Reading Time: 3 minutes

If you want to sell more books in this uber-competitive market you’ll want to start putting more focus on personal recommendations.

Book reviews are essentially that, real readers recommending your book to other real readers who are interested in your topic or genre.

Sounds simple, but we all know it’s not that easy. But that’s where smart book marketing strategies come in.

Below are a few ways to maximize on your current book reviews to ensure they’re working to help sell more books, and yes, they may SEEM obvious but the reality is we all get busy.

So while you may scan this and think, “I know these things,” are you really keeping up with all of them on a regular basis?

Turn Your Website Into a Love Fest

I’m guilty of not updating my website frequently enough in the past, but my team and I have gotten better about it.

Pushing for more book reviews is a cornerstone of any successful author’s book marketing plan, so you should always be getting new ones.

Get these reviews added to your site in creative ways, sprinkle them throughout the pages, sell more books by keeping how great they are top of mind.

Use Social Media Expiration Dates to Your Advantage

The thing with social media is that nothing lasts very long. As a general rule this is a book marketing challenge, because you’re always having to make time to post.

But when it comes to book reviews, this is helpful!

Create some pretty images with review snippets and use those as part of your regular posting schedule to remind followers and fans how much book reviews mean to you!

Update Those eBook Files

One of the easiest ways to sell more books, is with your books.

And eBooks are essentially free to update, and take very little time.

So be sure to update your back matter with stellar reviews, “Over 100 5 star reviews and counting,” and other standout recommendations.

If you have multiple books out you can do this for the other titles in the same genre or series, so include some great reviews (and a link of course) for book two in the back matter of book one, and so on.

Sell More Books with a Personal Video

Video should be getting more important to your book marketing strategy.

Why? Because the content is super unique to the creator. No one else can do what you do on video. Get it?

A fun way to incorporate video and book reviews is to take a short video of you reading some of your latest reviews and thank the reviewers by name.

You can do this as a Facebook Live post, on simply record it and upload it to whatever channels you have going for you, your blog, your social accounts, and YouTube if you have one.

I wrote earlier last week about upgrading your reader engagement using video. It’s not to just upgrade their engagement. It results in your ability to sell more books.

Pump Up Your Email Marketing

Most authors have experienced the horror of staring at your computer while trying to come up with something clever or meaningful to put in your newsletter.

Well, book reviews are a great way to highlight how well your book is doing and fill space in a meaningful way, while also thanking those who have taken the time to review.

This is really effective if you have multiple books, because there’s a chance your recipients may not have read all of them yet, so highlighting reviews for different tiles helps push them in a natural, unassuming way.

The Takeaway

If you want to sell more books don’t forget to focus on your current book reviews, you put a lot of effort into getting them, so use them to your book marketing advantage! If you need a more personalized attention, look no further. I can assess what you are (and aren’t doing) and see where and how we can get more eyes on your book(s) this year.

Resources and Free Downloads

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