storytellers. Her great-grandmother emigrated from Ireland to America during the Troubles, and the stories have been flowing ever since. Of all the places across the pond she’s wandered, she fell most in love with a walled town in County Limerick and was inspired to create the town of Kilbane, County Cork. Carlene currently divides her time between New York and the Emerald Isle.

http://www.carleneoconnor.com

Enjoy Your Sunday

5 Must-Know Indie Book Marketing Tips – Guest Post by Ricardo Fayet of Reedsy

5 must-know indie book marketing tips

January-February I start thinking about writing and publishing again, as this blog was born of the publishing of my grandfather’s manuscripts. Not having a clue what I was doing, of course, realized then I was faced with marketing. And marketing proved to be a huge hurdle, not unlike me to get things backwards.

This time of year also reminds me of all the writing contests that the new year begins, and I wrote about that recently listing six popular sites—some free—some a second mortgage. If you missed that post, you can read here. On that same vein, and quite coincidentally (or maybe not), I was contacted by Savannah at Reedsy, wondering if I’d be interested in sharing an article from either she or Ricardo Fayet, CMO and one of the original founders of Reedsy, and it appeared his article following is just what I was talkin’ ‘bout! (By the way, they also have their own writing contests that you might check out.)

So I’m thrilled now to present Ricardo!

►►►►►►▼

5 Must-Know Indie Book Marketing Tips

The day you thought would never arrive is finally here: your book is complete and it’s time to start getting it into the hands of readers. Executing a successful marketing campaign can be a daunting prospect, though, especially if you don’t know which strategies work best or where to even start — a great writer does not automatically make for a great marketer, after all.

But don’t worry! I’m here to help you get that wide readership you always dreamed of. The following tips focus on getting organized, drumming up the right kind of “noise” around your book, and mastering the more technical elements of SEO marketing and advertising for an absolutely optimized launch. Let’s dive right in.

Draw up a game plan

A well-considered timeline is an important part of any successful marketing campaign — but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to know which steps to take when. What’s more, you’ll need to think about both discoverability (how people find your books) and conversion (converting clicks on a page to sustained interest, and hopefully an eventual purchase) as early as possible.

This is because book marketing isn’t something that comes solely after your launch; it’s a process that should be integrated into every step of publishing a book. Drawing up a chronological game plan will help you keep track of what needs doing and when.

To give a few examples: market research on categories should ideally occur before you even write your book, so you can spot gaps in the market to try and fill. Book reviewers should be contacted months before your launch so they have time to read your book and write thoughtful reviews. In terms of plans for closer to your launch, algorithm-optimized advertising copy should be nailed down a few weeks ahead of time — and in the days before and immediately after, you should be reaching out to your own followers (more on that in a bit).

Secure early book reviews

Again, getting early reviews of your book — or at least drumming up some conversation and a “buzz” around your release — is a crucial thing part of your marketing campaign. However, it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. How can you get good reviews to attract a readership, if you haven’t yet attracted a readership to leave you reviews?

That’s where book review blogs come in. You’ll want to get quality reviews of your book, so take the time to find trustworthy reviewers who a) have reviewed in your genre before (and therefore have a relevant audience) and b) are able to give a fair, comprehensive assessment of your work. Once you have a shortlist of places to contact, reach out way ahead of time (we’re talking months) with advance review copies of your book.*

Building a street team is another great way to get reviews from reliable people. Street teams consist of fans who get access to your work ahead of time, so they can read your book before publication and have reviews ready for your launch day. Just make sure they don’t identify themselves as your friends in Amazon reviews, as this is against Amazon’s guidelines!

Beyond this, you could reach out to blogs that organize reading challenges to get your book included; offer to write guest posts about your book for blogs; or consider more formal editorial pieces in newspapers and journals. All this should generate excellent fodder for cover quotes and pull quotes** for Amazon.

Grow a mailing list

A mailing list is a tried-and-true way to develop a dedicated fan base for your work and keep readers in the know about your output. That said, the catch-22 at the heart of mailing lists (one not dissimilar from the book review paradox) has likely occurred to you — how can you promote your work and gain a following if you don’t already have one?

The best way to overcome this problem is reader magnets: what item(s) of value can you offer someone in exchange for their email address? Whether it’s an excerpt from an upcoming book, an exclusive webinar in which you share your most valuable skills, or exclusive illustrations to accompany a future release, an effective lead magnet can really help you build a strong mailing list from scratch. Of course, once you’ve attracted those readers (no magnet pun intended), you’ll need to keep the content coming so they stay engaged. Don’t be afraid to get creative — you will want to stand out from any other email lists to which they might be subscribed.

Finally, rather than going full-DIY with sending out these emails, find a suitable mailing list provider for your budget and timeframe. There’s MailerLite, ConvertKit, Flodesk and a whole host of other software that each have different price points, functionality, and features***. Shop around and have a look at what they offer to find the best fit for you.

Hone your Amazon efforts

SEO, KDP, A9: it can be hard to cut through the jargon if you’re a marketing novice, but it’s essential to familiarize yourself with these things (search engine optimization, Kindle Direct Publishing, and the Amazon keyword algorithm) so your book can rank well in Amazon’s search results — and succeed on the marketplace overall.

This may seem like an impossible task when you consider just how many books there are on Amazon, but don’t lose hope! For indie authors (and honestly anyone publishing for the first time), it’s unlikely you’ll be climbing the Amazon Best Sellers or the Best New Releases list anyway. So what should you really concentrate on in terms of Amazon SEO?

Your best bet is getting your book added to specific niche sub-categories on Amazon. By avoiding the oversaturated categories, your book will have a much stronger chance of performing well. To go extra-niche, you can even reach out to the KDP support center to get added to more than the allotted two categories — and when it comes to keywords, make them as long and detailed as possible for maximum search matches from users.

Evaluate your advertising platforms

Amazon, Facebook, and BookBub are widely considered the “big three” of book advertising. Most indie writers will use one or multiple of these platforms to promote their books and, with any luck, boost their sales.

Of course, external ads can be costly, so you’ll need to make some calculations to assess the viability of your adverts (in terms of cost of advertising per unit you end up selling). But even if you’re strapped for cash, don’t discount such platforms without at least trying them first — for many authors, especially those without much of their own audience, major ad platforms are the best route to move copies.

Just keep in mind that you’ll eventually want to prioritize one over the others, based on whatever works best for you. Also make sure to test this separately from your other advertising efforts (e.g. don’t do Amazon ads and a big reader magnet push at the same time) so you can measure the effects as concretely as possible.

Get your plan in order, grow your audience, and master the relevant platforms — if you can manage all of this, you’re already exponentially closer to success than you were before!

***

Ricardo Fayet is one of the founders of Reedsy, and an avid SFF reader with a particular passion for high fantasy. He reads mostly indie-published fantasy series, and enjoys lighter YA themes as much as darker ones.

Looking for a more comprehensive guide to book marketing than what’s covered here? Check out Ricardo’s new book, How to Market a Book: Overperform in a Crowded Market. It’s free to download (and always will be!), but you can also buy the paperback version on Amazon.

The Reedsy Mission Statement

“Crafting beautiful books is at the heart of everything that Reedsy does. We’re changing the way books are published by giving authors and publishers access to talented professionals, powerful tools, and free educational content.

“Reedsy was founded in the summer of 2014 by Emmanuel Nataf, Ricardo Fayet, Vincent Durand and Matt Cobb. Since then, we’re proud to have built a network of world-class publishing professionals and helped produce over 10,000 books.”

Thank you so much to Ricardo for the guest post contribution to my blog today! I appreciate it and the contact from Savannah as well. And to my readers, please check out the Reedsy website where you’ll find a wealth of information in all things editing, writing, cover designs, marketing and a great deal more!

Ricardo Fayet

CMO, Spain
Voted ‘best beard in publishing’…
Probably

Savannah Cordova

Content Marketing, England
Loves puns and iced coffee

*Note: And I might add that your advance review copies should be available in multiple popular formats (digitally: mobi, ebook, and pdf)
**i.e., “editorial reviews.”
***US based MailChimp

Happy Thursday!

The K Team by David Rosenfelt – A #BookReview #TuesdayBookBlog

Book 1 in a new series spin-off from the best selling Andy Carpenter mysteries.

Book Blurb:

From bestselling mystery author David Rosenfelt comes a new series – a spinoff of the much beloved Andy Carpenter mysteries – about a dynamic new investigative team featuring a determined former cop and his loyal German Shepherd.

Corey Douglas and his K-9 partner, Simon Garfunkel, have recently retired from the police force. Not ready to give up the life yet, they come up with a proposal for fellow former cop, Laurie Carpenter, and her investigating partner, Marcus. Laurie and Marcus – who help out Laurie’s lawyer husband Andy on cases – have been chafing to jump back into investigating on their own, so they are in.

They call themselves the K Team, in honor of Simon. Their first job as private investigators comes to them from Judge Henry Henderson, who’s known as a very tough but fair judge, and they’ve all come up against him in court at one time or another. Though it’s hard to believe, Judge Henderson is being blackmailed and extorted, and he doesn’t want to involve the police–he needs the K Team to figure out why.

My Review:

To those of you spoiled by the Andy Carpenter legal thriller series, the good news is that there are most of the characters you’ve come to love. The author has even thrown in Andy Carpenter himself in a much lesser, support-type role, but I must admit, though skeptical at first, think I may come to love Corey Douglas almost as much. An ex-cop with his K-9 partner, GSD (German Shepherd Dog) Simon Garfunkel, Corey has teamed with Laurie, Andy’s wife, and Marcus (also of the Carpenter fame), along with occasional Super-Hacker Sam.

Corey retired but still can’t stop being a cop–it’s part of his psyche–and he’s happy, albeit reticent about partners Laurie and Marcus. Corey won’t have to go to the dark side, but it won’t be easy to separate himself from the sanctioned law he is used to wielding. There might now be a gray area where there was previously only black and white.

The team’s first client, a judge known quietly behind his back as “Hatchet” has them looking into a possible blackmail/extortion attempt until suddenly they are left without the client but still have a case. And the case quickly escalates. The well-plotted action becomes complex and while you don’t have to be a day-trader, it might help to possess some slight knowledge of the stock market. Even if you don’t, this becomes a good primer.

This man is not your average vision of a tough guy–and he has woman issues, although his latest, Dani, has yet to find and push those buttons that always spelled doom for the budding friendship/romance before, it hasn’t yet happened. He knows there’s bound to be a problem–he just hasn’t found it yet. Corey will be acting protagonist this series in first person. He is less sarcastic than Andy and we’ve yet to really see a full fleshing. And Dani? She’s a great support character and fits in beautifully with Laurie. Marcus–you don’t mess with Marcus. The Seal Team wouldn’t mess with Marcus.

Book 1 doesn’t include Simon so much, so we don’t get a super feel for him other than that he is a former well-trained, capable service K-9 and fiercely protective and loyal. He does, however, play well with Tara and Sebastian, Andy and Laurie’s two dogs. That is, when Sebastian deigns to play. Once again, Rosenfelt is a master at developing that fine working chemistry between his characters.

As the first book in a new series, there is going to be some time spent in “getting to know” the new guy and a bit of redux for Laurie and Marcus. There is name dropping of a few other support players from the Andy Carpenter series, so it’s a comfortable intro. Once we are past the preliminaries, the novel begins to gather speed and has the reader burning through the remaining chapters. You just have to get used to Corey being numero uno. While he doesn’t have the biting wit of Andy Carpenter (and really, how could he?), it still moves at a fast pace, keeping the characters involved, dodging red herrings, kicking ass and taking names. Okay, may the former part is more Marcus’ domain, while the taking names part is Corey’s.

“…investigations create their own paths to follow. One thing leads obviously to the next;…”

I was thrilled to receive this digital ARC from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for a review. This is a great start to the new series and I’m already looking forward to Book 2. Recommended for any who enjoy an action and crime thriller, animal fiction, mystery. Great characters, complex plots, well-written and entertaining.

Book Details:

Genre: Cozy Animal Mysteries, Animal Fiction
Publisher: Minotaur Books

ISBN-10:1250257190
ISBN-13:978-1250257192
ASIN: B07S7L676S

Print Length: 304 pages
Publication Date: March 24, 2020
Source: Publisher and NetGalley
Title Link: The K Team

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five of Five Stars

The Author: [David Rosenfelt-Goodreads author page] I am a novelist with 27 dogs.

I have gotten to this dubious position with absolutely no planning, and at no stage in my life could I have predicted it. But here I am.

My childhood was relentlessly normal. The middle of three brothers, loving parents, a middle-class home in Paterson, New Jersey. We played sports, studied sporadically. laughed around the dinner table, and generally had a good time. By comparison, “Ozzie and Harriet’s” clan seemed bizarre.

I graduated NYU, then decided to go into the movie business. I was stunningly brilliant at a job interview with my uncle, who was President of United Artists, and was immediately hired. It set me off on a climb up the executive ladder, culminating in my becoming President of Marketing for Tri-Star Pictures. The movie landscape is filled with the movies I buried; for every “Rambo”, “The Natural” and “Rocky”, there are countless disasters.

I did manage to find the time to marry and have two children, both of whom are doing very well, and fortunately neither have inherited my eccentricities.

A number of years ago, I left the movie marketing business, to the sustained applause of hundreds of disgruntled producers and directors. I decided to try my hand at writing. I wrote and sold a bunch of feature films, none of which ever came close to being actually filmed, and then a bunch of TV movies, some of which actually made it to the small screen. It’s safe to say that their impact on the American cultural scene has been minimal.

About fourteen years ago, my wife and I started the Tara Foundation, named in honor of the greatest Golden Retriever the world has ever known. We rescued almost 4,000 dogs, many of them Goldens, and found them loving homes. Our own home quickly became a sanctuary for those dogs that we rescued that were too old or sickly to be wanted by others. They surround me as I write this. It’s total lunacy, but it works, and they are a happy, safe group.

Building the Platform – Lessons from Author Marketing Disappointments

The Day 27 prompt is: What are the three most important things you are doing to grow your platform?

Having started this process with NaNoWriMo in 2011, I’ve been through the gamut of ideas, following rules and advice, and letting the creative juices flow until they became a trickle.

Several initial ideas were dumped in the effort to attract traffic to book signings:

1) Forget salt-water taffy at book signings. The kids grabbed a handful and the adults weren’t into taffy.

2) Started with inventories of flyers, bookmarks, postcards, and business cards. It was a toss-up how many were found floating around the store, left quietly on a display shelf, or at the check-out. I’ll finish out the current inventory, then redesign the business cards.

3) Laminated posters–found difficult to display without investing further in an easel (and I found irritating those authors who had as they captured the eye and blocked the traffic).

What were the three suggestions acted upon and still being implemented?

1) Reading about the idea of “branding,” I went back to my book covers and changed the author’s name font so they were all consistent.

2) I’d established a blog and paid for a custom domain. I’d created several very simple websites (including one for my Women On Wheels® chapter and this one would presumably involve a shopping cart).

3) Social Media accounts

A) Decided instead to create an Etsy and Pinterest account.

B) Opened a separate Facebook account for Stanley McShane with a Rosepoint Publishing page and a Stanley McShane page on my personal FB account.

C) Opened a Goodreads account in the name of Stanley McShane.

Would a database or email marketing list be effective? Possibly, but difficult for me to implement. I haven’t wanted to muddle a book sale with further requests assuming my ever-growing Twitter followers and blog subscribers have first shown interest and made the contact.

Other than the above, the current push for promotion and marketing strategy will have to solidify the platform, one which is hoped sufficient to provide a solid base for the current launch: “Sole Survivor-A Fiction Adventure Anthology.”