Like a book? Say something nice about it. Authors will be forever grateful.
Blog post by Jane Doucet, author of Fishnets & Fantasies
Every time a reader posts a positive review of a book on a site like Goodreads or Amazon, or a photo of it on social media with a kind caption, an angel gets its wings.
OK, that might not actually happen. However, in my humble opinion, readers who take the time to post about books they’ve enjoyed are angels.
In late June of 2017, I self-published my first novel, The Pregnant Pause. People took their paperback copy on summer vacation with them. Suddenly, I was getting tagged in Facebook posts of vacation photos of those folks with my book, or just the book itself “on location,” as I dubbed it.
The Pregnant Pause travelled to England, Greece, Jamaica, Iceland, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. In Canada, it popped up on a ferry to Vancouver Island, a flight to Ottawa and at Nova Scotia beaches and cottages. One special reader even posted a pic of it from the hospital during a chemotherapy treatment.
At the same time, lovely reviews started appearing on Goodreads and Amazon, with favourable star ratings. I https://nimbus.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/9781988747224-1.jpgoured those reviews, happy to hear that readers were enjoying my story. What a rush!
This June, when Nimbus Publishing’s Vagrant Press published my second novel, Fishnets & Fantasies, I got to ride that good-review roller-coaster high all over again. Like before, tagged social media posts with photos started appearing soon after its release (by now I was also on Instagram and Twitter), along with glowing reviews. Readers were happy, and as a result, so was I!
Before I became an author, I didn’t post reviews of books I read. Not because I didn’t have the time, it just simply never occurred to me. Now I do, knowing it helps raise the book’s profile, and it might even help boost sales. What’s more, I know it puts pep in authors’ steps and encourages them to keep writing.
A review doesn’t have to be long or too creative. Something as simple as “I loved this book. Two thumbs way up. Highly recommend!” and a decent star rating is fine. Too tired to draft even that many words? A star rating on its own shows others you enjoyed it.
Thank you to the readers who have reviewed and posted about my novels, and to those who plan to do so. You’re all angels to me.
