How to approach book bloggers as a publisher or author

Us book bloggers get emails with review requests practically every day, some of them are very professional, some are not. In the beginning I had difficulties seeing the difference, but with experience comes more knowledge. There are certain ways of how to approach a book bloggers and if authors or publisher want a yes in the end, they need to do certain things and also think about what might not be that clever. Here is what I think and what is important to me and I think a lot of book bloggers think the same, because we always exchange our experiences.

A lot of authors and publishers use the copy paste technique. I get that people are busy, I’m busy too, I have a full time job, but just copy pasting the same message over and over again, doesn’t get you anywhere. It’s impersonal and to be honest for us that’s just spam. I delete an email like that immediately. The same thing goes with mass emails, I’m unique and different than every other book blogger, we don’t all deserve the same message. I love when authors take the time to read my blog, have a look at it and check my policy page. A small little comment about the blog or the reviews is a great gesture. It shows us that you care and that you took the time to actually see what we do. I often get request of genres I don’t even read. I clearly mention in my policy what kind of books I read, so if I get a request from a genres I don’t read, I delete it right away.

The most important thing to me and I think also to other book bloggers is getting our name right.  People seem to struggle with that and not only when it comes to my blog. Yes, my blog’s name is “Sky’s Book Corner”, but my name is not Sky. Everywhere you go, whether on Twitter or my blog you can see that my name is Simona Elena. If I get Elena, yeah ok, but Sky or even worse – Hi, … - say goodbye to my review. It’s funny that certain people don’t even get it right when I answer their email. I sign off as Simona or Simona Elena, but in their head I’m still Sky.

A definite NO-GO is attaching the book in the request. I get a lot of requests, where the author talkes about the book and then in the end the book is attached. I didn’t say yes yet!!! And now I definitely WON’T. The right way to it, would be asking if you would consider reviewing and asking in what form you won’t it: mobi, pdf etc. Oh and NEVER tell a reviewer that he or she has to buy the book themselves. Yes, we all love books and I spend money on books I love constantly, but not if I don’t know the book or the author at all. These things don’t happen with publishers of course.

With publishers I have made really good experiences, but there seem to be competitions lately, of how bloggers get to be part of a blog tour, that’s just silly. I’m not saying that all publishers do that, but I’ve seen it. I’m still struggling with my location when it comes to physical copies, none of them have good reasons for not sending me a book.

If your request is a bit short notice, it’s more likely to get declined, because we have our lives outside of blogging and need time to read and prepare our posts.

Some review requests don’t contain any info about the book, why would I want to read it then?!

I have received request on Twitter or Facebook, that’s just a NO! Tweets move on so fast and it’s not really personal, is it?! We all definitely prefer emails.

Don’t put demands in a request. Please post your review on Amazon, Goodreads etc. (I do that anyway, but not all of us do) and certainly don’t give bloggers a time frame. That’s where I get back to: We have a life outside of blogging! Some authors also only want reviews between 3-5 stars! Really, why am I reviewing then, don’t they want my honest opinion?!

So my top tips for authors and publishers: be personal, provide information and give yourself and the bloggers enough time.

I have ask other book bloggers about their opinion on the topic, here is what they think: