Re-view me, baby one more time

Yes, that's Britney, and yes I'm talking about reviews

Hello, hello! How are you?
Sorry about the subject header. If you have that song stuck in your head now, you’re welcome.

Anyway, tell me, is it raining with you?
It’s throwing it down here, has been for days.
This photo of the fells was taken the other day whilst we were out walking the dog, all misty and moody and perfect for an October but IT’S JUNE! June and we need sunshine. I’m hoping that by writing it here, it will happen. Law of attraction and all that.

So this week has been all about the book promo ahead of the paperback publication. Closer Than She Thinks was in the Summer Page Turner special of Woman and Home magazine and had the most lovely review. They described it as a ‘taut thriller’ with the line ‘Fast paced with twists and turns, this novel shows it’s never too late to make changes in your life or be a victim of someone else’s evil mind.’

The reviews are coming in from Booktok and book bloggers and the overall feeling is that it’s a super quick, easy, fast read with some of them reading it in one sitting!
Readers are calling it a ‘palette cleanser’ and really ‘engaging, easy read,’ and I am so, so happy with this.

I wrote this book as something I’d like to read whilst laying by the pool. Or tucked up in bed with a hot chocolate.
I didn’t want it to be too cosy, so didn’t class it as a cosy-crime, but I did want it to be a quick and engaging psychological thriller that would be a page turner and really satisfying, and to hear readers saying I did that is just brilliant.

It’s also hugely rewarding to hear how they connect with the characters. To hear that they wanted to hug Louise or hated Paul is just the best.

It also has 78 reviews on Amazon, and I can’t tell you how pleased I am with that.
Rumor has it that Amazon doesn’t even see your book if it’s not got over 50 reviews, so in order for it to appear in the ‘products related to this item’ and for any kind of deal, you need the reviews. I should point out that I’ve no hard evidence for this, just rumour and a gut feeling, but even so, I am DELIGHTED with the reviews coming in, so if you’re reading this and you have left a review, thank you. It means the world. Thank you so much.

I know how hard it is to get reviews, and when talking to other authors, they say the same. It seems that everyone has ‘review fatigue’ when it comes to writing them, me included.

I remember whenever I read a book, the next thing was to go and write a review immediately but now, it took me having a book out to realise that I’d not left a review for anything in an age.

Look at this on Reddit, 3000 downloads from this guys book and only 2 reviews, which people say is pretty normal for a self published title.

Do you leave reviews as much as you used to?

With reviews being so important, it’s vital to have a strategy in place to get them, so here’s what I did and a few things you can do too.