Thursday, October 15, 2009

Question

Do YOU believe the more books that are sent to book bloggers on-line, the better?

Do YOU think lots of exposure via free books ultimately equal sales? (Is this the million dollar question everyone wishes they had the answer to?)

Would love to hear your thoughts. And any experiences you authors have had that you'd like to share...

Thanks.

ETA: Look what Editorial Ass has to say about this very subject:

How many book bloggers does it take to create a buzz?
All of them. Get as many as you can; never stop. They'll be your second wind, and the reason your books stays in print.

But the good news is book bloggers work on their own time, and will always be available to you. You can keep reaching out to them later at less busy times of your life.

You can read the entire post HERE.

5 comments:

  1. I think more free books would equal more sales. The reviewers like your book and they tell everyone, blog about it, tweet about it, thus more publicity for the book which leads to more sales.

    You may wonder, "If I give out too many books to bloggers than no one will have to buy a copy." However, if you think about it, there are probably a lot more people who AREN'T bloggers than are. So you still have a huge group of potential buyers. Plus, if it is an ARC you are giving out, most bloggers, if they like it, are gonna want to get their own copy.

    Well that's my opinion right off the top of my head. Hope it helps.

    ~Briana :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fact of the matter is the more people read it, review, it mention it, etc the better. When readers see your book in stores they might check it out online and the more hits you get the better it looks. Ya know?

    And I agree with Briana. WE recommend books a ton and if we have it read etc we rec. Even if we haven't read it ourselves and a few of our like minded reviewers have read it we'll recommend it as well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I say yes and not just because I'm a book blogger myself. Here are my opinions as a reader:

    The more I see a book/an author mentioned, even if I didn't think anything of it the first few times, the more likely I am to look it up on Amazon and possibily order myself a copy. Sometimes all it takes is one time, though that is usually only with authors I already love/a book I've been waiting for, but usually I have to see it a bunch of times to even look it up.

    That said, I find mentions that AREN'T reviews better because I hate reading reviews of a book I haven't read. When I see an "OMG THIS WAS AMAZING" Tweet or a Tweet to a contest the author is hosting (this is why contests where authors ask the entrants to Tweet about the book work good) or something special like that, I'm more likely to pick it up too.

    Plus you have to figure that each blogger have at least a few different readers who have different friends and different bloggers have different friends that they recommend the book to.

    Just my opinion, of course. Can't wait to see authors chime in!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for your thoughts, guys, I really appreciate it!

    When I think of Shiver and Hush, Hush, where there were TONS of ARCs available, you think, well, maybe the success was partially due to that. On the otherhand, could it be that it's just the type of book they are and that LOTS of teens are on the lookout right now for books LIKE those?

    I cross-post this blog from livejournal, and some authors have commented over there, just FYI:

    http://lisa-schroeder.livejournal.com/294649.html?view=4329465#t4329465

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm no expert on this...
    But this is my experience. I went and bought a copy of Hush, Hush on 10/13. Why? Because Kiersten mentioned it and then another blog did and another. Typically these types of blogs (when the author is in the pre-pub or debut stage) are read by writers/aspiring writers. So I may have bought Hush, Hush, but my non writer friends don't visit my blog or other writer blogs (except for Stephenie Meyer, Libba Bray, etc..). I'm just playing devils advocate here by saying blog reviews do help spread the word to some extent, but eventually dead end as well.

    ReplyDelete