Getting Reviews for my SF anthology Future Dreams and Nightmares

[Donald Firesmith]

I launched Future Dreams and Nightmares, my latest book and an anthology of science fiction short stories, two days ago (on May 27th). So far, it has 9 Amazon and Goodreads reviews (all five stars), but I really want to get the number up to at least 50. I've tried giving away over 100 copies of some of my other books via For Voracious Readers Only and several similar sites hooking up authors and readers. Still, I'm lucky if 1-2% of the readers actually leave reviews. Trading reviews with other authors is a questionable practice, and besides, it takes too much time away from my writing. I also advertise via my email newsletter of roughly 1,000 members (it was up to around 4,000 at one point, but I eventually deleted chronic non-responders to keep the mailing costs down). I typically pay for a few editorial reviews from professional sites such as Kirkus, but that gets expensive really fast. I'm happy to give away copies the first 4-5 months after a release. I think the quality is there, but the marketing/advertising is too expensive or labor-intensive. Does anyone have any great suggestions on getting reviews?

 

[Brian G Turner]

Does anyone have any great suggestions on getting reviews?

I'm afraid not - this seems to be a long game, where people might download or buy a book but still take years to get around to reading it. Putting a book on a free promotion can certainly help with the take up, but the problem is a free book will have less perceived value than a bought book so easily slip to the bottom of the reading pile. The only solution I've found is to just persevere over time and try a ew different things and hope they pan out. Even still, reviews don't sell books, only help qualify a sale for an uncertain buyer.