Hi there,
Welcome to another BookRoar newsletter. It’s brightening up outside where we are, and we can feel the spring sun taking away the last of the winter gloom. That bloomin’ morning sunlight — it’s glaring through the window and getting all in my eyes. Time to draw the curtains and return to the dark comfort of my reading corner. I bought a Kindle with a backlight for a reason, you know!
As usual, a great big thank you to our supporters and donors, whose kindness and generosity helps keep the site going. And a special thank you to those who have tweeted about us, tagged us in their reviews, blogged about us, or told a friend about our growing community. We even had one very kind member who did a short video shout-out to us. We do really appreciate all your support.
Right, let’s jump in with the latest news and information.
Pricing Your Books
We have had a few people ask us recently why their book hasn’t been chosen in a while. As a result, we ran some figures from our database and found that the main thing people look at when considering a BookRoar read is the price. The cheaper ones are being selected first and the free/permafree ones are flying off our figurative shelves. So if you have a bunch of Credits stacked up but aren’t getting reviews, consider adjusting your pricing and see if it makes a difference.
The sweet spot which we suggest is around the $2.99 region. Not only is it a reasonable price which will help draw in a reader, but you will also get your 70% royalties from Amazon to go along with your Verified Review. Alternatively, consider enrolling your books in KDP Select, but please remember that it may limit your books to those who are subscribed to the Kindle Unlimited service and your reviews will not have the all-important ‘Verified’ status.
BookRoar is about getting reviews and improving your book’s ranking in Amazon’s search engine. It is not about making money. The financial rewards you seek will come later, when everyone else can see how great your book is through the reviews you’ve got through BookRoar.
Author Interviews
Last month, we mentioned that we were launching a new author interview service. So far they have proved to be a hit, and we’ve really enjoyed getting to know some of our members and what it is that makes them tick. Check out our interviews on our Medium page (Interview #1, Interview #2).
Fancy an interview yourself? They are a great resource for getting people invested in you as an author, and building this relationship is a great selling point for your books. Once completed, you can post a link to your interview in your books, on your author website, tweet about it, blog about it, and do whatever you can to promote yourself. The interview costs $25 (payable via a Ko-Fi donation) and is conducted over email. Please drop us a line if you are interested and we will start drawing up some questions.
Mugs
I’m not sure about you, but I’m sitting here drinking coffee from my brand spanking new BookRoar mug. I think it is the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had! The caffeine is certainly helping me bang out this newsletter in record time, although I may wait until the jitters have settled before I edit it.
We think they are a bargain at $8 each, however the UK Royal Mail service has some ridiculous postage fees, especially to our friends in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. We have tried to make them as cheap as possible, but this is unfortunately out of our control. If you want to peruse our wares or are interested in purchasing one then please head to our Ko-Fi shop and have a look.
Social Media Posts
You may have noticed that we have been posting less quotes from the reviews we generate on our social media pages. Don’t worry, the wheels are turning as well as ever, and we are certainly not short of four or five star reviews we can rave about.
The decision has been made to phase these out over the coming weeks. This is to protect the identity of those using BookRoar (both reviewer and reviewee), as some people prefer not to have their review publicly viewable in such a way.
We will, however, miss doing them. The purpose of these quotes was to show that BookRoar works, and we have proved ourselves time and time again. Our goal now is to slowly remove them altogether and replace them with other enriching content, such as our homemade memes, writing tips, articles, and interviews.
Sign Up Credits
If you are reading this, then you are one of the early adopters of BookRoar, and you are making the most of the free service we provide. For being such a valued and pioneering member, you would have received your free sign up Credit when you joined, meaning you could get a review without having to read another book first.
From the 1st April, we will be ending the free sign up Credit for new members (don’t worry, we won’t be taking Credits away from any member who signed up before then). We hope that by asking new members to ‘pay-it-forward’ as it were, we will reduce the ratio of members to Credits, meaning we will get a higher turnover of reviews and see a better return for all our members.
Revenge Review Policy
In our last letter, we mentioned that we have had to investigate a number of reports of ‘revenge reviews’ amongst our members. This prompted us to write down our policy on ‘revenge reviews’, which aims to give our users an idea of what they can expect when they report this type of issue to us. We also offer some advice on how to protect yourself going forward, so that you can safely leave your truthful and honest (but kindly worded) thoughts to other authors about their works.
Despite the light-hearted meme below, we take ‘revenge reviews’ very seriously and have a ‘three strike’ rule for bad behaviour. In short, please don’t do it, otherwise you will feel the wrath of BookRoar (*cracks knuckles, cricks neck, starts typing furiously on the keyboard*).
Well, I think that is it for this month. Happy reading and reviewing, and we are always on hand if you need us.
Many thanks
The BookRoar Team
