Monday 7 July 2014
Friday 4 July 2014
Amazon : Oxford Author Named Semi-finalist in Kindle Book Awards | PRLog
Swimming Upstream named Kindle Book Award semi-finalist!
PRLog (Press Release) - Jul. 2, 2014 - OXFORD, U.K. -- British author Ruth Mancini's gripping novel, Swimming Upstream (Booktrope), is one of only 20 literary fiction semi-finalists for the 2014 Kindle Book Awards. The popular awards draw many hopeful independent fiction and non-fiction authors.
The Kindle Book Review’s Kindle Book Awards is in its third year. The top five finalists in each of the seven categories will be announced in September. Category winners receive $500 in cash as well as $300 in promotional credit. Last year's literary fiction winner was Don’t Tell Anyone by Laurie Boris.
This is the third award that Swimming Upstream has been up for this year. The women's fiction novel made the literary shortlist for the 50 books worth reading from Indie Author Land in April. It was also nominated for a RONE award. Winners for the RONE awards will be announced mid-July.
About Swimming Upstream
“I once read that the end of a relationship is like being involved in a road traffic accident. Which is quite fitting really, given what happened.”
After seven years, Lizzie wonders whether she is truly happy with her long-term boyfriend. When one wrong step and a chance meeting set off an unexpected chain of events, her life starts breaking up. On the same day that she meets Martin, an attractive lifeguard, her old friend, Catherine, re-appears. But is Martin really all he seems? And what is the secret that Catherine is hiding? As Lizzie struggles to confront the ghosts of her past, can she survive the shocking twist that will change the course of her future?
Swimming Upstream is a life-affirming and often humorous story about getting over a relationship breakup. It is also a story about female friendship, love and divided loyalties – and the moral choices we find ourselves making when the chips are down.
Amazon http://www.amazon.com/ Swimming-Upstream- Ruth-Mancini- eboo...
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About Ruth Mancini
Ruth Mancini was born in South-West London and studied in Cambridge and London where she gained a bachelors degree in French and Spanish and a post-graduate diploma in Law. For several years she worked in the publishing industry before retraining as a lawyer. She now lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and two children. Swimming Upstream is her first novel.
Tuesday 1 July 2014
Amazon : 7 Tips to Get Book Reviews - Wordpreneur
By Travis Neighbor Ward
If you want to know how to get book reviews, follow these seven tips — plus a list of great publications and blogs that give reviews.
I know how it feels! You spend years getting your books ready to publish, then finally decide to take the plunge. It feels like the hard part is over… until Day 1 after your book comes out, and you have absolutely no book reviews. What you’re hoping for is a glowing string of 4- or 5-star ratings, plus reviews. But, how do you get people to read and review your work — and hopefully in a way that’s favorable? Here are seven things to keep in mind, plus links to some great resources.
1. Remember that Reviews Are Subjective
A lot of times we writers take what we believe is a very objective view of our book. We worked hard on it; it’s a good book; it should garner good reviews. Some reviewers approach their task with a similar set of parameters. But some write reviews to share how the book made them feel. That launches the review into the subjective stratosphere. The same things that appeal to some readers can turn off others. I got one three-star review from someone that thought the book was a great story, but contained too much research; five-star reviewers of that same story cited how rich it was because of all the research.
2. Search Out Like-Minded Reviewers
Find books that are similar to yours in topic or genre, then read the reviews. Which ones resonate with you? Which reviewers seem to have a fair attitude? Some reviewers will give low stars just because they don’t love a book, even if they think it’s very well written. Some will give it a high review based on merit, but then just state that it wasn’t their type of book. Ideally you want the reviewers that love books like yours. Identify those people, then try to find them. If you find their reviews on a website like Amazon, one way to do this is by tracing them back to their personal blogs or social media sites like Twitter.
3. Don’t Focus on Getting Reviews from National Publications
I say this not because I think you don’t deserve them, or because I think you can’t get them. You may deserve them and you may get them. But, that shouldn’t be your focus, mainly because you would be competing against all the big publishing companies. Those companies have full-time publicists with existing relationships to editors. As an ex-magazine editor, I can tell you that based on the volume of submissions we receive each day, editors become dependent on publicists to help us sort through the pile. So yes, go ahead and mail copies to USA Today, but then switch your attention to other reviewers. The best chance you have is through book bloggers. There are millions of blogs out there, and many exist solely to review books. Many of these blogs look as good as national websites, and the quality of the reviews is just as good. The only difference is that most bloggers don’t have the same audience reach (one exception being The Huffington Post). So, in order to reach the same number of readers, you will need to get reviews in more places.
4. Don’t Ask for a Five-Star Review
No one likes to feel manipulated. If you ask for a review, ask for an honest review and then accept what you get. It can backfire in your face, but c’est la vie. In the end, once you start getting enough reviews, the five-star reviews will balance out the lower ones, so don’t worry about it.
5. Think Long-Term
Authors whose books are published by big publishers have more pressure to get book reviews and sales in the first six months after the publication date. But, if you are an indie author, you don’t have that pressure. You can keep your book in print forever. Of course, if your book is nonfiction and the topic is very timely, this may be more of a concern; otherwise, getting a review one, five, or even ten years after you publish is still useful. Besides, the bulk of your sales will probably come from online booksellers, and it can take readers a while to find your book among the millions out there!
6. Be Thankful
People take a lot of time to read our books and review them. If someone writes a positive or even semi-positive review, thank them. If the review is negative, don’t get into a public debate about it with them; it can get nasty and will use up energy that you could be channeling into your work.
7. Do Your Homework
There are so many book review sites out there, so this is just a starting point:
- Goodreads.com — A website for people that love books. Goodreads also includes reader communities (like book clubs) that are targeted at specific genres. Make sure to check which folder you should post your self-promotional review request. If you put it in general discussion, it may get moved or deleted.
- Google+ — There are tons of fantastic book clubs here as well, some focused solely on discussing and reviewing books. You can find ones just for ebooks, romances, mysteries, whatever. Set up a Google+ account and do some exploring in the button under the Communities menu (it’s on the pull-down menu on the left of your screen).
- The reviewer list on the Midwest Book Review.com — Wow! There are dozens listed here.
- Book Lovers Central — Lists of reviewers, organized geographically.
- The Book Spot.com — Book reviewers at national and regional publications like CNN Books, Salon, and Slate, to name a few.
- Net Galley.com — This membership-based site is where many of the big publishing companies post galleys of book in advance, so reviewers, booksellers, book bloggers, and librarians can take a look before the publication date. It’s not cheap and publishers, not reviewers, pay (as of today, it costs about $400 to list one book on it for six months). I’ve read articles by authors saying it was a great way to get reviews.
- The Indie Book Reviewers List — Registration is free for authors. Many reviewers listed.
- The Kindle Book Review.net — You can choose which reviewer to submit to, based on their short bios.
Travis Neighbor Ward is the author of the bestselling novel Come Find Me. She was the editor-in-chief of The Atlantan Magazine, home & garden editor of Atlanta Magazine, and senior editor at Departures Magazine. She has an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from The University of Pennsylvania. Sign up for email alerts on her website, Patch of Earth.