I don’t do a lot of marketing tips for writers, but this is absolutely, positively, marketing 101. You got a book? You want me to read it? Then show me you’re serious, or I’m not going to bother.<\/p>\n
I get requests for reviews and tours on a regular basis, and I like to give fresh new writers a chance. I really do. But before I will even consider asking for a free review copy (it still costs me time), I do the following:<\/p>\n
1. I look for your web site. If you have one listed in your e-mail, bonus points! If you don’t have one, I’m done. <\/p>\n
2. I read the synopsis and decide if the premise sounds entertaining.<\/p>\n
3. I look for the first chapter. I am much, much, much more inclined to review a book if I can get a glimpse of chapter one and reassure myself that the writing is professional, and the voice is reasonable. In fact, this is the only thing I’ll say about actual content — put up an excerpt. <\/p>\n
Your publisher’s web site doesn’t count. Amazon.com listings don’t count. Yes, I can get summaries at both of these places (although very rarely a chapter summary), but without your own, personal web site, I don’t believe you want it. If you don’t want it, if you’re not hungry for it, you’re never going to get it — success, I mean. Believe me, it’s hard to get a readership when you put out the effort, it’s impossible if you don’t, and as a reviewer I want to recommend books that have a chance in hell of succeeding. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don’t do a lot of marketing tips for writers, but this is absolutely, positively, marketing 101. You got a book? You want me to read it? Then show me you’re serious, or I’m not going to bother. I get requests for reviews and tours on a regular basis, and I like to give fresh […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tips-for-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1525,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions\/1525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}